Integration with vBulletin - vbWiki Standard - vBulletin+MediaWiki integration

Update:

9/28/2007: vbWiki Std v1.3 RC5 is now available for download. This version adds compatibility with MW 1.11.0+

5/17/2007: vbWiki Std v1.3 RC4 is now available for download. This version is compatible with MW 1.10.0+ and vBulletin 3.6.6+

1/21/2007: vbWiki Std v1.0.2 RC3 is now available for download. This version fixes the 'session error' that used to happen on some installations of MediaWiki 1.9.x.

Description:

vbWiki Standard is the lite version of vbWiki Pro. vbWiki Standard allows the integration of vBulletin and MediaWiki user authentication.

(vbWiki Pro is a commercial product that, in addition to the functionality found in vbWiki Standard, provides full skin integration, enhanced user management, Admin CP, editing of wiki skin in vBulletin's Style Manager, among other features.)

Why should you add a wiki to your forums?

Forums are great for community building with their high level of interactivity. Successful forums have hundreds or thousand of concurrent users creating and replying to threads.

However due to this very reason the more your forums grow the more "collective knowledge" is scattered throughout the thousands (or hundreds or millions) of threads in your forums. Making it difficult for users to find and use.

A wiki is not that good at community building, but it is a great medium to centralize this 'collective knowledge'. Enabling you to create an 'ecosystem of information' (quoting pipin ) maintained and contributed by your users.

The idea behind vbWiki (both Standard and Pro) is to enable the seamless integration between these two packages (vBulletin and MediaWiki) side-by-side in your community. You (and your users and community) get the best of both worlds.

Or so the theory goes...

Features:

• Single sign-on for vBulletin and MediaWiki (users log in only once)
• Supports mapping of vBulletin usergroups to MediaWiki user roles
• Users viewing wiki pages are shown in vBulletin's "What's going on?" section (both guests and registered users)
• Supports auto-authentication, users who choose to be "remembered" are logged in upon visiting the site to both vBulletin and MediaWiki.

Installation:

These installation instructions do not apply to vbWiki Pro. Refer to vbWiki Pro installation instructions for more information.

MediaWiki and vBulletin must be installed and properly working before installing vbWiki. MediaWiki can be downloaded here.

• Create a new directory in your forums directory named vbWiki.
• Upload the content of the installation package to this new directory.
• Rename the file vbWiki_Init.php-dist to vbWiki_Init.php
• Open the file LocalSettings.php found in your MediaWiki directory in a text editor and at the very end find the following line and remove it if present:

PHP Code:

?> 


• Add the following code at the end of the file (entering the correct directory path):

PHP Code:

require_once "/absolute/path/to/your/forums/vbWiki/vbWiki_Init.php"; 


Troubleshooting:

• Last installation step: Click Mark as Installed..

If you run into any trouble installing vbWiki (blank page, logins not working, etc.), follow these instructions to temporarily turn on vbWiki's Diagnostic Tools.

Open vbWiki_Init.php (or vbWikiPro_Init.php) and find this line:

PHP Code:

$run_vbWikiPro_diag_tools = false; 


And change it for this:

PHP Code:

$run_vbWikiPro_diag_tools = true; 


Navigate to the wiki home page, and see the results.

Changes:

• 0 vBulletin files to Edit
• 1 MediaWiki file to Edit
• 10 vbWiki Files to Upload

Requirements:

• vBulletin v3.5.4 (version 3.6.x recommended)
• MediaWiki 1.6.8+ (recommended 1.7.x+).
• PHP4+

Uninstalling...

• To uninstall vbWiki Standard simply remove (or comment) the line added to LocalSettings.php.
• Optionally remove the directory vbWiki from your forums directory.

[Goatpod]

Originally Posted by Necrosaro420

Myself nor my users have any type of "add new page" button anywhere?

