Administrative and Maintenance Tools - Commbull (Community Bulletin) 5.1a for vBulletin 4.01

This not the CommBull product itself. This is simply instructions for adapting it to work with vBulletin 4.x.

Download CommBull from: Commbull (Community Bulletin) 5.1a for vBulletin 3.8x

grandeur_69 has released his latest version of CommBull as a free add-on, indicating that he no longer has time to continue developing it. I am posting this here for the benefit of other vBulletin 4.x who don't want to lose the newsletter feature (grandeur_69 has approved this).

At https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....6&postcount=71 a member asks:

Hi, the version 5.1a work fine with vbulletin 4.0.1 ?

My response is posted at https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....5&postcount=72 and reproduced here...

I have the previous (commercial) version, 4.5f, which does run successfully via a cron job, running on 4.01. It required some modification of the installation instructions but it does work. I expect you should be able to get this version running as well, although as the coder noted the cron capability won't work.

1. Edit product-Commbull.xml and find the following line:

PHP Code:

        <dependency dependencytype="vbulletin" minversion="3.6.0" maxversion="3.8.99" /> 


Change to:

PHP Code:

        <dependency dependencytype="vbulletin" minversion="3.6.0" maxversion="4.99" /> 


2. Upload the files and import the product.

3. Now you need to do the template edits so that members can opt-in or opt-out of your newsletter. The current instructions are as follows:

4. Template modifications
--------------------------------------

Template: "Modify User Option" -> "modifyoptions"

After:

PHP Code:

                    <tr>
                        <td><label for="cb_adminemail"><input type="checkbox" name="options[adminemail]" value="1" id="cb_adminemail" $checked[adminemail] />$vbphrase[receive_email_from_bulletin_board_staff]</label><input type="hidden" name="set_options[adminemail]" value="1" /></td>
                    </tr> 


Add:

PHP Code:

                    <tr>
                        <td><label for="commbull"><input type="checkbox" name="commbull" value="1" id="commbull" $checked[receivebulletin] />$vbphrase[receive_email_from_commbull]</label><input type="hidden" name="set_options[receivebulletin]" value="1" /></td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                        <td><br />$vbphrase[newsletterformat]<br /><label for="commbull_type"><input type="checkbox" name="commbull_type" value="1" id="commbull_type" $checked[receivebulletin_type] />$vbphrase[type_email_from_commbull]</label>
<input type="hidden" name="set_options[receivebulletin_type]" value="1" /></td>
                    </tr> 


Now, obviously this won't work in 4.x. These need to be modified as follows:

1. Edit Template: "Modify User Option" -> "modifyoptions"

FIND:

PHP Code:

<vb:if condition="$show['friend_email_request']">
                    <li>
                        <label for="cb_receivefriendemailrequest"><input type="checkbox" name="options[receivefriendemailrequest]" value="1" id="cb_receivefriendemailrequest" tabindex="1" {vb:raw checked.receivefriendemailrequest} /> {vb:rawphrase receive_friendship_req_email}</label>
                        <input type="hidden" name="set_options[receivefriendemailrequest]" value="1" />
                    </li>
                </vb:if> 


ADD AFTER:

PHP Code:

<vb:if condition="$show['receiveemail']">
<li>
    <label for="commbull"><input type="checkbox" name="commbull" value="1" id="commbull" tabindex="1" {vb:raw checked.receivebulletin} />{vb:rawphrase receive_email_from_commbull}</label>
    <input type="hidden" name="set_options[receivebulletin]" value="1" />
</li>
</vb:if> 


That first part (above) is the option to receive or not receive the newsletters.

Next would be the option for HTML or plain text emails, which should be:

PHP Code:

<vb:if condition="$show['receiveemail']">
<li>
    <label for="commbull_type"><input type="checkbox" name="commbull_type" value="1" id="commbull_type" tabindex="1" {vb:raw checked.receivebulletin_type} />{vb:rawphrase type_email_from_commbull}</label>
    <input type="hidden" name="set_options[receivebulletin_type]" value="1" />
</li>
</vb:if> 


Update:

This now works. I had a ( instead of a { on the previous code. Thanks to grandeur_69 for pointing this out!

Notes:

1. The product is not mine so I can't offer any support for CommBull itself. However, I have been using the paid versions of this mod for some time and I'm happy to offer what support I can for making the changes necessary to get it running on 4.x.
   
   
2. I have been in communication with grandeur_69. He has indicated that he has no objections to this thread and that as he gets time he will be trying to develop this add-on further as a free product.

Update July 12, 2010: Product XML file provided by grandeur_69 for vBulletin 4.x.

NOTE:

1. If you have already done the manual edits, do NOT use the XML file. And if you import the XML file, you should not need to do the manual edits.
   
2. Some people are encountering problems using the XML file. If you are one of them, uninstall the product and use the manual edits. Those seem to work just fine.

Update July 14, 2010: Error in XML file corrected.

[Bouncer222]

The product is not mine so I can't offer any support for CommBull itself. However, Ihave been using the paid versions of this mod for some time and I'm happy to offer what support I can for making the changes necessary to get it running on 4.x.

So does it or does it not work on 4.0??

And can you please describe a little more what exactly it does?

Thanks

[djbaxter]

Answered in the first post:

Originally Posted by djbaxter

I have the previous (commercial) version, 4.5f, which does run successfully via a cron job, running on 4.01. It required some modification of the installation instructions but it does work. I expect you should be able to get this version running as well, although as the coder noted the cron capability won't work.

CommBull is a configurable newsletter for your forum, previously a commercial product but now released as a vBulletin.org add-on.

The changes from 4.5f to 5.1a are largely cosmetic, representing attempts by the original author to include the forum styling in the newsletter across a wide variety of email clients and configurations. I don't need that since for me the forum styling was already working.

I did install version 5.x at one point but reverted to 4.5f because of the absence of the capability to send the newsletters out via a cron job.

I believe the changes I made for 4.5f should allow you to install version 5.1a on vBulletin 4.x.

For more details about CommBull 5.1a, see the thread at https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=230359

[Alfa1]

Does this work with group, blog, CMS content or does it solely handle forum content?

[djbaxter]

I've only recently upgraded to the vBulletin 4.01 Suite from the 3.84 forum only. At the moment, the blog is disabled because I'm still trying to figure out how to and how I want to configure the CMS... some real documentation would be nice!

So I can't tell you about the blog. However, the last newsletter sent out by my forum picked up articles from the CMS as well as forum threads, so I don't know of any reason it wouldn't also get the blog entries.

[Alfa1]

That sounds very interesting. I cant find anything about handling bounces. Does commbull do that?

[djbaxter]

No. You'll need another system to take care of that.

[Alfa1]

Ah too bad. Unfortunately there is no fully functional system for that.

[djbaxter]

At one point, I was successful in integrating the EZ Bounce add-on with CommBull but then I upgraded CommBull and couldn't recall how I'd done it previously.

[Hornstar]

Thats a bummer as I would have loved this if it had the bounced email functionality...