Add-On Releases - vBExperience 3.8

vBExperience 3.8 (aka xPerience)

Created by Marius Czyz aka Phalynx.

Triple Winner of the "Mod of the Month"-Award (March 2008, September 2009, July 2010) on vBulletin.org.

A version for vBulletin 4.0 has been released! Thread: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=245023


vBExperience 3.8.6 is currently (August 2010) in development.


Description
vBExperience is your feature packaged solution for motivation and satisfying your users. vBExperience is an advanced Level/Promotion and Activity System with Shop, Awards and Activities. It will calculate an activity and experience score for every user based on their activites on the forum. Now your users will see how their level is increasing by participating on your forum.

This mod was developed by me because I was never satisfied with the post count. Communities are not only defined by post count, they need much more parameters: Are the postings the user creates helpful? Are his threads frequently read? Does the user participate on the community by posting pictures, attachments, leaving visitor messages, tagging threads? All this can be answered with this mod.

Comments, suggestions, translations, bugs, etc... are very welcome! Support is only given to people who have clicked Mark as Installed.


Compatibility
This mod will work with vBulletin 3.7.x and 3.8.x. For vBulletin 3.6 you will need vBExperience 3.7



Demo:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience.php?langid=5

Demo 3.8.6:
http://www.insidetwoworlds.com/xperience.php

Other Demo Site:
http://www.insidesupcom.de/xperience.php?langid=1


There are mainly four things visible for the users: The users score, his level, his next level up in %/points and his activity in %.


Calculation of the score
Taken into calculation are these things:
Threads
- Created threads
- Thread views of own threads
- Thread replies of own threads
- Thread votes of own threads
- Thread tags
- Replies to own threads
- Sticky threads
- Socialgroup Discussions (Discussions, Posts)

Posts
- Created posts
- Views on attachments

User
- Days since registration
- Average posts per Day (for users who are on forum for at least seven days)
- Referrals
- Received infractions
- Reputation / Use of reputation system
- Visitor messages on profiles
- Members of own social groups
- Albumpictures
- Friends
- Completing Profile

Misc
- Calendar entries


Additionally there is support for 3rd party addons (some are already installed):
- vB Tournaments and Ladders (via CDP Addon)
- Post Ranking System (via CDP Addon)
- Helpful Answers (via CDP Addon)
- AWCoding-Donation System LITE and PRO (via CDP Addon)
- Cyb Paypal Donate (included)
- DownloadsII (included)
- ibProArcade Highscorer Points (via CDP Addon)
- LDM Links and Downloads Manager (included)
- PhotoPlog 2.1 (via CDP Addon)
- PhotoPost vBGallery (via CDP Addon)
- PhotoPost Pro (via CDP Addon)
- Post Thank You / Use of Post Thank You (via CDP Addon)
- QuoteIt! 3.16 (via CDP Addon)
- SAPR: Advanced Post Rating system (via CDP Addon)
- thanks via vS-Hide Hack Resurrection (Expanded Edition) (included)
- v3arcade Highscorer Points (via CDP Addon)
- v3arcade Submissions Points (via CDP Addon)
- vBulletin Blog (included)
- Who Downloaded This Attachment? (included)
- Other Addons can be easily added via CDP - Custom Data Provider plugins.

Additionally you can install these modifications:
- Thread Necromancer: Gives (minus-) points when a user is posting in old threads.
- Scrupulous Poster: Gives points for editing posts. Award users that are editing own posts instead of doing double post.
- Deletion Addicted: Gives points when an user/nod soft-deletes post, thread, visitormessage, groupmessage or picturecomment.
- Arm of Law: Give points for moderators who are using the infraction system
- Discussion Ender: Give points for people who are the last on a discussion
- RadioActivity: Reduce points for every day the user is not online

Also, there are already addons available that are working as Custom Data Provider (CDP). A CDP can extend vBExperience by collecting data and adding it to the vBExperience datastore. All point providers can be used for Awards and Shop.

You have to install these hacks for your own, vBExperience doesn't install nor touches these.


vBAdvanced
There are three vBAdvanced 3.0 XML modules: Most Active Users, Most Experienced Users and Last 20 Activities. Import them via vBAdvanced AdminCP.


