Integration with vBulletin - vbWiki Standard - vBulletin+MediaWiki integration

Update:

9/28/2007: vbWiki Std v1.3 RC5 is now available for download. This version adds compatibility with MW 1.11.0+

5/17/2007: vbWiki Std v1.3 RC4 is now available for download. This version is compatible with MW 1.10.0+ and vBulletin 3.6.6+

1/21/2007: vbWiki Std v1.0.2 RC3 is now available for download. This version fixes the 'session error' that used to happen on some installations of MediaWiki 1.9.x.

Description:

vbWiki Standard is the lite version of vbWiki Pro. vbWiki Standard allows the integration of vBulletin and MediaWiki user authentication.

(vbWiki Pro is a commercial product that, in addition to the functionality found in vbWiki Standard, provides full skin integration, enhanced user management, Admin CP, editing of wiki skin in vBulletin's Style Manager, among other features.)

Why should you add a wiki to your forums?

Forums are great for community building with their high level of interactivity. Successful forums have hundreds or thousand of concurrent users creating and replying to threads.

However due to this very reason the more your forums grow the more "collective knowledge" is scattered throughout the thousands (or hundreds or millions) of threads in your forums. Making it difficult for users to find and use.

A wiki is not that good at community building, but it is a great medium to centralize this 'collective knowledge'. Enabling you to create an 'ecosystem of information' (quoting pipin ) maintained and contributed by your users.

The idea behind vbWiki (both Standard and Pro) is to enable the seamless integration between these two packages (vBulletin and MediaWiki) side-by-side in your community. You (and your users and community) get the best of both worlds.

Or so the theory goes...

Features:

• Single sign-on for vBulletin and MediaWiki (users log in only once)
• Supports mapping of vBulletin usergroups to MediaWiki user roles
• Users viewing wiki pages are shown in vBulletin's "What's going on?" section (both guests and registered users)
• Supports auto-authentication, users who choose to be "remembered" are logged in upon visiting the site to both vBulletin and MediaWiki.

Installation:

These installation instructions do not apply to vbWiki Pro. Refer to vbWiki Pro installation instructions for more information.

MediaWiki and vBulletin must be installed and properly working before installing vbWiki. MediaWiki can be downloaded here.

• Create a new directory in your forums directory named vbWiki.
• Upload the content of the installation package to this new directory.
• Rename the file vbWiki_Init.php-dist to vbWiki_Init.php
• Open the file LocalSettings.php found in your MediaWiki directory in a text editor and at the very end find the following line and remove it if present:

PHP Code:

?> 


• Add the following code at the end of the file (entering the correct directory path):

PHP Code:

require_once "/absolute/path/to/your/forums/vbWiki/vbWiki_Init.php"; 


Troubleshooting:

• Last installation step: Click Mark as Installed..

If you run into any trouble installing vbWiki (blank page, logins not working, etc.), follow these instructions to temporarily turn on vbWiki's Diagnostic Tools.

Open vbWiki_Init.php (or vbWikiPro_Init.php) and find this line:

PHP Code:

$run_vbWikiPro_diag_tools = false; 


And change it for this:

PHP Code:

$run_vbWikiPro_diag_tools = true; 


Navigate to the wiki home page, and see the results.

Changes:

• 0 vBulletin files to Edit
• 1 MediaWiki file to Edit
• 10 vbWiki Files to Upload

Requirements:

• vBulletin v3.5.4 (version 3.6.x recommended)
• MediaWiki 1.6.8+ (recommended 1.7.x+).
• PHP4+

Uninstalling...

• To uninstall vbWiki Standard simply remove (or comment) the line added to LocalSettings.php.
• Optionally remove the directory vbWiki from your forums directory.

[ElfMage]

Originally Posted by siriuxs

Tanks. Now I have a new error

http://www.pchs.it/wiki-pchs/

That's another piece left from vbWiki Pro.... , I re-uploaded 1.3 RC4 with the correct code for vbWiki.

Originally Posted by Iseran

Found a temporary solution for error that siriuxs has:

In vBWiki-Settings.php, find:

$g_vbWiki_Redirect_Talk_Pages = true;
$g_vbWiki_Redirect_UserTalk_Pages = true;

and turn them to be false. That will fix the issue siriuxs and I had.

Indeed this will disable this code.

Thanks.

[ElfMage]

Originally Posted by rfikki

The XML file that comes with the download is corrupt somehow.
Can you please check it and let me know?

Hi rfikki, I replied to your thread over at nuhit.com, the issue was that the product XML was saved in utf-16, and this was conflicting with your system's default encoding... a new utf-8 version is available from the Premium Members Area. Thanks.

(P.S., I am sure vb.org will not approve of using this forum/thread to support a commercial product... )

[slappy]

Thanks for the updated version!

I might have found a possible bug with it though, after I just installed it on our vBulletin 3.6.7.

After I install it in the same way as the old version (which worked perfectly for me), the authentication still works as usual etc, and the diag tools says everything is fine too.

BUT, when I create a new wiki page, after submitting the content, the browser screen just turns blank (the content is still received in the wiki though). I tried this several times with the same result, and as soon as I disable the vbWiki extension it works again.

This was working in the old version, with vBulletin 3.6.5, but not now in this new one.

Could you please take a look and see if you can fix it?

Thanks a lot!

[siriuxs]

Hi,

now mediawiki functionally correct www.pchs.it/wiki-pchs, but vbWiki no. www.pchs.it/forums/vbWiki

Why?

[Iseran]

Er, the vBWiki folder does not need to be accessed. Is user db not being shared correctly?

Please note all configuration of this is done within the vbWiki_Init.php and vbWiki_Settings.php, and the folder itself does not affect vB.

[ElfMage]

Originally Posted by slappy

BUT, when I create a new wiki page, after submitting the content, the browser screen just turns blank (the content is still received in the wiki though). I tried this several times with the same result, and as soon as I disable the vbWiki extension it works again.

Hi Slappy,

What version of MediaWiki and vbWiki are you using? Could you PM me a link to your site?

Thanks.

[ElfMage]

Originally Posted by siriuxs

Hi,

now mediawiki functionally correct www.pchs.it/wiki-pchs, but vbWiki no. www.pchs.it/forums/vbWiki

Why?

As Iseran describes, you are not supposed to go to the /vbWiki folder. If vbWiki is working when you are logged in into your forum you should be logged in your wiki, and vice-versa. Is this not working in your site?

Thanks.

[slappy]

I'm using the just-released vbWiki Std v1.3 RC4, on a server with MediaWiki: 1.9.3, PHP: 5.2.2 (apache2handler) and MySQL: 5.0.27

PM sent with more details, thanks!

[slappy]

ElfMage, were you able to trace this bug any further? Any ideas for a solution?

[Cooleyvol]

I'm getting a page that looks like this:
http://www.gridiron-glory.net/wiki/

after editing my Local Settings.php file.

You can plainly see my absolute path my vbWiki-Init.php file

My vbWiki directory is under the forums directory.
My MediaWiki directory ("wiki") is outside my forums directory.

Can anyone help me out here?