Forum Display Enhancements - GLA - Geographic Location Awareness for vBulletin

*** Staff note: The author of this modification has passed away in a diving accident. We wish his family all strength in dealing with this traggic issue. ***

GLA - Geographic Location Awareness for vBulletin

What does this do?

GLA adds an additional layer of information into your vBulletin site (visitors' country name). GLA doesn't output anything to the user, or change any display on your forum, it simply adds additional information which is then available to other programs or mods.

But what can I use it for?

There are many applications, but the main idea is that this mod enables other mod writers to very easily add location awareness functions into their own mods. If you were thinking of writing a mod to display a person's registration country in the postbit, it's now very easy to do.

Why should I download and install this?

Unless you are also going to install one of the other mods which requires GLA, there isn't much point. If you are a developer, you might install this to add functionality to your own mods.

How will I update this?

Easy - you can update the database used for matching country names to IP addresses yourself - it's very easy. Full instructions are provided in the install.txt file inside the zip file.

How do I install?

Download the zip file and look for install.txt. But basically it's easy - upload the contents of the upload folder to your forum directory, and import the enclosed .xml file. That's it.

How do I know if it is working?

A test script is provided that will test every aspect of your GLA installation to inform you of any potential problems. Please see the installation instructions for information about this test script.

What about flags?

This includes flags, meaning that other mods won't have to package flags. You can change the flags if you like, instructions are provided.



How about a quick summary of features?

• Fast - GLA adds almost no overhead. This is important for big sites. Only a single query is executed each time a session is created
• Transparent - new variables are automatically available to any part of your site
• Updateable - you can update the database yourself
• Free - a free database is used
• Accurate - the database provider claims 98% accuracy
• Configuration - absolutely nothing to configure for this mod (since it just provides data to other mods)
• Extendible - GLA may encourage other mod developers to add location features. Why not ask the author of your favourite mod to use GLA? Were you thinking of making a mod which uses location data, but didn't know how? GLA solves the problem for you - now all you need to do is read a variable
• Easy developer information - hints and tips are provided with the zip file to make life easier for developers

Is there a list of mods that currently use GLA?



Yes, a list will be maintained here. Please let me know if you find a mod which requires GLA that isn't listed, so I can add it. The current list of GLA mods is as follows:

• Country Display for Who's Online
• Check Proxy RBL on Registration (unsupported, hack for an existing mod)

Before posting on this thread:

Please post on this thread only for issues relating to GLA itself. If you have an issue that concerns a mod that uses GLA, please post on the appropriate thread for that mod. If you have an issue which concerns the underlying functionality of GLA itself, then post here.

Even though this is a required mod from another mod and may be fairly boring, please click install if you are using it. Support requests from people who have not clicked install may not be answered.

No screen shots for this mod, since there's nothing to see.

Version history
1.0 (07.07.07) Initial version

[steven s]

Originally Posted by Mrdby

i added the full url and added misc/flags and the images on my test page stopped showing up..and when i removed the flags..they cam back and still have the not found error.

You don't want to add /flags. Just want to be sure /images/misc is correct.

[Mrdby]

they are..did you see the link i pmed you?

[Mrdby]

Fixed!!!!! Thanks!

[Tact7626]

installed. am loving the gla_test.php page. very VERY informative and helpful.

i installed this to use your coutry display for who's online thing. looking foward to it.

[legionofangels]

* smacks himself *

lol, I read this multiple times to post here on database issues and I still put it in the other thread.

Anyways did we switch databases for the GLA system or do I just look at the install.txt file to see how to make changes to IP addresses and such?

Here was my comment in the other thread:

It didn't really answer mine. I've been online at work which is a different city and different internet, and now at home, and my flag never shows up. lol

I don't get it, it's like Colorado, Denver. How could that not be in the database?

Anyways do you suggest adding the proper IP block or what do I do? Reinstall?

[ETDC]

This is ace! Thanks.

I may have missed it, and apologies if so, but has anyone written a 'show in postbit' mod?

[legionofangels]

Ok, after looking through this thread I see that you have switched to a different database with the ZIP File mid thread. I've dl'd it and will check it out. Hopefully that should fix my issues with my own flag not showing up.

Aside from that I'm wondering on the Country Titles; is that information pulled from the GLA as well, or is it something we can edit? Meaning is it coming from a database of sorts, or can we name countries whatever we wanted, if we for some reason wanted to correct an error? < mainly hypothetical here

[ssean15]

I installed the package, and edited the lines. How do I get into the Preferences, and get it running> I can't seem to find it anywhere in the Admin CP.

[mfyvie]

Originally Posted by ETDC

This is ace! Thanks.

I may have missed it, and apologies if so, but has anyone written a 'show in postbit' mod?

Yes, I have. It will work with the next version of GLA (1.1), but both mods are currently not released because I haven't finished them yet - the real world keeps getting in the way.

Originally Posted by legionofangels

Ok, after looking through this thread I see that you have switched to a different database with the ZIP File mid thread. I've dl'd it and will check it out. Hopefully that should fix my issues with my own flag not showing up.

Aside from that I'm wondering on the Country Titles; is that information pulled from the GLA as well, or is it something we can edit? Meaning is it coming from a database of sorts, or can we name countries whatever we wanted, if we for some reason wanted to correct an error? < mainly hypothetical here

Your own flag may still not show up using different databases. These listings are not 100% perfect and depend very much on registrars recording this information correctly (they often do not).

The country titles are recorded in the database itself. If you wanted to write a script that did a replacement of the country names you could go ahead and do that, but the country names are written in their by the registrars themselves. In GLA 1.1 I've written some code which strips out comments which are sometimes inserted after country names in brackets. I did this because I often saw unnecessary explanations for certain countries - often with spelling errors.

Originally Posted by ssean15

I installed the package, and edited the lines. How do I get into the Preferences, and get it running> I can't seem to find it anywhere in the Admin CP.

GLA itself has no preferences, however other mods that use GLA might. It does come with a test script however. Please refer to the instructions at the top of this page, as well as the documentation that comes with GLA to understand how this works. Please remember to click "Install" if you'd like to get support.

[Wildthinks]

is there any update for ip-table? because some ip's are dont resolve...thanks:up: