Shows all social groups the actual user is a member of or is subscribed to, just below the forumlist (or anywhere else on forumhome). If there are new messages, the corresponding forum statusicon is highlighted - just like in forumlist.
If there are no groups to show, you can choose to show a teaser message.
Things to set in AdminCP/Options:
show member of / subscribed to /nothing
sort by name or last message date
limit max number of groups shown, then link to appropriate page (grouplist for members, usercp for subscribers)
restrict use by usergroup
show a teaser message if there are no groups to show
show buttons to open new discussion etc.
apply custom css to grouptitle
trim group description to max length or disable
parse bbcode in group descriptions
use a different set of statusicons for groups than for forums
use .png for statusicons instead of .gif (global in AdminCP, per style in groupsbit template)
show groupicon instead of statusicon
Looks
Out of the box: I tried to copy the standard look of the forumlist on forumhome.
As requested, it is now fully templated (following the forumbit-scheme) for easy adjustment to custom styles.
See the screenshot of a modified example in this post.
Install/upgrade
Upload folder "images" to your forum root (can be omitted if you do not want to use the buttons).
Import the product file.
Check settings in AdminCP->Options->Social Groups on Forumhome.
Template edit Will be automatically inserted below your forums list if you are using TMS, which I highly recommend to do. If not:
Find:
HTML Code:
<!-- /main -->
Above add:
HTML Code:
$cel_social_groups
If you don't like it there, you can insert $cel_social_groups anywhere you like on forumhome.
Technical stuff
1 product file that adds
+ 3 templates (following the forumbit-scheme)
+ 3 plugins
+ adds 2 queries to forumhome (only if groups are shown, of course).
+ a bunch of phrases (prefix: cel_sgfh_).
+ 4 png-buttons, taken from the silk icon set.
Limitations
Marking of new messages only works with database, not with cookie based marking of read threads (-> AdminCP setting) Explanation: This mod relys on the information in the database when a discussion was last read by the actual user. If you rely on cookies for this, you can use this mod anyway, but there will be no marking if there are unread messages by changed statusicons.
3.7 Discussion groups will show up as "no messages yet" as long as there was no message written under 3.8 Explanation: When converting the old 3.7 message board into a discussion, Jelsoft was a little bit slack. While normally all the information about the last updated discussion is stored in the socialgroups table, this information is not entered for the auto-created discussion. For example: The discussion ID for the last updated discussion simply is 0 instead of the actual id of the auto created discussion. Therefore, this mod can not retrieve the information it needs since the discussion is not linked to the social group. This only changes when the first message under 3.8 is written.
Not a bug note: In vB 3.8 there was an issue where the last discussion title was not correctly updated by vB in the socialgroup table. This would lead this mod to show a wrong last discussion title under some circumstances. This was resolved in 3.8.1.
See Bugtracker: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/proje...?issueid=27176
Version history
v 1.4
+ some bugfixes
+ option to turn teaser message off
+ option to show several buttons: to start a new discussion - see the group's members list - see the group' photos (only shown if there are any attached pictures) - unsubscribe (only if subscribed groups are shown) (Thanks to glorify) 1.4.1: Template/Style error in Google Chrome fixed
v 1.3 + now fully templated. New templates: forumhome_cel_social_groups_groupsbit and forumhome_cel_social_groups_lastmsgby. 1.3.1: Link to user profile error fixed
v 1.2 + added option to sort groups by date of last message
+ added missing phrase
v 1.1
+ improved database query
+ limitations somewhat lessened
+ added settings page to AdminCP
+ choose whether to show groups the user is a member of or subscribed to
+ limit number of groups shown, then link to appropriate page
+ restrict use by usergroup
+ some minor bugfixes
Planned features (no promises made!)
none atm
[s]option to use a set of different statusicons for the groups [/s]
[s]option to use the social group's icon instead of the statusicon[/s]
[s]and to go with that, for additional/substitunional unread marking, possibility to add css markup to the social group's title[/s]
Social Groups almost stayed turned off because vBulletin has no notification options built-in for them, at least this way my members will be able to keep track without having to manually remember to check the page!
I made a couple of tiny modifications, I changed the templates to match my forum better ("Last Post" is the final column), and also I copied one of the IF statements to surround the entire main template. So now the entire box doesn't appear unless you are a member of a social group, because I don't want the 99% of my members who aren't in a social group to get constantly reminded what they're missing out on :P
Keep up the great work, you may have just single-handedly saved Social Groups for many vBulletin users
I copied one of the IF statements to surround the entire main template. So now the entire box doesn't appear unless you are a member of a social group
I did something similar as well. Shows up if only something is subscribed to. Debated, tho, because as is, I think it does encourage people to join groups.
User's Social Groups on Forum Home (like forumlist, fully templated) Details »»
About Developer
Uses Plugins 
No support by the author.
02-04-2009, 07:14 AM
