vB Assistant

Name: vB Assistant
Version: 1.1
templates to edit: 1 - 2

Description: vB Assistant is like a mini cpanel for your members, it small yet contains lots of information.

It will help you get to things much faster in a organized fashion. It will tell you all you need to know about your private messages, How many you have, how many in total, and show you the newest one in detail. It will show you the name of the person that sent it, the link directly to the PM (no hassle with going to inBox first), When you get a new PM within 24 hours It'll let you know with a flashing image and a "Received Today!" caption.

After the message ages (24 hours has past) it'll show the date instead. vB Assistant uses all your current forum settings, from date format, to forum title name.

vB Assistant will also let you know when a thread you started has a new reply which you haven't read. You will see a "View Replies" when someone posts in your thread. It will also tell you who the poster is, without even visiting the thread! It checks when was your last visit and determines if you read it or not. It wasn't easy since there isn't a "message unread" column in the database, so i managed to use the last login time.

vB Assistant has a mini quick search box, just type and hit enter.

When a user is not registered and he/she views vB Assistant, it will let them know what feature they have access to, and also tell them to register to get access to those features. (PM, cpanel links, etc...).

The buddie list is also available, clicking the username takes you to the PM window, clicking the red X will remove the buddie.

Each section in vB Assistant has a expandable/collapsible switch, If you do not want to see a part of it just click and it folds away with cool javascript affect

By having expandable/collapsible sections vB Assistant becomes even more compact and organized.

vB Assistant will also refresh every two minutes by default, it can be changed if wanted.

I see vB Assistant as a mini messenger that you can keep open (since it's small) while you browse the 'net

There is also a mini statistics section that will show you some information about how many registered members, users online, total post, etc...

Plus it will keep track of how many posts were made in the last 24 hrs.

Anyway, you get the idea.


Installation:

Very easy: Instructions are attached.
couple variables to edit, couple templates and your done.

Other information:

I wasn't going to release this yet, because i wanted to add more features, and remove anything that i later find unnecessary, But I am releasing in hope that i can get some ideas from you people on improving it.

If you find any bugs let me know and i will fix them. I have tested it many times. And have been using it for a couple days.

It should work with vbulletin version 2.x.x. I've tested it on 2.2.9 and 2.3.0

Please lick install if you find this useful

Updates:
March 30th: New version 1.1 Released.
Changes:

- Added: a PM Meter, shows percentage of how full inBox is
- Added: a preview of the private message, will show 75 characters of the message.,
- Added: 5 new images, for Meter.
- Fixed: PM Meter disappears when you have 1 new message to make space for the PM preview, Meter returns once the PM is read.

April 1st:

- Fixed bug: PM would show 1% full inBox when you had no PM's, now shows 0% when you have no messages in inBox

----------------------------------------------------------------

To upgrade simply re-upload assistant.php and overwrite. Edit new configuration settings.

Clear browser cache first to download the update.

[Sebastian]

do you guys/gals want a template system? I could put all the code into templates but it would require you to make about 10 templates since there are quite a few conditionals.

plus its really not much things to change, since its really only three tiny table colors that have to be changed.

Template or no template?

i just find it less trouble then having to make 10 templates :|

and also the idea is to keep vB Assistant easy to read and easy on the eyes, so even if you have 3 different styles just give vB Assistant generic colors (blueish for example), instead of having all these crazy forum colors

[Yo.]

I could put all the code into templates but it would require you to make about 10 templates since there are quite a few conditionals.

Personally I don't really mind not having templates, but I can see why they'd be useful with multiple styles. If people install Logician's Conditional Templates hack, there wouldn't be a need for so many templates.

[dirtymerc]

Sebastian any ideas on the right click feature?

[Yo.]

I don't think this will work on all browsers, dirtymerc, but try adding this to your headinclude after installing:

<script language=JavaScript>
<!--
function clickIE4(){
if (event.button==2){
assistant();
return false;
}
}

function clickNS4(e){
if (document.layers||document.getElementById&&!document.all){
if (e.which==2||e.which==3){
assistant();
return false;
}
}
}

if (document.layers){
document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);
document.onmousedown=clickNS4;
}
else if (document.all&&!document.getElementById){
document.onmousedown=clickIE4;
}

document.oncontextmenu=new Function("assistant();return false")

// --> 
</script>

[amykhar]

Today at 06:36 PM djr said this in Post #39

I understand about that, but I need to know what parts need to be rewritten to make it compliant with a Windows toolbar. What Javascript parts need to be replaced with 'normal' urls? I was in the process of doing this, as I typed before, but couldn't get it to work properly.

I have it working as an Explorer Bar. I simply got rid of all the javascript redirect calls and made them regular links. It works quite nicely.

Amy

[Sebastian]

<font size="5">Updates:</font>
March 30th: New version 1.1 Released.
Changes:

- Added: a PM Meter, shows percentage of how full inBox is
- Added: a preview of the private message, will show 75 characters of the message.,
- Added: 5 new images, for Meter.
- Fixed: PM Meter disappears when you have 1 new message to make space for the PM preview, Meter returns once the PM is read.

To upgrade simply re-upload assistant.php and overwrite. Edit new configuration settings.

Screenshot of PM meter:

[Sebastian]

Preview of private message, shows 75 characters of it:

[msimplay]

Today at 12:07 AM Sebastian said this in Post #42
do you guys/gals want a template system? I could put all the code into templates but it would require you to make about 10 templates since there are quite a few conditionals.

plus its really not much things to change, since its really only three tiny table colors that have to be changed.

Template or no template?

i just find it less trouble then having to make 10 templates :|

and also the idea is to keep vB Assistant easy to read and easy on the eyes, so even if you have 3 different styles just give vB Assistant generic colors (blueish for example), instead of having all these crazy forum colors

Me too i prefer it this way

[amykhar]

I prefer it without the templates as well.

Amy

[dirtymerc]

Today at 12:19 AM Yo. said this in Post #44
I don't think this will work on all browsers, dirtymerc, but try adding this to your headinclude after installing:

<script language=JavaScript>
<!--
function clickIE4(){
if (event.button==2){
assistant();
return false;
}
}

function clickNS4(e){
if (document.layers||document.getElementById&&!document.all){
if (e.which==2||e.which==3){
assistant();
return false;
}
}
}

if (document.layers){
document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);
document.onmousedown=clickNS4;
}
else if (document.all&&!document.getElementById){
document.onmousedown=clickIE4;
}

document.oncontextmenu=new Function("assistant();return false")

// --> 
</script>

thank you so much, it worked flawless!