Miscellaneous Hacks - vbNetwork - share forums with other boards

vbNetwork

Summary

This add-on gives you the ability to share forums with other message boards without having to share any database information. The plugin runs through webservices and uses XML.

Release Notes
Currently the installation is easy but if you want to set up and run your own network it will help if you're familiar with XML. Joining an already existing network is fairly simple.

This plugin is developed using vBulletin 3.8.X and being tested on 3.6.X and 3.8.X. If it works on both of those, I will assume it works on 3.7.X.

If you would like my help writing versions for phpBB, IPB or other message board software, please feel free to contact me.

If you are interested you can join my existing network, but please note that it is mostly a trolling-based community of boards. Feel free to start your own network with other boards.

Product Specifications

1. several plugins
2. one cron job
3. file uploads
4. new DB tables
5. several phrases

Installation
Approx 2-5 mins

See the included installation instructions.

Upgrading/Updating

1. upload all files in the upload directory, overwriting any existing files
2. re-import the XML file, setting "Overwrite" to "Yes"

Configuration

See the included documentation for details.

Support

If you encounter problems or discover any bugs, please create a new issue at: http://code.google.com/p/vbnetwork/issues/list

Change History

• 0.9.0 (2009-02-20) - initial Beta release
• 0.9.2 (2009-05-03) - added (some) logging, fixed bug for 3.8.2
• 0.9.3 (2009-05-03) - added 'Delete' to Network Management, other minor changes
• 0.9.4 (2009-05-08) - added new board and forum management functionality, and some new minor features
• 0.9.5 (2009-05-09) - adds new option to sync network users via email, and added ability to change the network name
• 1.0.0 (2010-06-02) - Version 1.0 for vBulletin 3.8.X

Sample

This is one shared forum on three different boards (the content of this forum may be NSFW).
http://www.anothermessageboard.com/f...splay.php?f=29
http://www.juot.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=50
http://www.drunkensquirrel.net/com/f...splay.php?f=28

PLEASE CLICK INSTALL!

[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by Alfa1

Can i use this mod to show share certain forums between a vb4 and a vb3.8 board?

I know of the 3 forums in the example (mine is 1) one of them is a 4.0.x forum.

[Alfa1]

Awesome. Now if only I could show the same members online on both forums.

Does this addon affect performance?

[BirdOPrey5]

I run it as a cron job and have noticed no hit to performance. The data it's reading and sending is no more then displaying a thread every few minutes anyway so I can't see it ever being an issue.

[djvj]

Installed this mod, and when I click on Network Forum Manager, I get this:
(I removed my ip and username)


Database error in vBulletin 3.8.5:

Invalid SQL:

SELECT DISTINCT subid FROM vb3_network_sub
WHERE (network_sub.networkid = 1)
ORDER BY subid;

MySQL Error : Unknown column 'network_sub.networkid' in 'where clause'
Error Number : 1054
Request Date : Saturday, September 11th 2010 @ 09:59:07 PM
Error Date : Saturday, September 11th 2010 @ 09:59:07 PM
Script : http://www.divinusguild.org/forums/a...tworkforum.php
Referrer : http://www.divinusguild.org/forums/a...dex.php?do=nav
IP Address : X.X.X.X
Username : XXXX
Classname : vB_Database
MySQL Version : 5.0.91-log



Is this because I use a table prefix? I saw this post on the 4.0 version

[djvj]

NM, if you use a table prefix, make the diff changes you find here, it will fix it:

http://code.google.com/p/vbnetwork/s...tworkforum.php

[mavherzog]

I've been wanting this FOREVER. What I'd like to see is this available for multiple forum software packages. phpbb would be a great one to start with. I envision something like that become some sort of standard and eventually working its way into core forum software functionality.

This sort of thing was common place with the old BBS's (ala FIDOnet, WWIVnet, etc).

[Alfa1]

moving threads into network forums sends posts into random threads on remote boards

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. move thread in non-network forum to a network forum
2. post in the thread
3. execute cron job

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

If there is no network thread id for the thread, the remote board should
either reject the post or create the thread. Currently, the post seems to
be assigned to a random thread?

Has this been resolved?

[I.M.O.G.]

I'm receiving a lot of XML parser errors (error code 3 when running the scheduled task) when using this mod.

For example, a post with regular quotes is fine:

I'm Matt, AKA "I.M.O.G."

But a post with these quotes is not:

I’m Matt, AKA “I.M.O.G.”

I'm running a network with 8 nodes, so I'm working at improving the parsing code to be a bit more liberal. I've also noticed you have to be careful about the settings on each board - depending on the image settings and such, you may receive errors if one board in the network has more liberal settings configured than another.

[BirdOPrey5]

yeah, you need to make the max images and max number of characters per post equal on all the boards to prevent the risk of some messages not being accepted and throwing off the whole system. Learned that the hard way.

[OldSchoolDSL]

Working on adding IPB support