Major Additions - vBExperience 4

vBExperience 4.1 for vBulletin 4

Tested with all Version of vBulletin Forum and Suite 4.0.4 -> 4.1.11

Created by Marius Czyz aka Phalynx.

Triple Winner of the "Mod of the Month"-Award (March 2008, September 2009, July 2010) on vBulletin.org.

What is vBExperience?
vBExperience is your free feature packaged solution for motivating your users. vBExperience is an advanced and highly customizable level/promotion and activity measure system with awards, achievements, promotions and activities. It will calculate an activity and experience score for every user based on their activites on the forum. Now your users will see how their level is increasing by participating on your forum.

Communities are not only defined by post count, they need much more parameters: Are the postings the user creates helpful? Are his threads frequently read? Does the user participate on the community by posting pictures, attachments, leaving visitor messages, tagging threads? How can the user's activitiy be compared to others? All this can be answered with this mod. Additionally your users get awards and collect achievements for beeing active on your board.

vBExperience is fully translated to many languages. Beside english there are language files for german, french, italian, portuguese, spanish, swedish and chinese simplified. Polish, turkish, persian are not fully translated.

Comments, suggestions, translations, bugs, etc... are very welcome! Support is only given to people who have clicked "Mark as Installed":
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/vborg_mis...hreadid=245023


/***** Demo *****\
No Demosite currently available.


/***** INSTALLATION *****\
Please read the file readme_install_uninstall_upgrade.txt for detailed instructions!


/***** Primary Support *****\
As vBulletin.org does not offer any help managing modifications, espacially the complex one like vBExperience, I have to decided to open a site together with TheMayhem that is dedicated just for this.
It features a forum not just a single thread, a bug and feature tracker. And you also test our modifications over there.



/***** Featurelist *****\

*** Plugins ***
vBExperience can be easily extended by using it's custom data provider interface (CDP). With the CDP everyone is able to create plugins that integrates into vBExperience calculation process. There are already several plugins like Post Thanks Integration.
The plugins data can also be used to create achievements, awards and also promotions.


*** Insight Experience ***
The insight into your personal experience and what's going on on the community. Currently support basic services like activity and some featured achievements, there are plans to extend this with helpful hints on how progress, depending on users points. Also a statistics module is in work.


*** Awards ***
Motivate your users to be the best in a defined category! With the Awards you are able to reward users who collect the most points, f.e. by making new friends and leading a social group.
The awards are shown in Rankings and Profile. You can set them also to display in postbit near the username. There is a scheduled job running once a day (02:30h) to calculate them.
Via AdminCP they are completely customizeable and can also be assigned manually.

Currently there are six default awards: Most Popular, Activity Award, Posting Award, Community Award, Frequent Poster, Blog Award, Calendar Award, Discussion Ender, Master Tagger, User with most referrers, Downloads, Arm of Law, King of Publishing.
You can create as much awards as you like. Just select a title, choose from one of the 250 images and select the required points for it.


*** Achievements ***
Achievements are very similar to the awards a reward to the user. Unlike an award an achievement is not limited to a single user.
Similar to awards, you can create as much achievements as you like. Just select a title, choose from one of the over 500 images and create the required condition for it.


*** Promotion system ***
The promotion system enables you to move users to other usergroups, depending on their experience points. You can create conditions that have to be met to be promoted. Benefits and extended permissions will be shown automatically to the user. Promotions are showing also possible jumps from current to the next possible group with the required conditions.
Using this you can create multiple groups and assign additional features. Just an example: Usergroup 1 has no custom avatars and just a capacity of 20 private messages. With a condition of 1000 Experience points the user moves to Usergroup 2, where the user is able to upload his own avatar and store more private messages.


*** Rankings ***
Showing User, Level, Awards, Activity Points (experience, thread, post, user, misc) - sortable.


*** Social Groups Rankings ***
Starts the competition between social groups! This feature ranks the groups depending on their average user experience points.


*** Earn Points ***
This is an overview for the user on how points can be collected. It features also a possibility to compare own points to the community's average. All data is beeing pulled automatically from the database.


