Miscellaneous Hacks - Activity Modification

This is the vB3.7/vB3.8 version of this modification.

Description
This hack adds an activity metric for users to your forum; this metric takes into account a variable number of weeks. Also provided is a Junior/Normal/Senior member system based on this metric, and a longevity metric (user registered time as a percent of the amount of time the first user has been registered).

Visiting each day and posting the configured amount of times per day for the configured number of weeks will yeild 100% activity. Posts are checked individually for each day, so days cannot be skipped then spammed up afterwards. The weight of visiting for the day relative to posting is configurable. Weeks are weighted so the most recent has a bigger impact on the activity percent than the most distant.

When a user logs in with activity above the configured threshold, they are promoted from Junior Member to Member. When they log in with the configured amount of time as Member, they are promoted to Senior Member. You can configure the mod to also add secondary usergroups when these promotions happen.

Complexity
This modification requires 1 XML import, uploading of images, and the addition of some CSS, depending on what options you choose

Technical
This hack adds 1 query to showthread for each user who posts in that page (or only 1 for the logged in user by configuration). In addition, the first time a member's post or profile is accessed during a day (GMT), 3 queries are performed to find that user's activity. By configuration, 1 query may be added to each page load to find the logged in user's "activity today". By configuration, 1 query may be added to each member profile view to find that member's "activity today".

Upgradability
This modification will import your settings and data from the 3.0/hack version
This modification will import your settings and data from the 3.5/3.6 mod version

Frequently Asked Questions

• I don't see the Activity Settings section or Activity Maintenance link on the AdminCP navbar
  You're probably seeing a cached (old) copy of the navbar. Try pressing Ctrl-F5 in IE or FF, or whatever your browser requires to force it to load the current version of the page.
• I installed this mod and nothing shows up
  First, go to AdminCP|Activity Settings|Display and make sure the dropdown settings are not set to None. If they aren't set to none, the most likely cause is using an old style which does not have template hooks; verify this by creating a new style without a parent and checking to see if the mod displays on it (the images probably won't load, though). If the mod displays on the default style but not your normal one, you need to add template hooks, otherwise post here for help.
• I installed this mod using the Download/Upload Plugin page and there was an error/it doesn't seem to work
  To install this mod, you need to use the Add/Import Product link on the Manage Products page
• I just installed and everyone's activity seems low
  1. Part of the activity calculation is what days users visited on. This information isn't collected before the mod is installed, so no user can have 100% activity untill you've been running the mod for the full period of time you have it set to monitor
  2. Please realize that there is no "roll over" for activity; if you have it set to look at 4 posts per day, your users must post 4 posts on each individual day to obtain 100%.
• I founded this forum, but I don't have 100% longevity
  Somehow a user's join date has been set before yours. When you install, the mod looks for the earliest join date to use to find longevity, but you can change the baseline date. To change the "Start of board" time, go to Maintenance>Activity Maintenance>Set Start of Board, enter your user number in the text field, then click Set Start of Board
• Why don't the images don't show up?/Why does the postcount have 's's in front of it?
  Be sure to upload one of the activity directories from activityimages.zip to the misc directory for each of your styles. To find a style's misc directory, goto the Style Manager, then from the dropdown next to the style, choose Stylevars. The setting Miscellaneous Images Folder contains the path to that style's misc directory, where you need to upload the activity directory
• Can I use activity for promotions?
  The project to build a full-blown promotion hack for use with this mod has been cancelled, after losing all of my work, however a much simpler system that adds secondary groups based on two thresholds has been added to the main hack.
• Can you make X number get split up into digits?
  I understand where you're coming from with this one, but I just can't figure out a way to work this that would be simple to use.
• The tooltips don't wrap and get cut off with FireFox
  The same thing happens to other vB tooltips (the thumbnail ones, for example). If you know a way to add line breaks to FF tooltips without scripting, please let me know.

Change log

Note: To upgrade, with the old version still installed, go to the Add/Import Product link on the Manage Products page, select the XML file for the new version, choose Yes for overwrite, then click Import.

