Forum Display Enhancements - My Forum - Personalised Forum Aggregator

My Forum - Personalised Forum Aggregator

This is the first release of this modification, please read the entire description before proceeding to install.

Background

As a forum administrator the chances are that at some point you have received "feedback" from members that they would prefer a different forum layout. For example, lets say you have the following forum structure:

• Cats
• Parrots
• Eagles

Some members might prefer:

• Parrots & Eagles to be in a single "Birds" forum.
• A single "Animals" forum that includes all three.
• Cats & Eagles to be in a single forum as they have no interest in Parrots.
• Things to be left exactly as they are.

Most sites have many more than 3 forums so the possible user preferred combinations are impossible to cater for, which means you cannot keep everybody happy, until now!

My Forum - What Does it do?

This modification uses the existing vBulletin forum subscription system to allow users to aggregate/mashup/join forums into a single "forum" where they can view all threads in the forums they have subscribed to. This gives a personalised "My Forum" which means that you can cater for all of the preferences mentioned above.

So taking the first preference example given above UserSmith would subscribe to the seperate Parrots & Eagles forums and then visit "My Forum" where he/she would see all threads in these two forums in a single forum.

The following is a brief summary of the key features

• You can specify which user groups are allowed to use My Forum.
• Guests don't have subscribed forums, however you can allow guest access by configuring guest viewable forums. Or you can disable Guest access completely.
• If the current user cannot use my forum you can choose to display the standard vBulletin "no permission" page or a custom message of your choice. You can specify different no permission message for Guests and Registered User, for example "Please purchase XXX subscription to use My Forum" or "Please register to use My Forum".
• With the exception of ACP this modification is fully phrased.
• You can configure the modification to place a link in your navigation bar and/or quick links. You can also choose to hide/show these depending on whether the current viewer has access to My Forum.
• As users are bringing together lots of forums there is a possibility that there will be a lot of stickies (if sticky display is enabled), so these are separated from normal threads and placed into a collapsible box. If there is an unread sticky the title of this box highlights how many sticky threads are unread.
• In ACP you can configure, by usergroup, forums that will always be displayed regardless of user subscriptions.
• You can choose to not display stickies.
• You can choose to display stickies on all pages or only page one.
• You can globally switch the modification on or off and display a custom message if it is off. On first install the default setting is off.
• As with normal forums you can specify a default view age.
• Uses a very similar look and feel to normal forums so your users don't need to get their heads around a different UI.
• Fully integrated into the Who's Online pages (i.e. it won't display "unknown location").
• Can be added to the Forum Jump menu.
• Includes an vBulletin FAQ entry.

Demo

You can see a live demo here:

http://www.therevcounter.com/myforum.php

In this setup My Forum is running in Guest Mode with guest forum subscriptions for "General Mayhem" and "Motorbike Chat". If you want register for an account and play with it in user mode.

Installation

Installation is fairly simple, follow these steps:

1. Download the zip file attached to this thread.
2. Extract the contents to your local machine.
3. Upload everything in the "upload" directory to your forum root directory.
4. Open up your Admin CP and goto : ACP -> Plugins & Products -> Manage Products -> Add/Import Product.
5. In the "EITHER upload the XML file from your computer" section click the browse button and browse to the product XML file on your machine (product-my_forum.xml).
6. If you are performing an upgrade make sure you allow overwrites.
7. Click the import button and sit back while vBulletin does its magic.

There are also some other optional setup steps you can follow to add My Forum to Forum Jump and the Breadcrumb box, these are details in the first post.

Configuration

Once installed you can configure this modification via:

• ACP -> vBulletin Options -> My Forum

The configuration options are fairly self explanatory, so I won't go into details here. However there is a screen shot attached.

What it doesn't do right now, but will/might in later releases

• Allow members to order the columns (i.e. order by replies/views etc).
• It doesn't currently display announcements.
• As vBulletin does not see this as a normal forum you cannot use forum based notices.
• There is no moderation functionality in My Forum you have to use the actual forum for this.
• If the viewing member has ignored users any threads by these users are not shown at all.
• Depending on feedback My Forum might be unlinked from the vBulletin subscription system and a separate forum selection system added.

I have been running this modification as it is here on my own site for almost 6 months and my members love it and the missing functionality has never been a problem.

So there you have it!

This is the first release of this modification, before posting here I have obviously put it through its paces, however there is always a possibility of a current unknown bug rearing its ugly head. If this does happen please post the details here and I will endeavour to quickly resolve the problem. It goes without saying that you should try this on your test forums before going live.

It is also worth mentioning that you should suggest to your members that they choose "no email notification" forum subscriptions.

Support

I have marked this mod as unsupported, this is because I cannot guarantee that I will always be around to quickly answer questions. I will pop in from time to time but I would rather not mark it as supported.