*** Give Away Points aka Point Donation ***
Users can donate their points to other community members. Choose the field which will be used for give away and select the amount that will be transferred. Admins can donate custom points to the user.


*** Statistics aka Leaderboards ***
The leaderboard is showing a Top-x list of the leading users. Usefull for optimizing points of the point provider. Only enabled point providers with results will be displayed.


*** Shop aka Market ***
vBExperience integrates easily with the Point Market System v3 by TheMayham (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=232676).
It features a virtual item store, username items, bank, gifts, gambling, lottery, and a lot more!
As of vBExperience 4.0, the vBExperience 3.8 Shop has been discontinued.



/***** Collecting Points *****\
vBExperience is collecting points for a user counting his actions in the community. The collected points can be used to reward users with awards, achievements and promotions - even if the collected data comes from a plugin.

Beside the automatic collection, the admin can manually donate custom points to the user, for example for a special reward. Of course you can use this also for awards, achievements and promotions.


Taken into calculation are these things:
Threads
- Creating threads and gaining additional points from views, replies, votes and ratings to this thread
- Creating thread tags
- Making a thread sticky
- Socialgroup Discussions (Discussions, Posts)

Posts
- Creating posts
- Views on attachments (needs "Who Downloaded This Attachment?" installed)

User
- Days since registration
- Average posts per Day (for users who are registered for at least seven days)
- Referrals
- Received infractions
- Given infractions ("Arm of Law")
- Reputation / Use of reputation system
- Visitor messages on profiles
- Creating social groups and getting members
- Uploading pictures
- Making friends
- Completing profile

Misc
- Doing calendar entries
- Writing vBulletin Blogs (vBulletin 4 Suite required)
- Publishing content with vBulletin CMS (vBulletin 4 Suite required)
- Manually assigned points

Additionally there is support for 3rd party modifications:
- Point Market System / Items Shop (included)
- Project Tools (plugin)
- Who Downloaded This Attachment? (plugin)
- DownloadsII v6 (included)
- LDM Links and Downloads Manager (included)
- Abe1 Post Thank You (plugin)
- DBTech Advanced Post Thanks/Like (Lite) (plugin)
- DBTech Advanced @UserTag (plugin)
- Helpful Answers (plugin)
- iTrader (plugin)
- ibProArcade (plugin)
- v3arcade Champions and Submissions (plugin)
- vB Tournaments and Ladders (plugin)
- Advanced Forum Points - set points independent for every forum (plugin)
- Consuming points by downloading attachments ("pay" for attachments) (plugin)
- IWT Time Spent Online (plugin)
- PhotoPost Pro 7 (plugin)
- PhotoPost vBGallery 3 (plugin)
- 8WR Media Library (plugin)
- vBSoccer (plugin)
- vBookie (plugin)
- vBookie Cash (plugin)
- Farcaster's Event Attendance (plugin)
- PhotoPlug (plugin)
- EasyForms (plugin)
- Triple Triad (plugin)
- AWCoding Donation System LITE (shipped within that product)
- AWCoding Donation System PRO (shipped within that product)
- AWCoding Subscription System PRO (shipped within that product)
- AWCoding Credit Purchase System LITE (shipped within that product)
- AWCoding Credit Purchase System PRO (shipped within that product)
- AWCoding Pirate Poker PRO (shipped within that product)
- AWCoding Pirate Poker Platinum (shipped within that product)
- AWCoding Product System PRO (shipped within that product)



You have to install these modifications for your own, vBExperience doesn't install nor touches these.
More addons will be published as soon as they are finished.



/***** Calculation of the activity *****\
The system calculates the activity (week, month and also a custom defined datespan, 60) by counting the actions a user has done. An action can be a post, a new thread, rating, download, etc... The activity bars will be filled during the first weeks. This has changed from earlier versions where just postings, visitor- and group messages have been counted.



/***** Settings *****\
You can control how many points are given to every calculation. For example you can give many points for creating new threads but only a few for views of that thread. Setting a value to 0 will disable a setting.
Many settings regarding the behaviour of vBExperience are making it easy to adjust it to your needs. You can select from 10 colors for the progress bars and also choose from around 250 icons.
Additionally, you can set ignore users (f.e. for bot users), forums (f.e. offtopic forums) and usergroup id's. Please keep in mind that out of the box the usergroupid 6 (Administrators) is beeing ignored.



/***** Performance, especially on Big Boards *****\
vBExperience has been tested on smaller and also on some bigger sites. I know from boards with around 120k users running this mod smoothly. More about this topic can be read in the file readme_optimization.txt



/***** Frequently asked questions *****\
Q: How do I change the name Experience to something new?
A: You can change the name via phrases. Just search and replace all phrases that contains the word "Experience".

Q: When installing vBExperience, does everyone start from scratch, or will it automatically configure everyone's points based on actions before the install?
A: If you recount, vBExperience will calculate ALL existing data since the beginning of the board. If you used vBCredits, vBActivity, uCash and similar systems - there is no need to convert the points.

Q: My conditions don't work correctly on achievements and promotions.
A: Conditions in achievements and promotions are calculated in POINTS, not in count of items.
If you create an achievement for reaching the first 10 Days, you must enter the points needed for this. If you reward 2 points for every day, you have to set 2 points for every day since registering. Calculation: 10 days * 2 points = 20 as condition. So you will have to set 20 as the condition.

Credits for images
- FAMFAMFAM, http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/
- IconExperience



/***** History *****\

vBExperience 4.1.1

Please reinstall ALL plugins you are using from the ZIP\Plugins! Espacially if you get SQL Errors after reinstalling vBExperience.

- Fixed Plugin for 8WR_Media_Library
- Fixed Plugin for Advanced_Forum_Points
- Fixed Plugin for Attachment_Consumes_Points
- Fixed Plugin for EasyForms
- Fixed Plugin for Post_Thanks_Abe1
- Fixed border around boxes
- Fixed not correctly saving award images
- Extended character length for manual award assignment
- Several smaller fixes

vBExperience 4.1.0, 16th December 2011

- Introduced the feature to start the calculation by a defined date. By default all data will be considered for calculation. Please keep in mind that there are some data that cannot be filtered by date, like added friends. You need to re-install all plugins to have them obeying the new calculation limit. This feature has been sponsored by BryanB. Thanks!
- Fixed Discussion Ender, can be now disabled by setting value to 0
- Fixed Arm of Law, can be now disabled by setting value to 0
- Insight: Optimized layout
- Insight: Optimized colours for darker styles
- Achievement "Three Friends" renamed to "Social" (does not affect existing achievement)
- Renamed point descriptions so they can be identified better as point system (f.e. Days since registered -> Points for every day since registration)
- Added: Romanian Translation (thanks to Teascu Dorin)
- Custom Points can now have a category, can be used as entry point for other modifications using vBExperience points, eg. Market/Shop purchases
- Fixed several smaller issues

Changelog for other versions is in history.txt

[horussjr]

huge error from the database when tring to install...

Database error in vBulletin 4.1.1:

Invalid SQL:
UPDATE language SET title = title, phrasegroup_cprofilefield = 'a:18:{s:12:\"field10_desc\";s:60:\"Aici trebuie să ?ţi introduci numele tău real\";s:13:\"field10_title\";s:9:\"Nume Real\";s:11:\"field1_desc\";s:26:\"C?teva detalii despre tine\";s:12:\"field1_title\";s:12:\"Biografia Ta\";s:11:\"field2_desc\";s:19:\"Unde locuieşti\";s:12:\"field2_title\";s:24:\"Reşedinţă \";s:11:\"field3_desc\";s:20:\"Pasiunile tale,
.......................................ETC ETC.............................................
Activity\";s:15:\"xperience_stats\";s:10:\"Statist ics\";}' WHERE languageid = 3;

MySQL Error : Got a packet bigger than 'max_allowed_packet' bytes
Error Number : 1153
Request Date : Wednesday, January 19th 2011 @ 11:43:56 PM
Error Date : Wednesday, January 19th 2011 @ 11:44:00 PM
Script : http://www.stormzone.ro/forum/adminc...=productimport
Referrer : http://www.stormzone.ro/forum/adminc...?do=productadd
IP Address : 79.117.100.135
Username : Lloyd
Classname : vB_Database
MySQL Version : 5.0.91-community-log

cant post you all the message. it has 1 mill characters). need help please. what is the problem. i think is related to language but can figure out what

[Sunka]

Database error every 10 minutes.

