Major Additions - Point Market System 3.1x

Hack Summary
The Point Market System 3.1 is a stand alone "store" or "shop" hack for vBulletin 4x series. This hack is considered a major addition that allows for you to install one or multiple point systems, activity systems, or currency systems to use points for forum related item enhancements or a virtual/physical store system for your vBulletin forum.

The Point Market is actually four major hacks combined into one. Those five major hacks are a Forum Enhancement Store, A Virtual & Physical Store, a detailed Banking/Payment System, Currency to Point Converter, and a Lottery/Gambling Center. Below is a little bit more about each section.

Forum Item Enhancement Store
The Point Market Forum Item section is what is considered a traditional forum store. You can use a very comprehensive Admin background to be able to sell a variety of forum items that can help enhance a user's enjoyability on the forums. In addition, there are many forum items that a user can purchase for other users. I should also note that a point donation is possible in this section since many point systems do not offer the ability to donate. Below is a listing of the market items & categories:

Forum Items User can Purchase
Market Features (Additional Market Access Features Users Can Purchased)
- Steal Protection
- Gift Market Access
- Stolen Point History
- Donation History
- Gambling Access
- Coupon Access
User Title
- Custom User Title
- User Title Glow
- User Title Color
- Usertitle Strikethrough
Gifts / Awards / Ribbons
- Purchase a Gift
- Create a Gift
User Permissions
- Primary Usergroup Change
- Secondary Usergroup Change
Username Permissions
- Change Username
- Username Color
- Username Glow
- Username Strikethrough
Forum Permissions
- Special Forum Access
- Forum Password Access
- Moderate a Forum
- Change Forum Description
- Create a Forum
Images
- Create Smiley Category
- Upload Smiley
- Upload Avatar
Other Users
- Change Custom User Title
- Gift a Gift
- Donate to Another User
- Steal From a User
- Fire a Moderator
- Change Avatar
Posts
- Post Font Bold
- Post Font Color
- Post Font Face
- Post Font Italics
Threads
- Sticky a Thread
- Delete a Thread
- Color a Thread
- Thread Strikethrough
- Ban a User From a Thread

In addition to these powerful Forum Items, the Point Market has revolutionized the way shop systems can handle charging items. The Point Market allows for all market items above to be charged in two different currencies. That means you could use a combination of any of the supporting point mods to charge for each forum item. Additional features that have been recently been introduced involves the ability to set when these market items expire, allowing for only tempory or permanent purchases. Furthermore, Administrators can choose whether to enable/disable the refund capabilities of these market items as well as individual usergroup permissions that can set individual access, coupon capabilities, and an individual maximum purchase.

Other powerful enhancements to our forum item store system allows for Administrators to set the ability of charging for category access in order to access these market items. This will give the user's one more way to stay active and motivated on accumulating points in order to use them for store purchases. A recently introduced user requested feature also allows for subcategories and the ability to create an unlimited amount of duplicate forum items by using the above market items as a template for a new item. This means you can choose to set different quotos for each market item and can truly personalize your forum item store section.

Bank & Paycheck Center
The Point Market version 3.1x series has done some extreme enhancements to how point banking is now handled. Users have the classic ability to be able to use a bank to store two different point system currencies of the Administrators choosing. These currencies are stored and can accumulate primary usergroup interest that is set during a specified time period by the Administrator. Below is an exact list of Banking features.

Bank Features
- Store Two Currencies that are protected from all steal protection
- Allow for interest to be earned controlled by Administrators on a payout period
- Set minimum/maximum fees (usergroup controlled)
- Set minimum/maximum withdraw and deposit amounts (usergroup controlled)

A main change in the Point Market that makes it so different is the concept of receiving paychecks. Many forums that use point systems want the ability to pay their staff or special usergroups with a paycheck to say thanks as a form of payment. The Point Market gives you the ability to pay users on a specified period by the Administrator. There best part about this paycheck feature is the Admin can choose two different amounts that a user can earn. Admins can choose a set amount that is guarenteed during each pay period OR Administrators can choose for the user to earn a percentage of Point Market Forum Item Sales during a specified period that is defined by their primary usergroup. This allows for staff to become almost salesman like within the Market and can also guarentee a fluxuating paycheck based off of activiity.

Virtual & Physical Online Store
Based off of user demands, the Point Market has created a store system that users can create virtual and physical items and sell it on the website with users using points to purchase these items. Administrators can create an unlimited amount of store items. These items have the ability to:

Store Features
- Purchase an unlimited products by the Admin
- Multiple shipping methods (Email, Mail, Downloadable, No Shipping)
- Control shipping costs if by Mail based off a user's Country
- Up to 5 screenshots uploaded by the Administrator that can be viewed
- Give detailed reviews of products purchased
- Rate products 1 to 5
- Control Quantity of available products
- Coupons Enabled

A designated Administrator will immediately be notified via Private Message of a purchase. From there an Admin can enter the Admin Control Panel and choose to ship the product in whatever method the user chose. A log of this purchase is also available for the user who can view it in their User Purchase history as well as the shipping status of the item.

