Integration with vBulletin - More Open Graph Images (Free) by BOP5

Brought to you by BirdOPrey5 / Qapla.com

If you don't know what Open Graph is, it is a standard which Facebook and other big social networking sites use to extract information from a web page being shared/posted on their site.

Open Graph meta tags tell Facebook the URL of the page to share, the title of the page, the type of content, and also one or more images to be used as the thumbnail when a page is shared.

A major limitation of vBulletin 4.x has always been the image. The only option vBulletin has is to enter the URL to 1 image in Facebook Options in the Admin CP, and the same image would be shared every time any page from your site was posted to Facebook. This would usually be your site's logo. While it was OK, it was really annoying you couldn't get a picture that had more to do with the exact thread being shared. For example if the thread was about Jeeps and had pictures of Jeeps in the thread it would be better to show one of those pictures instead of the site logo.

Now you can.

Live Demo: http://www.qapla.com/mods/showthread...e-images-tests (View the HTML source code)

This Free version will find-

• All images included via the [IMG] BBCode in the entire thread page
• All Embedded YouTube Video image thumbnails used on the thread page
• All Image file attachments (full size or thumb nails) on the thread page*

And add ALL of these as possible og meta tags on your thread page.

The Pro Version available on Qapla.com works on Blog Entries and CMS Articles as well, but is otherwise the same.

Note: The "Pro" version is bundled with my More Share Options TNG Pro mod, a subscription to one gives access to both.

Important Notes - This mod only promises to add the images, youtube videos, and attachments (if enabled) to the list of available of meta tags and this can be confirmed working by viewing the HTML source of the page or using the Facebook Debugger to see all images and other content scraped form your page: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug

This mod cannot promise Facebook will actually use these images! It is important to understand that giving these pictures as an option to Facebook is as far as any modification can go. After that it is up to Facebook's scraping algorithm to determine which, if any, images will be presented to the users as an option when sharing the page. Facebook does not publish strict details on how they make these choices. Search on Google and you'll quickly find many answers to the question but each one different.

Facebook does say that images should be (not must but should be) at least 200 by 200 pixels but they prefer even more a 1500 x 1500 pixel image. They prefer images closer to square than very long or tall. They will auto resize or crop as needed.

*It appears Facebook will never use vBulletin attachments even though the Facebook Debugger does pick them up and show them. I suspect the reason is because attachments are not to actual jpg/gif/png images but instead are links to attachment.php. Nevertheless I included the attachment option because Facebook may change this behavior one day and other social networks may not have this limitation.

There does not seem to be any ham in presenting multiple images to Facebook, they will choose what they want.

I have had more luck getting the option to choose between different thumbnails when using the older "Facebook Share" button as opposed to the "Facebook Like" (or Recommend) button that is default in vBulletin. If you use the free or Pro version of my More Share Options TNG mod you can easily change to the Facebook Share button.

Finally this mod knows how to deal with both https and regular http images. The og meta tags are slightly different for each, the correct one will be used based on the image source found.

Also, this mod is designed to work with or without the Facebook Platform enabled.

For use on vBulletin 4.x.x only. Tested on 4.07, 4.2.0, and 4.2.1.

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[BirdOPrey5]

This mod does put them in the <head> area of the page, at least on the default vBulletin styles.

If you have Facebook enabled on your site the mod looks for the text

<meta property="og:type" content="article" />

which is in the <head> area when Facebook integration is enabled and adds the extra og:image tags below it.

If the Facebook platform is not enabled it looks for

<!--[if IE]></base><![endif]-->

and uses that instead. In both cases the code remains inside the <head> section of the source code.

[VICOS]

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

This mod does put them in the <head> area of the page, at least on the default vBulletin styles.

If you have Facebook enabled on your site the mod looks for the text

<meta property="og:type" content="article" />

which is in the <head> area when Facebook integration is enabled and adds the extra og:image tags below it.

If the Facebook platform is not enabled it looks for

<!--[if IE]></base><![endif]-->

and uses that instead. In both cases the code remains inside the <head> section of the source code.

Hi Joe,

My bad and my apologies for the incorrect assessment.

You code was not inserting anything due to the admin settings I had chosen. I had added the other meta og:image code in the postbit_attachmentthumbnail template many months ago and had forgotten about it.

It all works now as you say.

Again, my apologies.

[VICOS]

Originally Posted by NeutralizeR

Not sure why (I moved the website to HTTPS a few weeks ago), but i had to disable the ":secure_url" in the plugin to make it work for attachments:

PHP Code:

  //  if(strtolower(substr($thisimg, 0, 5)) == 'https') //If https site  //    $secure_og = ':secure_url'; //   else      $secure_og = ''; 


I just confirmed this issue when using SSL for your forum. The FB debugger loses it mind and FB actual refuses to see the images.

As soon as I comment out ":secure_url" in the plugin, FB debugger is happy and FB actual sees ALL images and lets you choose which one you want.

It even works when using attachment images, i.e. the image url is:

attachment.php?attachmentid=###

BTW, I am using vB 4.2.3 PL2.

[elsa23]

Hi, I use a Highslide image resize , so all pictures in [IMG] are resized. I had created a [img2] bbcode that not resize image, I use it to show full size in presentation
Is it possible to use [img2] for Open Graph image instead of [IMG] tag or use both together ?
Thanks

Edit
in the xml to import, I had remplaced :
$picfindregex = "\[img](.+)\[/img]";

with:
$picfindregex = "\[img2](.+)\[/img2]";

Now, Open Graph uses [img2] instead of [img]
Is it possible ton use [img] and [img2] together please

[BirdOPrey5]

if you put an asterisk after the 2 it should tell the regex the 2 is optional and work either way:

PHP Code:

$picfindregex = "\[img2*](.+)\[/img2*]"; 


But not tested. Worse case just go back to the way you had it, no lasting damage.

[elsa23]

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

if you put an asterisk after the 2 it should tell the regex the 2 is optional and work either way:

PHP Code:

$picfindregex = "\[img2*](.+)\[/img2*]"; 


But not tested. Worse case just go back to the way you had it, no lasting damage.

Great, it works!! Thanks a lot

[elsa23]

Hi, I use @MarkFL youtube bbcode
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=319623

So the bbcode is :

[myoutube][/myoutube]

<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/{param}?hd=1&vq=hd1080"></iframe>

I tried to edit this line but it does not work, can you help me please

PHP Code:

$picfindregex = "\[video=youtube;(\w+)].+\[/video]"; 


[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by elsa23

Hi, I use @MarkFL youtube bbcode
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=319623

So the bbcode is :

[myoutube][/myoutube]

<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/{param}?hd=1&vq=hd1080"></iframe>

I tried to edit this line but it does not work, can you help me please

PHP Code:

$picfindregex = "\[video=youtube;(\w+)].+\[/video]"; 


Try...

PHP Code:

$picfindregex = "\[myoutube](.+)\[/myoutube]"; 


[elsa23]

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

Try...

PHP Code:

$picfindregex = "\[myoutube](.+)\[/myoutube]"; 


Thank you so much

[chikuru]

How can I set default image if theres no attachment?