Database error in vBulletin 4.1.0:

Invalid SQL:
SELECT 
        dbtech_thanks_likes,
        dbtech_thanks_liked,
        dbtech_thanks_thanks,
        dbtech_thanks_thanked
        FROM user
        WHERE userid = 1;

MySQL Error   : Unknown column 'dbtech_thanks_likes' in 'field list'
Error Number  : 1054
Request Date  : Friday, January 21st 2011 @ 01:30:11 AM
Error Date    : Friday, January 21st 2011 @ 01:30:12 AM
Script        : http://www.pijanitvor.com/cron.php?rand=1295569810
Referrer      : http://www.pijanitvor.com/showthread.php?t=8839&p=118840
IP Address    : ***********
Username      : Unregistered
Classname     : vB_Database
MySQL Version :

On DB Tech forum they say that is nothing they can do about this error => "This is a bug in vBExperience's integration with APTL."

Phalynx, could you help please?

[Phalynx]

I'm now back from vacation.

Originally Posted by Dirks

Edit: Also, our EXP system starts at level 0. Is there anyway to modify the level XML to show that or not? I put in an input for (0,2000,2) but it doesn't seem to do anything.

There is no way for it.

Originally Posted by wampforum

great mod - i wondered whether theres a possibility of add ons for wikis (via the mediawiki mod and links directory?
also maybe for voting in polls?

You can add some more calculation with the CDP Plugins.

Originally Posted by wampforum

Also I asked ages ago about the ability to manually assign achievements to users and you were going to implement it - I cant seem to find it or has it not been done yet?

It seems your achievements are outdated. Please try to re-create them via AdminCP, Experience, Manage Achievements, Clear and create default

Originally Posted by wampforum

I,m having problems with some post achievements - the awards are all set up correctly but the posting awards wont work correctly - for instance I have one award for having between 2500-5000 posts I set 2 conditions one saying Post more than 2499 and the other Posts less than 5000 I then clear achievements and logs and recount - problem is its only assigning this to half the users that have a post count between that number. It does these on the other awards too. I have tried changing all my posting awards conditions over to Points for Posts instead (1 point per post) but this doesnt work either.
Not sure what to do - I have deleted several of these achievements and re-created them - checked the conditions numerous times but its still not working correctly. I wondered if I'm assuming the Posts condition value wrong - I'm assuming Posts means actual posts made and nothing else? (I have 1 point awarded per post anyway so it cant be that!)


cheers

There are "Points for posts" and "Points for posts" - one is the sum of all posting relevant data, the other are the real thread postings.

Originally Posted by RichieBoy67

I just want to make sure I am doing this correctly for a client. What is the proper procedure for resetting Vb experience to 0? I would like to reset everything..

Thanks

Never mind--I believe the client wants to count new posts from a certain date... I am all set with the resetting. When you reset this will shjow users current count and not start at zero..I believe this is what the client wants..

Resetting is currently not possible.

Originally Posted by segamarius

I have some problems .. see picture .... i'm using v4.08

It seems the images are missing. Please re-uplad the /xperience/ folder to the server.

Originally Posted by sweetpotato

When I decrease points for all factors, user groups did not demote to the groups equal with the points. How can I solve this problem?

Demoting does not work at all, you need to create another promotion and move the user from higher to the lower group.

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by sweetpotato

I also find something wrong in this phrase but don't know how to fix it

<a href="member.php?u={1}">{2}</a> sent <b>{3} {4}</b> points to <a href="{5}">{6}</a>

Anyone please instruct me?
Thank you,

What's wrong with that phrase?

