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CommBull (Community Bulletin) · **Released**: 06-19-2004

vb3.5 Commbull
vb3.6 Commbull

Note:
The 3.6 version is a commercial product, any queries on it should be submitted to: vb3.6 Support Site

THIS THREAD IS FOR SUPPORT FOR 3.0 VERSIONS ONLY. PLEASE VISIT THE APPROPRIATE FORUMS (links above) FOR THEIR SUPPORT

[valid point]
it's been brought to my attention that not everyone knows what this is ... fair enough: This hack is considered a "weekly newsletter" by the fact that it will email members (only sent by an admin) who have opted to receive it new posts, hot threads, etc ... basically a summary of what has been going on since the last time the newsletter was sent out. However there is a vast number of options, and I won't go into detail of all of them ... you can view the the images that I've attached, but u will only get a full idea by installing it.
I would say that there is 0 risk of this installation doing any damage to your current install as these are the changes that it does (manually and automatically):
- change profile.php and admincp/index.php
- add a couple columns to user table (receivebulletin and receivebulletin_type)
- add some phrases to phrase table (receive_email_from_commbull, type_email_from_commbull, newsletterformat, commbul)
- add a row to datastore table (commbull)
- add some html to nav template for admin side
So, if you are unhappy with the install. you can just ignore that it's there and it'll never cause any problems ... your next upgrade will overwrite any changes to the index and profile pages and the extra columns in the DB won't be an issue

[mods that i've added from vB2 version]
- to change languages, comment/uncomment line 22 and 23 to switch from English to German
- save prefs (option)
- skip to page X in case of mailout freeze
- auto redirect to next page (option)
- adding personalized text to top of newsletter w/out searching through the two text & html fields ... u'll c what i mean :ermm:

[INSTALL]
drop the 3 files into the admincp directory and then go to admincp/commbull.php ... follow the instructions and you are good to go.
If you find that the option isn't showing up on the control panel after the install, then it's because you aren't using the default phrases. Go into phrase manager, search for 'commbull' and update the fields appropriately.

If something goes wrong, don't worry .. it checks for already completed updates to the database to avoid redundancy ... enjoy!!

dethfire · #**112** 10-27-2004, 03:19 PM

one of my large forums the email refuses to preview, it runs for awhile and then just quits

konstance · #**113** 10-28-2004, 07:15 PM

Hello everyone,

This is rather bizzare... every time I send out a ComBull, the recepient sees random exclamations marks throughout the newsletter text. Some images fail to show up, because that exclamation gets inserted into the path! And it's totally random...

anyone has that problem?

wirewolf · #**114** 10-29-2004, 07:13 PM

Installed CommBull and after some editting of the commbull.php and the phrases.php (mainly language and html), got it working. A note for some users. My host had a limit of no more than 50 emails per hour from our server, but apon request they increased it to 500 for my site. They just wanted to know if I offered my users an "Opt out" from receiving the Newsletter. So if you have any problens with email flooding, check with your host. Most will accomodate you for a higher email output.
I also found that (for my site anyway) setting the email output to about 25 at a time with a one minute wait in-between seemed to work out quite well.
The only problem is that the emails will still not show Calendar events. And does anyone know how to make a cron job for this script?
John
Ps; Here's a sample of my finished html CommBull
And thanks grandeur_69 for the script!

wirewolf · #**115** 10-30-2004, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by traderx

I would like to change how the html email looks completely.... how do I do this?

Hi traderx,
Look in the commbull.php file around line 339 down to line 357. You shound see this at line 339: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html><head>. This is the start of the html part of the email. From that point on look down the file for html tags like <table>, <tr>, <td>, etc. Those are not all in the same place in the file as in between there are sql guerys, conditional statements, and php sript, etc.
What I did was to copy the original email html script from the Admin, place it in my html editor, make changes, and then carefully locate the appropiate place in the commbull.php file and substitute the changes. (make sure you save a backup of the original, just in case!)
Some of the language changes have to be made in the commbull_phrases file and there are a few in the commbull file itself.
Good luck,
John

welo · #**116** 11-02-2004, 12:48 AM

Maybe it's just me, although after messing with this one line (around 42) for well over an hour I still see no way whatsoever to absolutely link the stylesheet. No matter what I add or adjust it still comes out:

HTML Code:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="clientscript/vbulletin_css/style-b82af0f5-00004.css" />

...with no corresponding http:// path. What's everyone doing to solve this?

wirewolf · #**117** 11-02-2004, 02:02 AM

Include the entire path url, like
http://yoursite.com/forum/clientscri...f0f5-00004.css
Don't forget, it's an email, not a web page. It's going to be read by the users email client on thier computer. There is no folder for the email to read with the css file in it on thier computer. The path to the css file has to be full. You will have to write in the whole url yourself in the commbull.php file at that line. If you store your css as files rather than in the database, I suggest saving the css file in a separate file that the email url can "see" all the time. Because, if you change one little thing in the stylesheet from the Admin panel, the reference number for the stylesheet will change, and the emails won't get the correct css file. Besides, this way you can customize the email style separately from your board.
John

welo · #**118** 11-05-2004, 05:23 AM

Okay, I figured it out. After another hour or two of useless code playing and searching to figure out exactly how the stylesheet was sourced, it finally ocurred to me to look in the database. Duh.

Lo and behold, a css field resides in the prefix_style table with the entire <link rel= style statement, which will look something like this:

Code:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="clientscript/vbulletin_css/style-bcb1922cb-00104.css" />

All you have to do is go into phpMyAdmin and prepend the existing href= with the http path to your site. F.ex.:

Code:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://my-forum-site.com/clientscript/vbulletin_css/style-bcb1922cb-00104.css" />

Note this will also create an absolute path for the url to the stylesheet for the whole board. Like John pointed out however, soon as you change your CSS in the ACP this will be written over and you have to go back in and prepend the url again. From what I can see however, it doesn't mean you lose your CSS for already sent emails. Even if the CSS is changed the clientscript/vbulletin_css directory will still contain the old files (unless you go in and delete them).

joeychgo · #**119** 11-05-2004, 05:21 PM

SOmeone asked this question before, with no respoonse.

Does anyone know how to automate this to be sent out every week ?

Toneboy · #**120** 11-07-2004, 03:22 PM

I've run the script, sent out my first bulletin, but now the option to change settings within the "editoptions" screen isn't there.

Does anyone know which templates I need to change to allow this?

(Besides that, the script is great. It is the first time I've run the HTML version and it looks terrific.)

memobug · #**121** 11-07-2004, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toneboy

I've run the script, sent out my first bulletin, but now the option to change settings within the "editoptions" screen isn't there.

"Now...?" Do you mean it was never there, or it disappeared?

The install instructions are a little hard to find. There are links at the top and bottom of the page when you run the commbull.php script. I missed it the first time I ran it too.

Regards,

Matt

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