Advanced Warning System (AWS)

Advanced Warning System Version 3.5.0

The AWS version for vB 3.5 has been released. You can download it and get support in this thread:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?p=770032


Advanced Warning System Version 3.4.16 (latest stable release for vB 3.0.x)


LATEST ANNOUNCEMENT

The AWS has its own Premium Forum here at vBulletin.org, so please use that for questions and discussion on this hack.

The Permium Forum is located at :

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/forumdisplay.php?f=105





This Warning System owes its existence to Zero Tolerance's Warning Hack (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=65336). I liked the idea, so I installed Zero's hack in my forums site. However, as in most cases, I was not fully satisfied with the way it worked, so I started customizing it. Other people in the thread above, asked questions, which I had already answered by my customizing work, so I answered, giving away those parts of the code, that I had modified.

In the long run, I almost hijacked the thread and the hack from Zero, so I guess I owe him an apology. However, the mods I did have compiled a new, more complete warning system, with much more functionality. Several members from that thread, asked if this could be released as a new hack, so after discussing it with Zero, here it is.

What it does? Well, it is a Warning System, which means it allows you (the administrative team of your site, in other words the admins, the supermods and the mods), to define offences, which the members of your forum should NOT commit. But as we all know, there are instances where members do not follow the rules. In that case, this warning system, allows you to issue a warning to the member who commited the offence. The warning has some points associated with it, as well as a period over which it is valid. When a member gathers enough points, he is banned from your forums, for a predefined period of time. That's mostly it, but below, you can find a short list of features:

Full warning system with:

- post- and non-post-related warnings
- hierarchical warning schema
- hidden or real warners
- customizable maximum warning points
- automatically bans members who reached the maximum warning points
- customizable ban days
- customizable ban user group and permanent ban user group
- customizable restore user group, where users are restored after they get unbanned
- customizable option for who can see the warning level of the members
- automatically issued warnings for posts which contain censored words
- automatically issued warnings for private messages which contain censored words
- supports incremental banning periods
- supports multiple warnings for the same post
- warned members are notified either by Private Message or e-mail when they are warned and when one of the warnings they have received is either deleted or expired
- maintains historical listings of issued warnings (even if deleted or expired)
- customizable warning types
- each warning type has predefined warning points associated with it
- each warning type has predefined maturity period, after which it is automatically deleted
- reports for admin, mods and members
- cron job included to automatically remove matured warnings
- uses vBulletin's cron job, to automatically unban banned users
- all options are setable in your AdminCP
- user warning points and number of bans viewable in your AdminCP User Manager.
- statistics show warning per type, warnings per warner, bans per user.
- Allows you to warn a user from your AdminCP/User Manager.
- Large "Warn" sign, in posts which have received a warning, for mods, supermods and admins, to easily distinguish those posts.
- Ability to remove user's avatar, signature or usage of the Private Messaging system, depending on the warning points he has collected.
- Supports non-standard admins, supermods and mods user groups.
- Allows you to save a copy of the warning send to the warned user, in a predefined forum.
- Allows you to issue "Alerts" (warnings without warning points, for first-time offenders)
- Allows you to add private or public notes for a user, either post-specific or not. Notes appear in the postbit, above each user's message.
- etc.

Admitedly, this is not an easy hack to install. It requires 20 new templates and modifications to some existing ones too. It requires five new tables and modifications to some others. It requires several new phrases. I've tried to make the installation, as easy as I could, by automating certain tasks in an automatic installer. The installer will add the new templates for you, add the new tables required and change the existing ones, and will add the required new phrases. You will have to manually edit the existing templates and the php files though. I also included an upgrade script, which will upgrade those who are using Zero Tolerance's warning hack (version 1.5) to this one. An uninstaller is also included, which removes what the installer installs.

Please keep in mind, that this is a very difficult hack to install. For this reason, I strongly recommend that you back up your database before starting the installation. I also suggest that you keep copies of each file and template you edit, so that you can always revert to a previous stable condition. Finally, I strongly suggest that you always run the latest release.

The zip file always contains both the instructions and the files required to install the latest version. If you have installed a previous version and want to upgrade to the latest, there is a text file attached, in the zip with upgrade instructions. Follow them.

In this thread, you will also find a more detailed document describing the features of this hack, as well as a document describing its version evolution.

Also keep in mind that the installer, will add the AWS templates only to your default style. If you want to use them in another one, you may try this Zero Tolerance's hack, which copies the templates to other styles you may have.

Another thing, the installation instructions were written when vB was at release 3.0.3, so you may expect to find some differences, with the latest files and templates. As far as I can tell, I haven't faced any such case, but I post this reservation here, since I do not have the time to recheck all the instructions for compliance with the latest vB release. The hack has been installed and is working fine with the vBulletin version shown at the top of this thread.

Finally, if you are using more than one style, the installer will install the templates only in the default one. If you want to use the rest of your styles, here is a hack, that will do this for you.

This hack can also be integrated with Zero Tolerance's vBChat. However, since I am using a heavily-modified version of vBChat, I haven't included instructions, on how to patch the original vBChat files, in the documentation. If you are interested in having AWS issue automatic warnings when one of your user enters a censored word in a vBChat message, or if you want your moderators to be able to warn a user, who misbehaves in vBChat, please post a thread in this forum and I'll help you through.

This is my first officially released hack, so please don't be to harsh with me, if I broke any rules or made any mistakes. The mods have been tested extensively, both by me and two volunteers (thank you gentlemen), but I am only human.

