Miscellaneous Hacks - SocialForums 1.4

SocialForums for vBulletin 3.7
Created by Marius Czyz aka Phalynx.

This mod will work *ONLY* with vBulletin 3.7 or higher. It will not run on vBulletin 3.6.x due to non existent feature of "social groups".

Support will be only given for people who clicked Mark as INSTALLED.

Description
Not satisfied with vBulletin social groups messaging function? With SocialForums your social group leaders can create a standard forum for their group.
A group leader can only create a forum if the group has at least 5 members - this can be changed via settings. Optionally the group leader can be a moderator of such a social forum.

Permissions
Since 1.3 there are advanced permissions active (Forum and Archive). This includes read/write public and private (moderated/invite only) socialforums and creation of forum. As this needs two additional queries on every page you can disable this.

Demo
None, see screenshots

Installation
This product is fully phrased and uses template hooks. No file changes or manual template edits needed.
1. Upload bitfield_socialforums.xml to existing folder /includes/xml/
2. Upload functions_socialforums.php to existing folder /includes/
3. Fresh Installation: Just import the product. Upgrade: Import the product, allow overwrite. No forums get lost!
4. Check settings, especially for parent forum. Don't forget to set permissions via usergroups!

Troubleshooting
Q: I don't see a link to create a forum. Why?
A: Check permissions for the usergroup, espacially if the user is allowed to create forum.
A: Check if the usergroup meet min users requirement, see AdminCP/Settings/SocialForums.

Q: My users see the forums, but they shouldn't!
A: Check permissions for the usergroup, if the users usergroup is set to "can see".
A: Did you disabled the restriction mode? Enable it.

Todo
- By deleting a group the forum should also be deleted/archived. Currently this has to be done manually.

Known Issues
- On big boards with hundreds of social groups this mod can really impact the performance because of the mass of new created forums. If you still want to use this mod use the "Minimum Members" feature with a higher value. Using the permission check there are additional two queries on every page.

History
1.4.6, 6th October 2008
- Permissions are now also active in Archive

1.4.2, 27th May 2008
- Added: If a group has a linked forum the grouplisting has the last post date and count of postings (with permission check).
- Added: Recent threads in linked forum on group home
- Added: Private groups: Link to forum only shown to members of group
- Changed: Enabled permissions for unregistered usergroup. Unregistered Users are not more explicit denied without a check of it's usergroup

1.3.1, 23th May 2008
- Fixed: Not existing array

1.3.0, 23th May 2008
- Added: Permissions are now active. This includes read/write public and private (moderated/invite only) socialforums and creation of forum. Please check permissions for every usergroup! As this needs two additional queries on every page you can disable this.
- Added: Checks for permission before the creation link will be displayed
- Changed: Default View Age set to "Show all Threads"

1.2.1 8th April 2008:
- Added: Group messaging can be disabled via options (previously: always disabled)

1.2.0 4th April 2008:
- Added: Groupleader can now be moderator of group forum
- Added: Minimum Members that are required for own forum
- Added: Group messaging will be automatically hide for group that has own forum
- Added: Forums are created with more allowances
- Added: By deleting a forum the linked socialgroup get's updated
- Added: Forum's description contains link back to social group
- Added: By changing group's name it synchronize it with the forum's name

1.0/1.1 1st April 2008:
- Initial releases

[FASherman]

Nice hack. Interesting too. About three years or so back, there was a hack here that did something similar. It allowed users to set up their own forum within a forum. It didn't las long as Jelsoft felt it was "subleasing" vBulletin.

I can't remember the author, but it seems like he was too far ahead of the times, coming up with social groups before the concept was mainstream.

At any rate, love this hack and the new direction forums in general are taking. Definitely HOTM material.

[trackpads]

But cant you set the default display for each new forum to 0 so that it is hidden? If I do that for a top level forum it is hidden. Some hacks like the VBTube Pro do this so that the comments forums are hidden.

[Phalynx]

SocialForums has been nominated for Mod of the Month:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=177690

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by trackpads

I think a good interim solution would be making the forum not viewable on the Vb index.

That is in fact a really good idea, which can be set via AdminCP/Settings/SocialForums/Visibility of social forums

Originally Posted by FASherman

Nice hack. Interesting too. About three years or so back, there was a hack here that did something similar. It allowed users to set up their own forum within a forum. It didn't las long as Jelsoft felt it was "subleasing" vBulletin.

I know that case, and it has been clearified with vBulletin in front of the release of this hack.

[FASherman]

I know that case, and it has been clearified with vBulletin in front of the release of this hack.

I wasn't suggesting there was any similar issues with this hack (which I voted for as MOTM). I just thought it is ironic that what that coder was tying to do then has become so mainstream now that we can apply a "social network" label to it.

[trackpads]

Originally Posted by FASherman

I wasn't suggesting there was any similar issues with this hack (which I voted for as MOTM). I just thought it is ironic that what that coder was tying to do then has become so mainstream now that we can apply a "social network" label to it.

Same here, I remember the old one and I vehemently supported it.

This is a fantastic idea and I appercaite you coding it!

Thanks again!

-Jason

[queengoc]

Thank you for this. I just had a member ask about this ability yesterday. My question is, is there a way to set it so that only one social group can start a forum? I am worried about server issues if I allow all of the groups to start their own forum but one of the groups is a book discussion group so this would be a wonderful option for them. If this was asked somewhere else, I'm sorry. I did read the other pages but I've been reading so many different mods lately and at different points I can't remember what is what.

Thanks!

[Phalynx]

They can create the forum and after that set the minimum members required to f.e. 9999

[queengoc]

Ahhhh, very smart. Thanks Phalynx! :up:

[queengoc]

OK, I have another question. When trying to open a new forum I get invalid forum specified. In a previous post this was answered with:

If you get a "Invalid Forum Specified" you should check parent forum setting in AdminCP/Settings/SocialForums

I don't understand what the parent forum should be set as. Currently it says 1. What does it mean by parent forum? I don't want it on the main forum page. I hope that this makes sense.

Thanks!