I may have got this wrong, but from what I've found out so far if you search for a topic and it doesn't exist you can click the 'create new page' link on the returned page and create a new topic from there. Like I said, I may be wrong as I'm new to this Wiki thing

[SirTalksalot]

This looks brilliant!

Does mediawiki have it's own SEO for keywords and URL rewrites? Or would I have to try and use VBSEO with it?

[Brandon Sheley]

Originally Posted by SirTalksalot

This looks brilliant!

Does mediawiki have it's own SEO for keywords and URL rewrites? Or would I have to try and use VBSEO with it?

http://www.mwusers.com here ya go


I'm still looking for a clear ( how to ) set this up..

your instructions only say to make a folder, upload the files and edit the localsettings.php
this did nothing for me..

thanks

[ElfMage]

Originally Posted by Goatpod

Hi Elfmage,

Thanks for the mod. Got it working fine in that the cross log in works but when it comes to mapping VB usergroups to Wiki usergroups I'm not seeing anything under my VB usergroup when editing it to allow me to do this!

I'm using VB 3.6.4
MediaWiki 1.6.9

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer

Hi Goatpod,

User group mapping in the Standard version is done through vbWiki_Init.php.

For instance, add and customize the following to the 'custom settings' section in vbWiki_Init.php:

PHP Code:

$g_vbWiki_Usergroup_Mapping            = array (
            6 /*Administrators*/    => "sysop,bureaucrat",
            2 /*Registered Users */    => "editors"
    ); 


Thanks.

[ElfMage]

Originally Posted by Loco.M

hmm.. this hasn't worked for me

I have a site

wiki.site.com and my forum is forum.site.com

I did as the "instrucrtions" say, and now my wiki.site.com is blank.

Hi Loco.M,

A blank page upon installing vbWiki is often caused by a path not being 100% correct.

Try running vbWiki's Diagnostic Tools, to help identify what's going on. Refer to the 'Troubleshooting' section at the top of this page (I just added the instructions there.. .)

If the cause is not obvious, send me a PM with the Diagnostic Tools results.

BTW, since your forum and wiki are on two different sub-domains, you may need to adjust the wiki and forum cookie settings so that sessions can be shared between the two systems. Refer to the first entry in this FAQ: http://www.nuhit.com/faq/59/

Originally Posted by Loco.M

I'm still looking for a clear ( how to ) set this up..

your instructions only say to make a folder, upload the files and edit the localsettings.php
this did nothing for me..

thanks

Try the steps above, and PM with any questions. You can also PM me a link to your site, and I'll take a look.

Thanks.

[ElfMage]

Originally Posted by Necrosaro420

Myself nor my users have any type of "add new page" button anywhere?

Hi Necrosaro420,

As Goatpod indicates, MediaWiki doesn't have a 'Add new page' per se.

You can create new pages by one of two ways:
1) Search for a topic, and if it doesn't exist, then the user is given the option to create one with the title for which the search was done.

2) You can add links to non-existing pages in an article, which then are shown on a different color, when a user clicks on one of these links, he/she is taken to that page's editing mode.

For instance, I have seen MediaWiki installations where they have a 'ToDo' list on the home page (or some other page), and then users keep adding 'titles' that they think would be needed for the wiki.

And then other users come in, see where they can/want to contribute, and edit/create the corresponding page.

[majorxp]

PS...I have the PRO version - and it is great.

[BrAinZ]

I've just set up my mediawiki / vbWiki integration, but am hitting an odd problem when NOT logged into Vbulletin.

Basically, the page just loads with loads of garbage....

Any ideas what is causing this?

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[ElfMage]

Hi, this usually happens when your board is set to not allow guests to access it.

vbWiki requires that guests be allowed to at least visit your forum's home page (FORUMHOME), so that the MediaWiki - vBulletin bridge can be established.

Is this the case in your site?

[hinch]

Ignore previous post before edit

Fixed and working fine now

Thanks alot


Can be found at http://www.euro-chimaera.co.uk/wiki/