Point Currency Converter
Sometimes you need to generate actual cash revenue. Many users are willing to purchase points for money. So what better way then to introduce a cash transaction center that will allow for the Administrator to set an amount to charge for a set amount of points? This feature is supported via Paypal and allows for a great income method.

Furthermore, some sites like to use more then two currency systems and the Point Market is designed to meet those needs. Users can be able to select from a specified currency list by the Admin and change points from one system to the next at a fee chosen by the Administrator. This is a pretty convinient method to use every point system possible and allow for user's main goal to be as active as possible so that they can adjust their points to their liking.


Lottery & Gambling
Gambling these days are in high demand and the Point Market has set to address it. The Point Market has created 3 seperate games to allow user's to gamble their points on multiplying their points. Those 3 games are:

- Match The Card
- Higher Card
- Lottery

The Lottery has a built in expiration set by the Administrators and can also be used with coupons for discounts. Massive jackpots can be set at a starting amount or at 0 and an adjustable charge price as well. Administrators can also control the odds of the other two games. Finally a powerful Administrative backend will allow for Admins to see information and statistics related to the lottery.


Other Administrative Features
The Point Market has a series of features in addition to the main 5 hacks that creates the Point Market. The author truly believes the reason the Point Market is truly the best shop system is the easy Admin system combined with the powerful feature capabilities. Below are some of the main Administrative features:

- Advanced individual Administrative Access features (controlled by superadmin)
- Detailed Moderator/Supermoderator Control Panel (features controlled by superadmin)
- Informative statistics related to purchases & activity within the market
- History & Transaction log of all Forum Market Items
- Controllable Coupon creation with pages of advanced controls
- Maintenance section used for debugging purposes and serious updates
- Detailed Gift/Ribbon/Award section
- Banking paycheck creation & transaction history


vBulletin.org Mods This Works With
1) vBExperience (Point Market v3.0+)
2) uCash
3) vBookie
4) Kbank
5) vBCredits Deluxe II
6) vBActivity

Integration With Other Mods
This hack has been intended to be integrated with a 3rd party point system. You can choose to either use a hack added on vBulletin.org or write your own point system. The hack is dependent on the user table having a point/credit/cash field within the user control panel. Please note that vBExperience will only work with the Point Market version 3x series.

In addition, if you do not want to integrate this hack directly with another point system. You can still install this hack and use the reputation field, which will allow user's to purchase items based off of their reputation. I suggest if you choose this option that you set all prices to not include any decimals, as it will be useless and cause unwanted errors.

As of the 3.1x series, the Point Market has begun to create individual forum items related to other modifications offered on vBulletin.org. If you would like your hack to have a special feature &/or capability that can be purchased within the Point Market, just let the developer of this modification know. I will gladly work with any developer to create purchaseable forum items within the Point Market that enhances your modification.


Support Policy
The only available modification that can be downloaded now is the 3.1x alpha/beta series. The reason why I have it marked in such titles is because the bugs that are remaining seem to be very minimal and the product is pretty stable. That being said their are still a few features that have not been scripted and are marked in a lime green color above in my post. Those features still might not correctly function once they are introduced into the beta series of the 3.1x series and users should use some caution. That being said, I will do my best to offer support in this thread. In order to gain support, you must have downloaded the Point Market product and be listed as installed with the latest available version. PLEASE NOTE: if you are having an issue, please provide the following information
- URL to the page you are experiencing problems or a database error
- Primary Point Field name (What point system are you using)
- Secondary Point Field name (What point system are you using
I need to know these in order to fix the majority of problems I need to know this information as there are so many combinations and point systems that can cause different problems, this is the only way I can help replicate an error in order to fix it


IMPORTANT UPGRADE INFORMATION: After you have upgraded from version 1.0.4 to version 2x, please visit the Maintenance section of the Admin CP. Please update the transaction counter and refund counter so that user's information is displayed accurately. Do not use the User Title updater unless you have recently run vBulletin's User Title and Rank Updater in the maintenance section of vBulletin's Admin CP. Please note that only purchases after 2.0.1 is installed can be fixed on the User Title Updater within the Market Admin CP. If you are upgrading to the 3.1x series for the first time, please run the update Maintenance scrippted called Forum Expirations to deal with expired forum items.

Screenshot and release information: To view specific information about the historical releases of the Point Market, please visit this post:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....14&postcount=2
This includes a changelog summary and screenshots of the latest version of the Point Market.

Lastly, I ask all users who install it to kindly click the install button and please rate my product as it is my motivation for future versions of this product.

3.1.0 Gold Release Information
Visit https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....postcount=1861 for 3.1.0 Gold Release. This Upgrade IS REQUIRED!

The following directories must be chmodded to 777
/customavatars/
/images/smilies/
/images/pointmarket/store/
/pointmarket/downloads/

[hmtksteve]

Originally Posted by TheMayhem

What is your primary and/or secondary point system?