Update 3.03 release

• Fixed a PHP error that some people were having

Update 3.01 release

• Fixed a PHP warning that did not break anything. It should no longer be added to your error logs.

Update 3.00 release
No changes

Update 3.00 beta 3

• Fixed template to use correct forumhome location
• Separated text-version stat block into its own template
• Moved settings into their own navigation group on the left (refresh AdminCP page after upgrading)
• Added new customization reference page to install zip

Update 3.00 beta 2

• Fixed a bug which prevented the postbit display option from working
• Fixed a bug where the Top Activity link could be in the navbar without the Top Activity page being enabled
• Fixed a bug where certain users have postcount of 'n/a' in Top Activity
• Added diagnostic screen
• Set minimum forum version

Version 3 (3.00 beta 1) vs Version 2 (2.80)

• Added template hook and DOM based styling; manual template modification no longer needed
• Split the options page into four options pages
• Added many options to control the style of the mod
• Added "Countdown to 100%" feature in the Top Activity page
• All new profile page display for vB3.7

Support

Please click the install link if you install this hack
I will support this hack in this thread on about a weekly basis.

[thecore762]

Wired, I can't figured out for the life of me to get this thing installed properly, I keep getting the error on line 107 on global.php

Tell me what to edit, and where to go since I just got started off with vB.

Here is the exact error I get:

Fatal error: Cannot pass parameter 2 by reference in /home/xxxxxx/public_html/forums/global.php(404) : eval()'d code on line 107

My website link: www.47r-squad.com

[WetWired]

Not sure how I missed that one.
Go to Activity Settings>Rank and Promotions, then set Promote in absence to No untill the next release.

[dreads]

isnt that in a defualt setting tat its set to "no"

[thecore762]

Yup, its set to no by default.
Anyways, I still need help with my issue, read post #: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=131

[WetWired]

You can only get that error on that line if the setting is set to yes. The only other thing I can suggest is to comment out the line causing the error untill I can fix it; unfortunately the fix requires rethinking the way I do it, so it'll take a bit of time.

To comment out the offending line, edit the global_start Activity Modification plugin, find

WWU002promoteUser($userinfo,0);

and replace it with

//WWU002promoteUser($userinfo,0);

I intend to post a release fixing this within the next week.

[merk_aus]

nice mod would come in helpful - that way i can reward those who have high activity - thanks

[xyzmary2001]

Geez, I found a very nasty problem and I had to uninstall. I really love this hack, and I want to know what to do to fix the issue.

In fact, when is enabled and a user tries to post, it appears a white page with novpostTD and one has to press "back" button and refresh in order to see what it posted.

Also, under the close threads appears a novPost message, this until I disable the hack.

Please, can you help me with this? I am quite puzzled why this happens and I like very much the hack.

[technom8t]

Originally Posted by xyzmary2001

Geez, I found a very nasty problem and I had to uninstall. I really love this hack, and I want to know what to do to fix the issue.

In fact, when is enabled and a user tries to post, it appears a white page with novpostTD and one has to press "back" button and refresh in order to see what it posted.

http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/2640/novpostiv2.jpg

Also, under the close threads appears a novPost message, this until I disable the hack.

Please, can you help me with this? I am quite puzzled why this happens and I like very much the hack.

does this problem occur on all styles? or just the 1 style, i have it workin on 10 styles on 3.7.3 with no problems at all, it sound like some sort of security token issue with a style, if u have a custom style try reverting the new post template, this may solve the issue, although do note that if you do this and it doesn't work you will have to reinstall the xml file for that style and also add any additional template changes you might have manually made to it before you reverted

thanks

[xyzmary2001]

I have checked now and it appears on all my skins, including the default one.

Also, I have to mention that I have used the second method (I installed the activity folder in misc for every style). I didn't do any template modification, just uploaded the folder and imported the product.

Thanks!

[WetWired]

I've never seen anything like this. If I had to guess, I'd think it meant that the AJAX request wasn't getting what it was expecting, but this is very much a guess. Can you look at your HTTP error log and see if any entries are added when you get this issue?