Awards
There are six default awards: Most Popular, Activity Award, Posting Award, Community Award, Frequent Poster, Blog Award, Calendar Award. The awards are shown in Rankings and Profile. You can set them also to display in postbit near the username. There is a scheduled job running once a day (02:30h) to calculate them.
Via AdminCP they are completely customizeable and can also be assigned manually.
Awards can be created for every data provider.


Rankings
Showing User, Level, Awards, Activity Points (experience, thread, post, user, misc) - sortable.
Since 3.8.3, there is a also a ranking for Social Groups

Shop
A virtual Shop will motivate your users to earn more points. You can define categories and put virtual items with pictures in it. A currency can be defined seperatly for every item, e.g. 20 points from threads or 100 points from gallery. Users can purchase the items, they appear in their profile. The costs of the item are substracted from their xperience points. Additionally you can set quantity of the items.
The Shop will motivate your users to collect specific points to buy an item. Optionally you can show the last purchased items on postbit.
You can put virtual items in it, like WoW addons: Sell WoW Items in exchange of f.e. thread points. Great for RPG forums.
Non-Virtual Items like bold Usernames or Downloads for Points are already on my todo list.

Earn Points
There is an overview for the user on how points can be collected, with a list of users own points. All data is beeing pulled from the database (settings, phrases)

Statistics
The statistics is showing a Top-X list of the leading users. Usefull for optimizing points of the point provider. Only enabled point providers with results will be displayed.


Promotion system
To motivate users to do more on your forum I created the promotion system. By reaching defined xperience points the user will be moved to another usergroup - where you can set graphics, shadows, highlighting, etc... What is interesting in combination with this: you can give the user more possibilities f.e. larger avatars or bigger PM box. A log of the promotions is available.


Calculation of the activity
The system calculates the activity by taking the average post count/visitormessages/group discussion/Blog entries of the ten most active user and comparing it to own post count. This can be set to count only the last X days, f.e. 21 days.


Settings
You can control how many points are given to every calculation. For example you can give many points for creating new threads but only a few for views of that thread. Setting a value to 0 will disable a setting.
Additionally, you can set ignore users (f.e. for bot users), forums (f.e. offtopic forums) and usergroup id's.


Performance, Big Boards
vBExperience has been tested on smaller and also on some bigger sites. I know from boards with around 120k users running this mod smoothly. More about this topic can be read in the file readme_optimization.txt


Frequently asked questions
Q: How do I change the name Experience to something new?
A: You can change the name via phrases. Just search and replace all phrases that contains vBExperience.

Q: When installing vBExperience, does everyone start from scratch, or will it automatically configure everyone's points based on actions before the install?
A: If you recount, vBExperience will calculate ALL existing data since the beginning of the board.

Known Issues:
- Awards: On "Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread" awards are only shown for the user who is viewing this.
- Awards: If activated in with rich username, they are attached to the username. If the username is linked, the awards are also linked. If a link is underlined, the awards are also underlined. This behaviour is hardcoded in vBulletin and cannot be fixed.
- Settings are showing only a blank page, read here: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/proje...6979#note74140
- If you completely remove vBExperience, you need also to uninstall the product XML manually from the pluginssystem

Credits for icons
- FAMFAMFAM, http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/
- IconExperience


History
3.8.4.3 / 3.8.5 Beta 5, 10th July 2011
- Prio 1 security patch, please update just xperience.php!


3.8.5 Beta 4, 25th September 2009
- Promotions: Listing now also the last Usergroup. Please notice the new settings for nethermost/uppermost usergroups.
- Several minor cosmetic changes
- Clear Activities (except Shop)
- Fixed error with GetActivityAll() on profile
- Several Beta 3 fixes

3.8.5 Beta 3, 18th September 2009
- Fixed Promotions
- Fixed Notifications
- Added Activities to Promotions
- All Activities are not obeying limit
- AdminCP/Experience has a recount for Promotions and Achievements
- Fixed listing of Achievements with Firefox
- Several Beta 2 fixes

3.8.5 Beta 2, 02nd September 2009
- Just a short note: Condition in Achievements and Promotions are calculated in POINTS, not in counts of items.
If you choose 10 Day, you must enter the points needed for this.
For example: You have an achievement for 10 days. You have set 2 points for every day since registering. Calculation: 10*2 = 20
You will have to set 20 as the condition.
- New tabbed interface. If you want to change the style, edit the template xperience_navbar_css
- Promotions now showing usergroups and conditions for a promotion to the next group
- You can import old vBExperience Legacy promotions (that were created within level.xml)
- Achievements in Profile
- Achievements below Avatar
- Several Beta 1 fixes