Version History

• 1.0 - First Release
• 1.0 - First Release Update (after 20 minutes of posting )
  • Fixed bug where a DB error would be displayed if the viewing user had people on their ignore list.
  • Fixed Bug where Who's Online would show PHP errors at the top of the page.
• 1.0 - Gold Release
  • No major issues have been found with the original 1.0 BETA release so this is now gold
• 1.0 - Gold Release (Minor Fix)
  • Fixed minor issue with one database call not using table prefixes
• 1.1 - Gold Release (Feature additions)
  • Added the ability to force, by usergroup, forums to be included in My Forum.
  • Added version check URL to product.
  • Added link to this page in product information.

[btotw]

Downloaded 3.7.5
Installed.
Confirmed - its a 3.8.1 thing because this is flawless and incredibleon 3.7.5

Wish it was on 3.8.1...but its cool. If you DO happen to get this working correctly on 3.8.1, please update the thread.

Again, amazing work...!!!

[MrEyes]

Quick Update : I am currently running the 3.8.0 version of this modification on my site and it seems to be running fine.

I intend to upgrade to 3.8.1 very soon, if this works then I will release an update for this mod.

Everything remains more or less as it is now, however the new version also includes a collapsible box for social group discussions that is populated from the users current social memberships.

[btotw]

MY humble suggestions:

1. Unlink it from the VB subscriber system. I think it would make things easier for the endusers if the could simply chose from a dropdown list of which threads they want to include rather than have to depend on the subscriber scenario. Its "extra steps" per se...

2. This doesnt seem to work w/ VBSEO. can you confirm...?

[btotw]

Originally Posted by MrEyes

Quick Update : I am currently running the 3.8.0 version of this modification on my site and it seems to be running fine.

I intend to upgrade to 3.8.1 very soon, if this works then I will release an update for this mod.

Everything remains more or less as it is now, however the new version also includes a collapsible box for social group discussions that is populated from the users current social memberships.

Can you add all forums that the user has access to to this collapsible box? THAT would be great...

[MrEyes]

Originally Posted by btotw

1. Unlink it from the VB subscriber system. I think it would make things easier for the endusers if the could simply chose from a dropdown list of which threads they want to include rather than have to depend on the subscriber scenario. Its "extra steps" per se...

But then again all you are doing is moving the subscription extra step into another configuration extra step

This doesnt seem to work w/ VBSEO. can you confirm...?

I am running this on my site with vbseo and all seems fine, what errors are you encountering?

[Firestar.chkn]

My myforum installation also gives the no access error. I'm running on vb 3.8.1, and am testing it on an admin account, with access to everything. I didn't restrict it in any way at all. Is there any time frame for the update to 3.8.1 perhaps?

[stickskills]

Had to remove this mod after I found out it was causing my social group "create" command to not function on 3.7 or 3.8.

[MrEyes]

Originally Posted by Firestar.chkn

My myforum installation also gives the no access error. I'm running on vb 3.8.1, and am testing it on an admin account, with access to everything. I didn't restrict it in any way at all. Is there any time frame for the update to 3.8.1 perhaps?

At the moment this version of the mod is only supported on 3.7.x, I am currently testing the 3.8.x version on my site, once ready it will be released - probably later this week.

Originally Posted by stickskills

Had to remove this mod after I found out it was causing my social group "create" command to not function on 3.7 or 3.8.

I never say never but what you describe seems extremely unlikely to me, do you have any further information?

[btotw]

Originally Posted by MrEyes

But then again all you are doing is moving the subscription extra step into another configuration extra step



I am running this on my site with vbseo and all seems fine, what errors are you encountering?

True, but I think we are talking about different things. Im saying that a dropdown or selectable list for the users...is better than them having to visit every forum they wish to be visble in myforums and subscribing.

For example, lets say you have 5 forums:

Cats
Birds
Dogs
Fish
Zoo

...and want all 5 via myforums. The VB method means

1. navigate to "Cats"
2. open "forum tools"
3. click subscribe.
4. navigate to "birds"
5. open "forum tools"
6. click subscribe.
7. navigate to "dogs"
8. open "forum tools"
9. click subscribe.
10. navigate to "fish"
11. open "forum tools"
12. click subscribe.
13. navigate to "zoo"
14. open "forum tools"
15. click subscribe.

What I think would be much simpler is

1. Navigate to MyForums
2. Open the "Forum Selector" dropdown
3. Select any or all of the forums
4. Click "Select These Forums"

Four steps for the users, only one screen and your script handles the merging

[btotw]

Originally Posted by MrEyes

But then again all you are doing is moving the subscription extra step into another configuration extra step



I am running this on my site with vbseo and all seems fine, what errors are you encountering?

When I installed, the system gave an error and I suspect that it was because VBSEO re-writes to "html" whereas the myforum page still ends in "php"

Can you show me how it works on YOUR forum? Whats the addess? (feel free to PM me if you dont want the address public)