Mini Mods - Top Groups Module for vBadvanced

What is "Top Groups"?

Top Groups (aka, "Largest Groups") is a module for vBadvanced CMPS that will display in a small box the largest social groups in your online community. This is a very simple add-on (hence, its designation as a "Mini-Mod"), and is designed for people who intentionally want to tinker with the source code to play with and optimize their results.

It's my first vBulletin modification in years, and I'm generally a neophyte at this sort of stuff, so please, be gentle. That said, I'm very interested in your feedback and suggestions on how we can improve upon this module in any way, and any advice or lessons you'd like to share from your own coding experiences would be much appreciated. On a final note, the module was inspired by the work that "Oneback" did on the "Recent vB Blogs" module for vBadvanced, and he is owed my deepest thanks.

Finally, if you like this hack and install it, please:

Mark this Add-on as Installed

Requirements

• vBulletin 3.7.x Series
• Social Groups enabled
• vBadvanced 3.x Series

Installation

Installation is a breeze using vBadvanced's built-in "Download / Upload Module" function in the vBulletin Admin Control Panel. Simply upload/import the attached zipped topgroups.modile file, and you're all done. The .modules file will create the template and the PHP file that you require. You can then activate and position the module in any of your vBadvanced CMPS pages to your heart's content.

Customization

All actual customization is done through the "largestgroups.php" file, which was created during installation in your /forums/module directory. Simply open largestgroups.php in your favorite text editor. There are many ways in which you can customize the output of the module, and because this module is so simple, you can use it as a basic learning tool.

Changing the Number of Top Groups
The default is "5". You can edit the query by changing "LIMIT 5" to "LIMIT X", where X is the number of top groups you'd like to display in your block.

Changing the Forums Path
By default, all links are generated presuming you have installed vBulletin at "/forums" on your site. If you are using a different path, you should search-and-replace all instances of "/forums/" with the proper absolute path. For example, if you installed your forums at your site/domain-root, you would change all instances of "/forums/" to simply "/".

Demonstrations

• "Top Guilds" at Aelyria.com (Author's Site)

Version History

• 1.0.0: Initial Release (June 26, 2008)

[mariannet]

I'm using the Socialgroup forum funktion and all socialgroups messages now is in the groups forum, så maybe thats why.
I have just removed the "Last post by" funktion - still find this hack usefull, thanks!

[Kaelon]

Originally Posted by mariannet

I'm using the Socialgroup forum funktion and all socialgroups messages now is in the groups forum, s? maybe thats why.
I have just removed the "Last post by" funktion - still find this hack usefull, thanks!

The "Last post by" pulls messages only from the Social Group messaging center, not from other add-ons, like Social Forums. So, you'll want to make sure that, even if you have Social Forums up, you also use Social Group messaging.

[uneek1]

Thanks works great. Although for some reason, I had to change the largestgroups.php from linking to forums to forum...don't know why it used forums.

Thanks for the mod.

[Kaelon]

Originally Posted by uneek1

Thanks works great. Although for some reason, I had to change the largestgroups.php from linking to forums to forum...don't know why it used forums.

Thanks for the mod.

I'm glad this worked for you well. Yes, I hard-coded in the /forums path, so in the customization notes above, I suggested that people who use a different path change it:

Originally Posted by Kaelon

Changing the Forums Path
By default, all links are generated presuming you have installed vBulletin at "/forums" on your site. If you are using a different path, you should search-and-replace all instances of "/forums/" with the proper absolute path. For example, if you installed your forums at your site/domain-root, you would change all instances of "/forums/" to simply "/".

[S7rik3R]

Thanks works perfectly without any hazzard ...

[Kaelon]

Originally Posted by S7rik3R

Thanks works perfectly without any hazzard ...

Excellent. Thanks for installing!

[Jon4444]

I really like it. Anyway that each forum could have a small picture for it on the list which could be one of the pictures in the group?

[ade5675]

What am I doing wrong? I get the below error.
I need some help here.

Database error in vBulletin 3.7.2:

Invalid SQL:

### INSERT QUERY GENERATED BY fetch_query_sql() ###
INSERT INTO adv_modules
(`0`, `active`, `userperms`)
VALUES
('', '1', '4,6,8,7,2,5,1,3');

MySQL Error : Unknown column '0' in 'field list'
Error Number : 1054
Request Date : Wednesday, July 23rd 2008 @ 06:38:56 PM
Error Date : Wednesday, July 23rd 2008 @ 06:38:56 PM
Script : http://www.sitename/admincp/vba_cmps...o=uploadmodule
Referrer : http://www.sitename/admincp/vba_cmps...hp?do=download
Username : ade5675
Classname : vb_database
MySQL Version : 5.0.51a-community

[pmkb]

Is it possible to adapt this module to show the groups with most recent activity (like the Available Groups block on the social groups page)?

[Kaelon]

ade5675 - It looks like you have an outdated/modified version of vBaCMPS. Please make sure that you are using the latest version of vBa CMPS; this module was designed to work with vBa CMPS 3.0's Module Import System.

pmkb - Absolutely, but I'm not sure if the proper way to do it would be to add a query (making it two queries), or modify the original query in such a way as to include that information. Any thoughts?

(Also, if you have installed this modification, please mark this add-on as installed so that I can properly support you.)