Miscellaneous Hacks - [CMS] Use original thread for comments

As of 4.1.11 this functionality is included in vbulletin. So you no longer need this mod.

What does this do?
This is a really simple hack that sets the thread for article comments to be the original thread for any thread that is promoted to an article.

What can I use it for?
This mod has two major uses:

1. If you have a wealth of information in your forums and you want to promote it into articles, this mod allows you to retain the rest of the thread as comments in the cms while adding any new comments as replies to the thread; essentially allowing it to function as both a forum thread and a CMS article.

2. If you want to use multiple fourms for CMS comments. This is a fairly none obvious use case, but probably a popular one. If you have three sections in your cms (for example) and want each section to feed into its own forum, the current cms dosn't allow you to do this. With this mod installed, you can. Instead of creating your new article directly in the cms create it in the forum you wish to use for comments. Write your article as the first post of the thread and promote it to a cms article. Fill out the extra information needed (eg publish date) and save. Comments will be saved into the original thread, in the forum you created it in.

Installation Vb 4.0.1 and later
1. Import product

Uninstallation
1. Disable the plugin "set thread id"

Full uninstallation
1. Move threads that have been promoted to articles into the vbcms comments forum.
2. COPY the threads back to their original forums
3. Remove product

Steps 1 and 2 are needed to retain cache functions on the comments threads. Without them new comments will not appear on the article.

Changelog

• 4.0-0.1 a2
  • Fixed bug causing original thread to be delete when the article was deleted
• 4.0-0.1 a1
  • Initial release

Notes

• I believe this is the first mod for the CMS (not including addon widgets/content types)
• Removing this product entirly will cause issues with the cache on any articles using the original thread. Follow the uninstall steps to remove functionallity while retaining the ability to comment on these articles this mod has altered.
• [S] Although its compatible with vbulletin 4.0 Rc 4, a bug in RC 4 and 4.0.0 Gold prevents it from acctually working. I have provided a replacement hooks_vbcms.xml file which corrects the issue in the interim.[/S] (fixed in vb4.0.1)
• [s]Deleting an article will remove the associated original thread This is considered a bug in this product and will hopefully be fixed with the next release. [/s] (fixed)
• The above bug has been fixed, however pending this request: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/proje...?issueid=34188 Thread tags for the original thread will still be removed. There is /nothing/ I can do about that until the issue listed is resolved. (this has been marked as fixed in 4.0.2; will update further when i've tested that its fixed.)
• [S]If you hard delete the original thread without first removing the article you will be affected by this bug: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/proje...?issueid=34187 the fix I posted to that issue needs to be applied BEFORE deleting the original thread. After more research, this only becomes an issue if you promote a thread more than once. If you've done this, you can fix the error by clearing the CMS cache.[/S] (fixed in 4.0.1)

As of 4.1.11 this functionality is included in vbulletin. So you no longer need this mod.

[Carnage]

Hi Carnage! Would a donation prompt development in this direction. On the website I run I would really need unified comments for both promoted posts and promoted blog entries.

At this time, unfortunatly not; I will take a look and see how much work it would be, however i'm unoptermistic as to this working easilly and I've not got the time I think it'll take to get this to work to spend on it at the moment (I have a university masters project due in in a few weeks and have loads of work to do on that, so its not a matter of money.)

If anyone is interested; I added a plugin to this mod for my own forums that 301 redirects the thread to the article. Its not been tested much yet as the CMS is still mods+ only however if anyone is interested I can release the code.

[gorman]

Thanks anyway. One question: would it be okay to take this mod and further modify it to reach our goals? Giving you the proper credit in the code, clearly.

[Carnage]

I have to be honest here; any code which implements this for blogs as well would be substantially different from the code here. You are welcome to use my code as a guide, but I doubt it'll be much use to you.

[GeorgeB85]

Doesnt work for mine....mine still go into the vbms cms section.

[Carnage]

Do you have any other mods installed that effect the CMS?

Realise that the article goes to the CMS, but the comments should be pre populated with the threads replies and any new comments will be posted into the thread that was promoted.

[archet1337]

I can't get this mod to work. I don't get any error or anything, when clicking submit the page loads for a while like normal and then the comment just vanish into thin air. Is not displayed in the article and not in the original thread.

Any pointers on what to do would be much appreciated.

Edit: I just had to resubmit the articles and it works perfectly. Kind of annoying, but no big deal

Great mod. Marked installed and rated 4/5

[Carnage]

The mod cannot work retro-actively unfortunatly; you have to have promoted articles after its installed for it to work.

[karlm]

am i correct in understanding, for vb4.0.2 PL4, I only need to import tthe product, not backup/replace the hook?

[Carnage]

correct. Follow the instructions for 4.0.1 and later.

I'll probably remove the old instructioins once 4.0.3 is released.

[karlm]

Thank you - I've installed it, and it works great! Nice job... I hope you can find the will/time to update it along with VB releases.