I'm using vBExperience on its own. Don't know why the gambling costs are screwy.

[TheMayhem]

Originally Posted by M4GN3T

Getting this error: unclosed_tag. While importing the product, any ideas?

Yes, less then 1% of the people who've tried to install this product have had that error. Not sure why because everytime I pm them and ask them for access to their site to try so I can figure out what it is, they never respond

[speedylifestyle]

Originally Posted by TheMayhem

I've honestly done three seperate sitdowns and tried to come up with a way to make the colors work on the user's postbit in the private message without having that bug. I've asked for outside help related to that bug and am awaiting for a response to whether or not there is a way I can keep how I have it without the bug. Otherwise, I'm going to be forced to disable username markup from the market in the postbit of private messages. I'll update this thread as well as the bug tracker once I come up with something since that bug is a priority to me, unfortunately I am stumped on how to fix.

would you be able to provide details on what code to change or a file update so that for the time being we can disable the html working or showing while in private messages, it really is the most frustrating thing in the world.

i'm happy to sacrifice the colors in pm postbit in order to stop having to delete the code in order to send a pm

[M4GN3T]

Originally Posted by TheMayhem

Yes, less then 1% of the people who've tried to install this product have had that error. Not sure why because everytime I pm them and ask them for access to their site to try so I can figure out what it is, they never respond

I can give you access bro, i'll hit you up via PM.

[Sayid]

2 questions:
1: are the purchased items will be owned by the user forever? I mean is there an option to set a period of time user can have that item and then it will be deleted?
2: can u please add a converter of other gift/shop systems to this such as vbcommerce and vbshop?

thanks in advance..

[GONUMBER6]

Hi Mayhem,
I am very happy with how this is working alone, the only problem I have right now is the colored username PM issue. Has that been resolved?

[8thos]

I installed MediaWiki recently. I turned off my shop because usernames that have spaces and characters other than alphanumeric may crash member's accounts. As a result, I changed everyone's names and then limited new user registrations to only alphanumeric characters with no spaces.

AdminCP/Settings/Options/User Registration Options/Username Regular Expression

You may require the username to match a regular expression (PCRE). The admin help provides some examples that may be useful. To disable this function leave the option blank.

^[A-Z0-9]+$

Unfortunately, this restriction is circumvented when buying a Name change in this modification. Is there a way you can fix this please?

[TheMayhem]

Originally Posted by Octavius.

I installed MediaWiki recently. I turned off my shop because usernames that have spaces and characters other than alphanumeric may crash member's accounts. As a result, I changed everyone's names and then limited new user registrations to only alphanumeric characters with no spaces.

AdminCP/Settings/Options/User Registration Options/Username Regular Expression

You may require the username to match a regular expression (PCRE). The admin help provides some examples that may be useful. To disable this function leave the option blank.

^[A-Z0-9]+$

Unfortunately, this restriction is circumvented when buying a Name change in this modification. Is there a way you can fix this please?

I've marked this as a bug and it will fix the up and coming release.



As far as 3.1.0 everything is coming a long nicely. I've been spending a lot of time working with the Admin CP and trying to make things easier to understand and use with everything having it's own section. I've also chopped up the files for the Point Market in the Admin CP and there is now a lot more files needed to upload then before. Trying to get everything to have it's own purpose I guess.

Anyways, I have two days off over Thanksgiving break and I'm going to try and spend a large amount of my time working on getting the first beta release out. That will be just a preliminary one to find some serious flaws and get some feedback on where I've taken this mod. I can safely say the Point Market anymore is basically a crap load of different hacks all bundled up into one. I'll also get some screenshots of the whole system out hopefully on Thanksgiving or so. I'm still targeting a Christmas release for this series as it'll be the last one I can do until spring is over due to me doing my internship this spring.

[8thos]

Originally Posted by TheMayhem

I've marked this as a bug and it will fix the up and coming release.



As far as 3.1.0 everything is coming a long nicely. I've been spending a lot of time working with the Admin CP and trying to make things easier to understand and use with everything having it's own section. I've also chopped up the files for the Point Market in the Admin CP and there is now a lot more files needed to upload then before. Trying to get everything to have it's own purpose I guess.

Anyways, I have two days off over Thanksgiving break and I'm going to try and spend a large amount of my time working on getting the first beta release out. That will be just a preliminary one to find some serious flaws and get some feedback on where I've taken this mod. I can safely say the Point Market anymore is basically a crap load of different hacks all bundled up into one. I'll also get some screenshots of the whole system out hopefully on Thanksgiving or so. I'm still targeting a Christmas release for this series as it'll be the last one I can do until spring is over due to me doing my internship this spring.

Thanks I appreciate it! I turned my shop back on the day I turned it off when I realized all I had to do was just disable the username store bought item.

[maddenminds]

i have vb4 .. few questions :

1) Does i need to upload both attachments given above?

2) Where i have to upload them... mydomain.com/forums/upload ????

3) Why does all vb mods asked to be installed in the upload folders... isn't it create problem when all mods will be in the upload folders in the forum root