Closing, let me thank Zero Tolerance, who got me started in this, and who owns a big part of the code of this hack. I definnitely couldn't have done it, without his code.

Special Note
For those who upgrade from Zero Tolerance's hack to my AWS, even though I have included a script which will do some of the work automatically, not everything is done by that script. Read the installation instructions carefully. You have to run the upgrade script first and then do several things manually. If you just run the upgrade script and just upload the files, the AWS will not work properly. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to post here.

Also, let me add here, that version 3.3.0 wouldn't have been possible without the contribution of Revan.

And a couple of warnings:

PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE LATEST ZIP FILE FROM HERE, BEFORE YOU START INSTALLING THIS HACK. JUST BECAUSE YOU DOWNLOADED IT A COUPLE OF DAYS AGO, THAT DOES NOT MEAN IT IS THE LATEST VERSION. MAKE SURE YOU DOWNLOAD THE ZIP, JUST BEFORE YOU START INSTALLING THIS HACK.


LATEST VERSION

Version 3.4.16 (released Thursday August 25th, 2005 GMT 18:18)

A couple of bugs fixed in this version. One is related to the Notes feature, and it allowed plain users to see the notes entered, if the "Who can view warning points" setting was set to "All".

Features.txt a new version of this file has been uploaded on April 4th2 005 GMT 09:30, which covers the latest additions to the hack. The original Features.txt file hasn't been updated since the first release of this hack, so it was time for an update.

John

[sv1cec]

Gentlemen,

it looks as if the messagetag issue was my mistake. The folks at vB told me that if volatile=1, the setting will be removed at the next upgrade, so I have to set it to 0, in order for message tag to remain in the settings after the upgrades.

To rectify this issue, please run the following query:

PHP Code:

update `setting` set volatile=0 where varname='messagetag' 


Remember to add any TABLE_PREFIX if you are using one.

The installation instructions have been changed accordingly.

The funny thing was, that at some time in the past, I had suggested to another developer here, to set volatile=0 in his settings, so that they do not get overwritten at the upgrades. However, in my mind, I had it the opposite way! Go figure.

Rgds

[Jamsoft]

Originally Posted by rh2004

Get Beyond Compare or a similar program?

Where can I get that?....

You guys should try WinMerge:

http://winmerge.sourceforge.net/

Its free, and it works great. I just used it to upgrade from vb 3.0.3 to 3.0.6.

One of its cool features is it's exclusions. I told it to ignore all lines that started with "||". This way, all dates and version numbers kept in the comments at the TOP and BOTTOM of the files are IGNORED for file comparisons. So when I tell it to only show me different files, it only shows me ones with different CODE changes.

Best of all, its free software. And it works REAL nice.

[sifuhall]

So how do you know if a file difference is due to a hack you have installed (in the case of many hacks) or a change from vbulletin?

[Delphiprogrammi]

that's totally your responsebility if you install hacks you must have a checklist of wich hacks you installed there is no support for it the vbulletin licence cleary sells "your are allowed to modify the orginal source code on your own risk" to answer your question i use the modification log hack from here ...

[Delphiprogrammi]

Originally Posted by sv1cec

Did you copy the pictures to your web server? If you select the text option, do your links re-appear?

Oh, I wrote in the instructions that there is a new option, which controls the appearance of those links, didn't I? Go into your Warning System Options and check the option before the last. If you haven't set this, then your links will disappear.

Rgds

yes you did but there wasn't enough coffee in my system yet i reverted everything back i'll do the template edits again and activate that option

edit

yup works like a champ

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by sifuhall

So how do you know if a file difference is due to a hack you have installed (in the case of many hacks) or a change from vbulletin?

Typically, when you patch a file for a hack, you add some comments line before and after each hack code, in other words :

// This is AWS modification

code here

// This is the end of AWS modification

In that way, when you check the file, you know which part of code is due to a hack or it's pure vB.

[sv1cec]

Originally Posted by Delphiprogrammi

yes you did but there wasn't enough coffee in my system yet i reverted everything back i'll do the template edits again and activate that option

edit

yup works like a champ

Glad you made it!

Rgds

[docvader]

I'm curious, but it seems that after I added this hack, I can't use the text message box for private messages, using Netscape Navigator or Firefox. But I can still use it in IE. Very strange. Has anyone experienced this? Any idea why this might be happening?

BTW, the hack is working superbly, without problems. Truly a masterpiece.

rich

[Delphiprogrammi]

well,

i have just tested it with firefox.The textbox for private messages works fine here .carefull with netscape that box uses dhtml is that even supported by netscape ? and netscape itself is that still under development ? didn't use that browser in agers in here that textbox works

[jluerken]

Hi, sv1cec

I have a small problem with the hack now.

When I am logged in I can start a new thread but if not I am getting this error message when I click on 'new thread'.

Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /PATH/forum/includes/functions.php on line 2070

On line 2070 in functions.php I have this:

PHP Code:

$warn_opts=$DB_site->query_first("select * from ".TABLE_PREFIX."warning_options where oid='1'"); 


I added this:

PHP Code:

<a href="newthread.php?$session[sessionurl]do=newthread&amp;f=$forum[forumid]"><div class="smallfont">[$vbphrase[new_thread]]</a> 


to the forumhome_forumbit_level2_post template to be able to create a thread in a forum without the need to enter it.

I am not sure if really AWS is the problem but maybe you can help.