vbArticles v0.4 -- For your repository of Articles/Tutorials/FAQs etc.

UPDATES
version 0.4 is out

- Now allows for basic VBCODE input.
- Fixed somemore bugs.


Background
Required a section on my site to display articles/tutorials
No such hack in the Hacks Database
Decided to try my hand at it

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This hack uses a lot of code from Arunan Sridharan's vB Links Directory v2.0
I use that hack too and was inspired to code something around that
A big thank-you must go out to him for coding the Links Directory in the first place (I merely modified much of the code to suit my needs for this hack)

Appreciation also goes out to Kars10 for aiding me in this hack
He coded the portion in version 0.3 on number of articles count as well as article hits count
He also suggested several template changes which have been incoporated into version 0.3
A great big special shout out to TheComputerGuy, 97cobracpe, dontpanic for stamping out the bugs with your fixes. Thanks guys


WHATS IT DO ?
This hack allows you to have a database of articles/tutorials etc on your site/forums.

FEATURES

AdminCP
Installer script

Admin options

View Categories
Edit Categories
Add Categories ( category name, category icon, category order, category description )
Delete Categories
Add new article ( title, description, author, date, content )
Edit article
Delete article
View ALL articles in database
Option in vB options to turn validation of articles on/off
Fully template based as to how you wish to display the articles,categories and main article home page.
Addition of articles accepts basic VBcodes

Member options

View Categories
Browse Categories
View articles
Submit new article
Submission of articles accepts basic VBcodes


INSTALLATION & UPGRADING
This Hack should work on ALL 2.2.x versions and v2.3.0
Please read the install_readme.txt file in the package for fresh installation instructions
IMPT: If you installed a previous version pls read the upgrade_readme.txt file carefully for upgrade instructions

HACK DOWNLOAD

Version 0.4 of this hack can be downloaded here

ADD-ONS
i) Add-on for vbHome
ii) Add-on for ForumHome
iii) Add-on to enable only registered members to be able to view the article section


DEMO SITES
http://www.runaked.com/forums/articles.php ( running v0.4 ) - TheComputerGuy's site

http://www.mcseworld.com/forums/infocenter.php ( running v0.3 ) - dontpanic's site


Feel free to submit your sites if u installed this hack so it can be listed as another live demo site

SUPPORT
I cannot promise any support on this as i am pretty new to this but I will try my best.
If you are using this hack , pls click the INSTALL button
to be kept in the loop of any bug reports, add-ons and hack version updates.

Thanks everyone

[iggy123]

Ok i have installed it and it works fine in a way - i am still having issues that it does show paragraphs- or accept html - do i need to use bbcode?

[cinq]

iggy , i do not quite understand you.
Care to elaborate more on the bit about showing paragraphs ?

Nope pure html should work, not bbcodes.

[cinq]

Ok would like for those who installed this hack to try this :

Create an article in a category.
Try to make it a reasonably lengthy one with HTML.

Once done , try to edit this article with that of another lengthy one with HTML.

Go view the article. Does it get updated ?

If it does, repeat the above procedure, does it get reupdated when a new article is overwritten again ?

Would appreciate some feed back on this.

[iggy123]

Today at 02:05 AM cinq said this in Post #72
iggy , i do not quite understand you.
Care to elaborate more on the bit about showing paragraphs ?

Nope pure html should work, not bbcodes.

If you go to my site and check out the articles section you can see what i mean.

http://clanantivirus.com/forums/arti...rticle&artid=7

when i try to edit it via the admin panel i get the following error message

PHP Code:

Warning: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/unklem/public_html/forums/admin/vbArticlesadmin.php on line 234 


So, I dunno - it could be just me LOL

[97cobracpe]

Yesterday at 08:38 PM cinq said this in Post #73
Ok would like for those who installed this hack to try this :

Create an article in a category.
Try to make it a reasonably lengthy one with HTML.

Once done , try to edit this article with that of another lengthy one with HTML.

Go view the article. Does it get updated ?

If it does, repeat the above procedure, does it get reupdated when a new article is overwritten again ?

Would appreciate some feed back on this.

OK, after messing with it, I have encountered problems with this hack. Depending on the code I put it, it'll either display everything correctly, or just display everything word for word including all the html code. I'm gonna due some further tests and try to find out what works and what doesn't work. I'm using small parts of the code one at a time for testing to find out what parts do and don't work.

My first finding. This hack doesn't like apostrophies ( ' ). Enter text and it'll save and edit correctly. Throw in some apostrophies and you can kissing editing goodbye.

It's really late and I'm tired, so when I wake up tomorrow, I'll test as extensively as possible and report the bugs here.

Take care.
John

[AuthorZone.Com]

When I bring up the install script in the browser I get:

Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_STRING in /home/authorz/public_html/forums/admin/vbArticles_install.php on line 269

I am using 2.2.8

On another site I just get a white page...

Please help?

Max

[AuthorZone.Com]

Also, once I get it working, can you tell me if I can make it so only users I adfd to a certain group can post articles?

I plan to use it for a book review site and I will add users to a Reviewer's group and only they should be able to post in it and the admins...

Can you tell me how to do this?

[97cobracpe]

Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_STRING in /home/authorz/public_html/forums/admin/vbArticles_install.php on line 269

At first, I got this error too. I found 2 typo's in the vbArticles_install.php file. On line 269 and 291 there is no \ in front of an '.

Here's is the fixed version.

cinq, you should update your first post with this updated installer script I attached. The one in the download does not work.

[97cobracpe]

OK, I found the bug with the ' problem. There was also a big problem with some html code when adding a new article, and when editing.

When adding new, I would not pass some of the html code, and when editing, it would not update. This only happened when using certain html code.

Two php commands:
addslashes() and htmlspecialchars() were not used correctly with the intent of this hack. I noticed the same thing in the vbLink hack as well (which this was based off of).

cinq,
I have corrected the html code issue as far as I know (This hack is working for me curently without flaws. Also, being able to post html code of user forms is a big security risk. I would suggest that everyone either turn on validation (so you can check the code before approving it), although I think it's safe this way, I'm not positive or to disable user submitions all together. I'm disabling it on my site all together. I'd rather have users email me an html file (that I can check locally) before posting it on my site for security reasons.

Not trying to step on any toes or anything, but I like this hack, and want to use it as quickly as possible, so I figured I help you out by posting my findings.

I'm attaching an updated vbArticlesadmin.php below.

[AuthorZone.Com]

THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOO MUCH!
I am going to try it now.

I plan to use it for a book review site and I will add users to a Reviewer's group and only they should be able to post in it and the admins...

Can you tell me how to do this?

Max