3.8.5 Beta 1, 28th August 2009
- Achievements!
- Promotions!
- Notification on Awards, Promotions and Achievements
- GAP: Empty pointfields will not be displayed anymore
- Activity: Showing percent values with a decimal
- Activities now also for users
- Awards below Avatar
- Default Awards are now also creating new category
- Shop: Fixed issue in not returning cash on sells
- Reworked Edit Shop Items



For more see history.txt

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by nascartr

Ok, I took a screenshot. In the activity section there are 4 options to look at. Those 4 options don't fill the top space. There is a dark grey area that looks like it shouldn't be there. Looks like 4 options span across 5 sections unlike the 4 options on the 'Statistics' page that spread across the whole area without a dark grey box at the end. I provided a screenshot that should help.

Fixed in next version. It's the field "Promotions" that are not enabled on your system. I will remove this empty field.

Originally Posted by nascartr

One more possible issue?

Are the times correct? http://diecastcrazy.com/community/xp...?go=activities

On my page I have some PM's stuck between AM's and if it counts up then it registered a new day at 1am because from 12am-12:50am it was Friday and starting at 1:10am it says Saturday. In the 12am hour there are some 12PM's stuck in.

I'm not complaining at all because this is a really cool addition but wanted to point out possible problems.

Yes, I noticed this also. Seems the array sorting is not working like intendet. Will try to fix that for the next version.

Originally Posted by yotsume

I just upgraded to Beta 3. All my award icons no longer show next to my member's names in their postbit. Also, on their profile page the name of the award shows in the block but again no icons? My award icons are located in the old location.

Solution to Missing Award Icons
Just copy your icons from the old location of: images/misc/level to the new folder location of: /xperience/awards

A page refresh and life is back in balance! Yet another scare for no reason!

The manage awards page need better text example. For instance what shoulg go in the fields for small and big images?
/xperience/awards/awardfilename?
or just awardfilename?

SUGGESTION:
How about give us all a clue in the text that is listed under each field.

All fields are self explaining. I will just include a notice for upgrades that the awards needs to be copied to the new location.

Originally Posted by relaxiha

Database error in vBulletin 3.8.3:

Invalid SQL:
SELECT Userid FROM User WHERE Userid = 323;

MySQL Error   : Table '*******_vb.User' doesn't exist
Error Number  : 1146
Request Date  : Saturday, August 1st 2009 @ 05:58:28 PM
Error Date    : Saturday, August 1st 2009 @ 05:58:28 PM
Script        : http://************/forums/admincp/xperience_admin.php?do=savepoints
Referrer      : http://***********/forums/admincp/xperience_admin.php?do=editpoints&id=19
IP Address    : *************
Username      : ********
Classname     : ******_Database
MySQL Version : 5.0.81-community

Fixed in next version.

[yotsume]

Originally Posted by Phalynx

...All fields are self explaining. I will just include a notice for upgrades that the awards needs to be copied to the new location.

All fields have text... but self explaining not a chance! I asked a question and you ignored it completely!

What goes in the small and big image fields please! An example of what goes in these fields in the descriptions is TRUE self explaining!

The descriptions are poor English at best.

[nascartr]

Originally Posted by yotsume

All fields have text... but self explaining not a chance! I asked a question and you ignored it completely!

What goes in the small and big image fields please! An example of what goes in these fields in the descriptions is TRUE self explaining!

The descriptions are poor English at best.

What is not understood about the big and small? Big 32x32 size image will show up in the awards page as stated and the members profile Experience section as stated. Small 16x16 shows up beside username in posts as stated and in the memberlist beside username as stated. I'm American and can understand completely.

This is a free modification and were lucky to have coders that update products!

Cheers Phalynx!

[gigaenvy]

Originally Posted by yotsume

All fields have text... but self explaining not a chance! I asked a question and you ignored it completely!

What goes in the small and big image fields please! An example of what goes in these fields in the descriptions is TRUE self explaining!

The descriptions are poor English at best.

I think Phalynx needs to give an "e.g." statement under each field entry. The install/upgrade docs need serious rework. In one sentence it say's:

"By using custom styles you should have in mind that you also must copy the images to the correct directory of the style, thats mostly under "/designs/" or "/styles/". "

then in another it states

"1. Copy ALL (I mean ALL - That is a common error!) files from upload_via_ftp/ to the server. Espacially take care of the images, copy them to your style misc folder if you use a customized style."