Originally Posted by dearone

hello everyone where should i put plugin folder

Please click "Mark as Installed" to get further support.
You can install the XML files if you are having the products installed, to gather points from them.

Originally Posted by robhole

Without needing to read all previous 115 pages... is this mod really worth installing? I'm debating on it but 1/4 posts I read people are having issues??

This is a major addition with much features. Most issues are related to users environment or installation errors like files that have not been transfered to server. Other "issues" are improvement requests.
At least this is a support thread where you get answers. And the installation count is speaking also a language....

Originally Posted by DevinM

How does the vbookieplugin work? What I mean is when I set an achievement up and use "vbookie Bets" as my condition, what is it counting? Just my point value per bet?

It's counting won bets.

Originally Posted by DevinM

I seem to have 4-5 users that almost no matter what I set it to they keep the achievement. Ive done reconts, re-installs, deleted/re-added the achievment.....all the same.

You must set it and take it away from all users.

Originally Posted by DevinM

Nevermind this hack isnt counting right for pretty much anything. I added an achievment for days since registration (5 years).....4 users won it......which is odd since our forums wont be 5 years old til march. I tried using days and points as the calculation.

At closer glance there are many calculation errors so I just shut it off. Im going to have a coder look at my install.

Are you sure you set the required points for 5 years?!?

Q: My conditions don't work correctly on achievements and promotions.
A: Conditions in achievements and promotions are calculated in POINTS, not in count of items.
If you create an achievement for reaching the first 10 Days, you must enter the points needed for this. If you reward 2 points for every day, you have to set 2 points for every day since registering. Calculation: 10 days * 2 points = 20 as condition. So you will have to set 20 as the condition.

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by jamshed

"points required for next level: 0"

stays at 0.. i did create new thread, post etc.. but it doesn't level up :/ .

It does not recount immediatly, it does it only every 10 minutes. There is a cron running.

Originally Posted by RK KINGKONG

can someone tell me , the plug in xml files in this zip , do i reinstall these even if i have some already and do i choose overwrite or not .??.. so for instance i have some of these mods , i want them to work with this mod ofcourse , do i upload the corresponding xml files to the mods i already have and re upload them & CHOOSE OVERWRITE OR JUST UPLOAD ?

The plugins are required to connect a MOD with vBExperience. It is not the mod itself. You should overwrite an existing.

Originally Posted by horussjr

huge error from the database when tring to install...


cant post you all the message. it has 1 mill characters). need help please. what is the problem. i think is related to language but can figure out what

Increase the max_allowed_packet, search for it here at the forums, you are not the single one having this issue. It's only related to vBExperience.

Originally Posted by Sunka

Database error every 10 minutes.

Database error in vBulletin 4.1.0:

Invalid SQL:
SELECT 
        dbtech_thanks_likes,
        dbtech_thanks_liked,
        dbtech_thanks_thanks,
        dbtech_thanks_thanked
        FROM user
        WHERE userid = 1;

MySQL Error   : Unknown column 'dbtech_thanks_likes' in 'field list'
Error Number  : 1054
Request Date  : Friday, January 21st 2011 @ 01:30:11 AM
Error Date    : Friday, January 21st 2011 @ 01:30:12 AM
Script        : http://www.pijanitvor.com/cron.php?rand=1295569810
Referrer      : http://www.pijanitvor.com/showthread.php?t=8839&p=118840
IP Address    : ***********
Username      : Unregistered
Classname     : vB_Database
MySQL Version :

On DB Tech forum they say that is nothing they can do about this error => "This is a bug in vBExperience's integration with APTL."

Phalynx, could you help please?

It seems there is a new version of the DBTech Thanks/Like and a changed column definition, will take a closer look later.

[sweetpotato]

What's wrong with that phrase?

