Add-On Releases - vBExperience

vBExperience 3.7 (aka xPerience)
--------------------------------
Created by Marius Czyz aka Phalynx.

Winner of the "Mod of the Month"-Award (March 2008) on vBulletin.org.

This mod will work with vBulletin 3.6.10 and vBulletin 3.7.
To get the new version 3.8.0 you will need to update to vBulletin 3.7 or vBulletin 3.8 with the new vBExperience 3.8.0!

You can download vBExperience 3.8.0 here:
For vBulletin 3.7: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=171014
For vBulletin 3.8: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=199556

In vBExperience 3.8.0, support for vBulletin 3.6.x has been dropped.


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

Description
vBExperience is an advanced Level and Activity System with Shop and Awards. 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.

For vBulletin 3.6.x there is only reduced functionality because some new features like social groups, thread tagging, visitor messages and albums have been introduced initially in vBulletin 3.7

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

Demo Profile:
http://www.insideearth.net/member.php?u=1&langid=5

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

Demo Awards:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience...wards&langid=5

Demo Shop:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience...=shop&langid=5

Demo Stats:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience...stats&langid=5

Demo Promotions:
http://www.insidesupcom.de/xperience...=shop&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 (vBulletin 3.7)
- Replies to own threads
- Sticky threads

Posts
- Created posts
- Views on attachments

User
- Days since registration
- Referrals
- Received infractions
- Reputation / Use of reputation system
- Visitor messages on profiles (vBulletin 3.7)
- Members of own social groups (vBulletin 3.7)
- Albumpictures (vBulletin 3.7)
- Friends (vBulletin 3.7)

Misc
Additionally there is support for 3rd party addons:
- Post Thank You / Use of Post Thank You
- thanks via vS-Hide Hack Resurrection (Expanded Edition)
- LDM Links and Downloads Manager
- DownloadsII
- PhotoPost Gallery
- Cyb Paypal Donate
- vBulletin Blog
- Who Downloaded This Attachment?
- ibProArcade Highscorer Points (via addon)
- v3arcade Highscorer Points (via addon)
- PhotoPlog 2.1 (via addon)
- QuoteIt! 3.16 (via addon)

Additionally you can install these modifications:
- Thread Necromancer: Gives (minus-) points when a user is posting in old threads. Contains also Thread Necromancer Award.
- 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.

Also, there are already addons that works as custom point provider. A CDP can extend vBExperience by collecting data and adding it in 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.
Also, you can add your own custom points and f.e. set an award to this points.


vBAdvanced
There are two vBAdvanced 3.0 XML modules: Most Active Users and Most Experienced Users. Import them via vBAdvanced AdminCP.


Awards
There are four default awards: Community, Posting, Activity and Helpful. 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.


Shop
With vBExerience 3.7.14 a virtual Shop has been introduced. 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.


Statistics
The new statistics shows 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 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 (controlable via AdminCP) .


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 vBExperience 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.


Screenshots
I've attached a few screenshots:
vBExperience_Awards.JPG - Hall of Fame
vBExperience_Awards_Username.JPG - Username with Awards
vBExperience_Rankings.JPG - Rankings with new Awards
vBExperience_Profile_vBulletin 36.JPG - It adds a reduced memberblock to the vBulletin 3.6.8 profile
vBExperience_Profile_vBulletin 37.JPG - It adds a detailed memberblock to the new vBulletin 3.7 profile
vBExperience_Postbit.JPG - An overview of users score is visible in the postbit, Level up (blue bar) can be hide
vBExperience_Postbit_FullPopup.JPG - Popup on Username
vBExperience_Postbit_WithText_LeftAwards.JPG - Username prefixed with Awards and Bardescriptions
vBExperience_AdminCP_Stats.jpg - vBExperience menu and level stats
vBExperience_Settings.JPG - Settings are done via AdminCP
vBExperience_Settings_Points.JPG - Every Experience can be configured individually


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


History

3.7.17, 21th July 2008
- Shop: Fixed purchase for users with a userid higher than 32.000
- Shop: New setting Row break. Define after how many items a "<br/>" will be added
- Added three addons: Thread Necromancer, Scrupulous Poster, Deletion Addicted. All addons are stored in extras/addons and must be manually installed as a product
- Added graphics that can be used for Awards and Shop Items
- Added language: French


3.7.16, 15th July 2008
- Shop: Fixed subtraction of xperience
- Shop: Fixed SQL Error for ignored users/groups
- Shop: Possibility to use user, thread, post and misc points as costfield
- Awards: Fixed "fing"-Award
- Experience: Fixed sum of albumpictures
- Quantity = 0 shows now an empty rack
- Added language: Arabic
- Added template hooks for thread, post and user


For more see history.txt

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by xHLHx Darkskilz

Is there a option to show full details in pop-up. Bars and text. And show nothing in the post bit.

