Forum Display Enhancements - GLA - Geographic Location Awareness for vBulletin

*** Staff note: The author of this modification has passed away in a diving accident. We wish his family all strength in dealing with this traggic issue. ***

GLA - Geographic Location Awareness for vBulletin

What does this do?

GLA adds an additional layer of information into your vBulletin site (visitors' country name). GLA doesn't output anything to the user, or change any display on your forum, it simply adds additional information which is then available to other programs or mods.

But what can I use it for?

There are many applications, but the main idea is that this mod enables other mod writers to very easily add location awareness functions into their own mods. If you were thinking of writing a mod to display a person's registration country in the postbit, it's now very easy to do.

Why should I download and install this?

Unless you are also going to install one of the other mods which requires GLA, there isn't much point. If you are a developer, you might install this to add functionality to your own mods.

How will I update this?

Easy - you can update the database used for matching country names to IP addresses yourself - it's very easy. Full instructions are provided in the install.txt file inside the zip file.

How do I install?

Download the zip file and look for install.txt. But basically it's easy - upload the contents of the upload folder to your forum directory, and import the enclosed .xml file. That's it.

How do I know if it is working?

A test script is provided that will test every aspect of your GLA installation to inform you of any potential problems. Please see the installation instructions for information about this test script.

What about flags?

This includes flags, meaning that other mods won't have to package flags. You can change the flags if you like, instructions are provided.



How about a quick summary of features?

• Fast - GLA adds almost no overhead. This is important for big sites. Only a single query is executed each time a session is created
• Transparent - new variables are automatically available to any part of your site
• Updateable - you can update the database yourself
• Free - a free database is used
• Accurate - the database provider claims 98% accuracy
• Configuration - absolutely nothing to configure for this mod (since it just provides data to other mods)
• Extendible - GLA may encourage other mod developers to add location features. Why not ask the author of your favourite mod to use GLA? Were you thinking of making a mod which uses location data, but didn't know how? GLA solves the problem for you - now all you need to do is read a variable
• Easy developer information - hints and tips are provided with the zip file to make life easier for developers

Is there a list of mods that currently use GLA?



Yes, a list will be maintained here. Please let me know if you find a mod which requires GLA that isn't listed, so I can add it. The current list of GLA mods is as follows:

• Country Display for Who's Online
• Check Proxy RBL on Registration (unsupported, hack for an existing mod)

Before posting on this thread:

Please post on this thread only for issues relating to GLA itself. If you have an issue that concerns a mod that uses GLA, please post on the appropriate thread for that mod. If you have an issue which concerns the underlying functionality of GLA itself, then post here.

Even though this is a required mod from another mod and may be fairly boring, please click install if you are using it. Support requests from people who have not clicked install may not be answered.

No screen shots for this mod, since there's nothing to see.

Version history
1.0 (07.07.07) Initial version

[mfyvie]

Originally Posted by Wildthinks

is there any update for ip-table? because some ip's are dont resolve...thanks:up:

Please read through the previous messages on this thread and you'll find a database update.

[Fire112]

Help with me this is not indicated in wiw

[chuckrobbie]

Well my test shows up ok
BUT
Even though i have all the flags loaded in the correct places, it is not picking them up!!!

Any idea why? It loaded the DB successfully etc...just the flags themselves have errors

Is it because I have 3.6.8?

Also nothing showing up on my pages

[Fire112]

I have everything installed, however it is not indicated in wiw. Help

[legionofangels]

Originally Posted by chuckrobbie

Well my test shows up ok
BUT
Even though i have all the flags loaded in the correct places, it is not picking them up!!!

Any idea why? It loaded the DB successfully etc...just the flags themselves have errors

Is it because I have 3.6.8?

Also nothing showing up on my pages

It's not because of 3.6.8, I have that and they work on my who's online screen.

For some reason and I would have to ask my coder we have the flags in a main section, and then in every style's Misc folder in the FTP.

------------------------------

I have noticed 2 days in a row now someone from the European Union at my site. I didn't have the flag for it, but have installed

eu.png

In my flag folders and so hopefully it should pick that up from now on. I just need an EU person to stop by so I can see it.

[clothahump]

Same problem here, error stating flags are not there but I know they are.
http://www.tropicalfishforums.co.uk/forum/gla_test.php

[clothahump]

Another problem.

Some users from the UK get an American flag???

[Ronseal]

Much like clothahump above I've installed the 'Country Display for Who's Online' mod and although it works perfectly I've got a lot less than a 98% accuracy rate from this GLA plug-in. I've got over 15% of the users I know to be based in the UK appearing as USA.

Is there a newer update of the 'ip-to-country.csv' than the '1.0 (07.07.07)' initial version downloadable in this Mod?

Many thanks.
Ron

[athlon64bit]

Originally Posted by clothahump

Another problem.

Some users from the UK get an American flag???

Probably AOL users showing up on an AOL proxy.

[clothahump]

Thanks, I realise where the problem lies so it actually makes GLA useless, uninstalled until it works properly.