Then another problem, realizing this is still beta (but worked in version 3.8.3 without any edits), is the default awards. The filenames are wrong. I had to put the entire path to get the default and basic activity award to show up in /xperience/awards folder. The filenames by default are wrong compared to v3.8.3. It's frustrating to manually makes edits to get things to work that should work the same in prior version. You fix or add one feature and it breaks something else that worked perfectly, like basic filenames and paths for default awards.

Then I find this, but being a keyboard tuner, I'm not sure if this is wrong to begin with:

<span class="smallfont" style="float:$stylevar[right]"><img border="0" src="$vboptions[bburl]/xperience/images/award_$awardname" title="$awardtitle" /></span>

There are no files in the /images folder that begins with "award" as part of the base install. *He thinks he's interpreting this correctly*

It's beta, yeah I know, but give a guy a break and consider your customer. The worst is when you think your customer will know what to do and you think you think everyone understands, but you're a coder and probably assumes too much of your user base. Don't do that because 9 pages of ????????'s should send off an alarm that your soft skills and ability to convey explanation to get to the root cause of these 9 pages can be circumvented easily by properly documenting and adding some valuable tool tips in the option fields. The outcome will be more time for yourself and not having to answer what I am sure is stupid questions to you.

I'm still trying to figure out what "Rich" username means :erm:

But don't listen to me, because I'll lurk and ask stupid questions when the obvious is not clear and there continues to be contradiction and error wherever I see it. This is my favorite mod, so I have no other life than to watch this unfold and to see it make it primetime.

[yotsume]

Originally Posted by nascartr

What is not understood about the big and small? Big 32x32 size image will show up in the awards page as stated and the members profile Experience section as stated. Small 16x16 shows up beside username in posts as stated and in the memberlist beside username as stated. I'm American and can understand completely.

This is a free modification and were lucky to have coders that update products!

Cheers Phalynx!

WHAT GOES IN THE FIELD!!! THATS AN EASY QUESTION!!!

How about an example!

[yotsume]

Maybe this will help because its still not being understood!

Your fields lack clear instructions as to what we have to put in the image fields.

So please give us an example which would be in the field description in the first place.

Does this screenshot help get my questions answered?

I just would like a simple answer... if my image file is named: award_blog.gif then what do I enter in the fields?

Do I leave off the extension or what?

NOTE: When I say your fields are not labeled clearly thats what I mean there is no example given to follow and this is not the first time this question has been asked and poorly answered.

[feras]

I installed the mod, but for some reason the postbit it is trippling the information... You can see what I mean at http://www.rapforums.com/forums/show...118#post141118

Any idea why this is happening?

[gigaenvy]

Originally Posted by diesalot

Some image name seem to be incorrect.

The script is looking for xperience/awards/award_posting.png

but the file is named award_posting_16.png along with a few others.

Phalynx,

Are you going to fix this in Beta 5, because you had a chance to fix it going from Beta 3 to Beta 4, but you never did. I don't think default award and images need to be manually guessed or entered if you already had it coded and it worked fine in v3.8.3.

[cooltechie]

Originally Posted by yotsume

Maybe this will help because its still not being understood!

Your fields lack clear instructions as to what we have to put in the image fields.

So please give us an example which would be in the field description in the first place.

Does this screenshot help get my questions answered?

I just would like a simple answer... if my image file is named: award_blog.gif then what do I enter in the fields?

Do I leave off the extension or what?

NOTE: When I say your fields are not labeled clearly thats what I mean there is no example given to follow and this is not the first time this question has been asked and poorly answered.

the small/big image you are referring to is the path to the award images you want displayed

So let's say you want to show 'award_activity_16' icon next to the members name, then you want to type in:
xperience/awards/award_activity_16.png

I don't think it was made clear in the instructions but I hope that cleared it up for you.

Of course if you create your own icon and give it a different name, you want to use your own name
xperience/awards/{your icon name}.png

[cooltechie]

Originally Posted by Phalynx

Yes.
Fixed. Please download the Beta 3 again and overwrite admincp/xperience_admin.php

Thanks for your continued support.

I replaced it and do not see any icon listed in the 'manage awards' section now. Was the fix to correct the path or to completely remove the icon?