I have fixed the problem successfully
The phrase:
<a href="member.php?u={1}">{2}</a> sent <b>{3} {4}</b> points to <a href="{5}">{6}</a>
should be:
<a href="member.php?u={1}">{2}</a> sent <b>{3} {4}</b> points to <a href="member.php?u={5}">{6}</a>

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by sweetpotato

I have fixed the problem successfully
The phrase:
<a href="member.php?u={1}">{2}</a> sent <b>{3} {4}</b> points to <a href="{5}">{6}</a>
should be:
<a href="member.php?u={1}">{2}</a> sent <b>{3} {4}</b> points to <a href="member.php?u={5}">{6}</a>

You are right, didn't saw this. Thanks for pointing me to it. Fixed in next version.

[Sunka]

• Phalynx, how to give some points to some usergroup?
  Let say that I want to give 100 points to all users in VIP group, is that possible?
  If not, could you set this in ACP in new version of this MOD, so then we could give bonus points to members of some group.
  
  Untill then, could you tell me "Run SQL query" for that?
  
  
• Another question, I can't put graphic bars in middle of my postbit (horizontal, not legacy), even if I use mannualy code in template, allways bars are broken. It is pity, because middle of postbit on my forum is empty....
  
  
• And for the end, thank you for looking to fix database error DB Tech Thanks mod <==> vBExperience mod

[MAdotcom]

I am getting this error when I try it import the XML file... I uploaded all files from "upload_via_ftp" to my server with no problem but I'm getting this.

Unable to find a class to validate: vB_TemplateParser_Curlycssfile on line 1083 in /home/mensalmanac/htdocs/includes/class_template_parser.php
#0 /home/mensalmanac/htdocs/includes/class_template_parser.php(1019): vB_TemplateParser->validate_curly(Object(vB_CurlyNode), Array)
#1 /home/mensalmanac/htdocs/includes/adminfunctions_template.php(2863): vB_TemplateParser->validate(Array)
#2 /home/mensalmanac/htdocs/includes/adminfunctions_plugin.php(545): compile_template('{vb:stylevar ht...')
#3 /home/mensalmanac/htdocs/admincp/plugin.php(1714): install_product(' #4 {main}

Fatal error: Unable to find a class to validate: vB_TemplateParser_Curlycssfile on line 1083 in [path]/includes/class_template_parser.php in [path]/vb/vb.php on line 287
#0 vb_error_handler(256, Unable to find a class to validate: vB_TemplateParser_Curlycssfile on line 1083 in /home/mensalmanac/htdocs/includes/class_template_parser.php , /home/mensalmanac/htdocs/vb/vb.php, 287, Array ([exception] => Exception Object ([] => Unable to find a class to validate: vB_TemplateParser_Curlycssfile,[] => ,[] => 0,[] => /home/mensalmanac/htdocs/includes/class_template_parser.php,[] => 1083,[] => Array ([0] => Array ([file] => /home/mensalmanac/htdocs/includes/class_template_parser.php,[line] => 1019,[function] => validate_curly,[class] => vB_TemplateParser,[type] => ->,[args] => Array ([0] => vB_CurlyNode Object ([type] => curly,[value] => cssfile,[attributes] => Array ([0] => socialgroups_overview-ie.css,[1] => sidebar-ie.css),[] => 0),[1] => Array ())),[1] => Array ([file] => /home/mensalmanac/htdocs/includes/adminfunctions_template.php,[line] => 2863,[function] => validate,[class] => vB_TemplateParser,[type] => ->,[args] => Array ([0] => Array ())),[2] => Array ([file] => /home/mensalmanac/htdocs/includes/adminfunctions_plugin.php,[line] => 545,[function] => compile_template,[args] => Array ([0] => {vb:stylevar htmldoctype} dir="{vb:stylevar textdirection}" lang="{vb:stylevar languagecode}" id="vbulletin_html"> {vb:raw headinclude} {vb:raw headinclude_bottom} {vb:raw header} {vb:raw navbar}

[Crotan]

For Plugins, does anything more have to be done after they are imported?

Also what are the vBExperience\extras\Levels xml files? Do I have to import them to get the additional levels to work?

Also seems to be a formatting issue with the featured window, the best group text covered the group photo.


From what I've seen so far this is pretty damn good! Thanks