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

[Phalynx]

This is the first simple version, without any comfort features.

Originally Posted by KURTZ

1) the "create forum" link is showed only when other users are into the SG right? if i've got a SG without any user this links isn't showed ...

Yes, only when the membercount is higher than 1

Originally Posted by KURTZ

2) i understand that only members can post into the created forum, but i'm wonderind about the visibility, if the Admin sets "NO", that means that only the members can view (and post into the forum)?

A social group forum is a normal forum. It's visibility is set to 0, which means it does only hide from forumlisting, but not from accessing it via direct link. There is no support for private sg-forums right now.

Originally Posted by KURTZ

anyway needs some features (maybe put the SG's forum like a subforum no simply a parent) ...

I've a forum called "Community" and this counts for me as a parent forum. all sg-forums are defined as subforums of this "Community" forum. You can set the parent forum also as a category forum...

Originally Posted by KURTZ

ALREADY NOMINATED (it's your second Marius ), i'm waiting new developments ...

Yeah, I'm working on my world supremacy.

[RvG2]

will it work lower than rc1?

[Phalynx]

Yes, I have it running on a Board with Beta 6. It *should* also run on Beta 2...

[KURTZ]

Marius, just a tip, right now i've made some tests onto my local board, and i saw which the SG-forum haven't the same 'Enable / Disable Features' like the 'parent' ... by default you have enable only the 'Count Posts Made in this Forum Towards User Post Counts', all the others are settled 'NO' ... it's correct? maybe is better give the same permissions or not?

[Phalynx]

This is correct. That is something I've still to implement.

[Lionel]

This is a nice idea, but if you have 10,000 members and 5000 of them decide to create a forum, does that mean that you'll have 5000 additional forums in admincp to manage???

[KURTZ]

Originally Posted by Lionel

This is a nice idea, but if you have 10,000 members and 5000 of them decide to create a forum, does that mean that you'll have 5000 additional forums in admincp to manage???

with this version: yes, but some new features are on the way ...

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by Lionel

This is a nice idea, but if you have 10,000 members and 5000 of them decide to create a forum, does that mean that you'll have 5000 additional forums in admincp to manage???

A permission that can be set on a usergroup base is on the way. Also a limitation that only groups with an amount of f.e. 20 members can have a forum.

[Lionel]

Great. Can I also suggest minimum posts? So we reward only top posters?

[Phalynx]

Maybe. A usergroup should be enough in most cases to handle this.