Yes, choose "Don't display" in the settings ("Displaymode in postbit")

Originally Posted by xHLHx Darkskilz

Can you link the pop-up menu to the vBExperience page (Richest members)

Will add this in 3.7.10

Originally Posted by xHLHx Darkskilz

EVERY 'page 1 of 5'' thing does not work, it keeps returing to page 1
Also you cant post anyhing.
In the Memberlist if you click on someones name it says that he does not excist.

This is also on the default style.

When i disable the mod the problem is gone.

Any idee what went wrong during the update?

I've no clue because this mod does not touch any function of vB. Cannot confirm that with my boards.
Did you tried to uninstall and reinstall the mod?

Originally Posted by EWGF

Coming back to this, my clean testboard has issues to with VBA integration (which I didn't notice yesterday)

Only affects the xperience.php page. Some things like amount of Private Messages disappear. Would be nice if you could solve this compatability issues

I'm using vBA 3.0 GOLD and cannot confirm any of these incompatibilities.

Originally Posted by rmxs

I get 3 bars and not 3 like normal in postbit.

missing level

Check settings, in 3.7.9 it has moved to popup menu. You can enable it again in settings. (how many times did I wrote this already?)

[EWGF]

I am also using VBA 3.0.0 Gold. Especially the welcome block is missing some points, like PM information and the 'welcome X' text.

Any idea what could be wrong?

[Phalynx]

I can confirm this, will be fixed in 3.7.10

[optrex]

With regards to activity. I have set my activity timeframe to 365 days. I have a user that has not been on the forum for over a month, but his activity is 100%.

Please could you explain how activity works and what I should do to fix this?

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by optrex

With regards to activity. I have set my activity timeframe to 365 days. I have a user that has not been on the forum for over a month, but his activity is 100%.

Please could you explain how activity works and what I should do to fix this?

Activity is beeing calculated via postings in the timeframe you can set in AdminCP. You set 365 days, so it takes all postings from the last 365 days. Maybe the user did many postings in the past. Definitly more than many other users in the last weeks.

Set the timeframe to 28 days or something like this. Or leave the 21 days that are set by default.

[optrex]

Thanks

What would I need to change in the database if I wanted to base activity on 1 post per day over a year?
So that, if you miss a day posting then your activity should drop, but if you post more than 1 per day you dont get extra activity. However, if you were only a member for 60 days then it would only count back the 60 days since you joined.

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by optrex

What would I need to change in the database if I wanted to base activity on 1 post per day over a year?
So that, if you miss a day posting then your activity should drop, but if you post more than 1 per day you dont get extra activity. However, if you were only a member for 60 days then it would only count back the 60 days since you joined.

As this is not implemented in program logic you cannot change this. Maybe I will do this as an alternative way, setable via options, in one of the next version.

[optrex]

Yeah that would be good as it makes more sense for the experience side of things. Great hack btw.

[Leo Brazil]

Originally Posted by Leo Brazil

I turned the option to get a link to VbExperince on my navbar, works great everywhere but in Vbadvanced page.
My VbA page is installes on www.website.com and Vb is on www.wesite.com/forums
When I click Vbexperience on Navbar on VbA page it gives a error that can't find xperience.php. As this file is on my www.website.com/forums and only at VbA page this link calls for it on www.website.com I just tried to make a copy os xperience.php on it but this time gave me require once global.php error. I tried to find this bronken link everywhere but I couldn't.

I upgraded VbA for version 3 final, this way I could uoload the modules. Everything is running OK by now but this problem with the links.
VbExperience links on navbar and also in quick links work fine at every forums pages but at VbA page it doesn't.
Any idea how to fix this ?

[Phalynx]

This has been fixed in 3.7.9

Either you didn't upgrade yet or you have to revert template "xperience_vbnav_navbarlink".