Profile Enhancements - Gender Bit: Show gender symbol next to username in postbits and many other places

My first public mod. Please be kind to me

Description:
Gender Bit shows gender symbol next to username in postbits. See "prerequisite" and "Installation guide" below.

Features:

• Fully uses plugins so there is no need to customize any templates
• Makes use of the built-in User Profile Field system
• Configurable through vBulletin Options
• Includes a number of male-or-female symbol sets to choose from
• Easily enable/disable the gender symbols in various places
  • Postbits, private messages, announcements etc
  • Memberlist
  • Profile pages
• No database changes, no extra queries (instead it utilizes existing queries to fetch the gender info), no template edits, in short, no mess.
• Version 1.0.2 and above: Now also takes care of default profile pictures and friends' avatars by showing default male/female avatar accordingly
• Version 1.0.2 and above: Exposes a globally-scoped function genderbit_getgender for other mods and plugins to make use (refer change logs below for details)
• New in 1.1.0: Support for the third gender type ...

Prerequisite:
A custom user profile field designated for members' gender must be manually created in user profile field manager. If your forum does not already have one and you have no idea how to create it, please read included README.txt for instructions.

Download guide:

• Download and install the latest version only. The older versions are there for record purpose only.
• The main product package file is Gender Bit x.x.x.zip. You would only need to install this to get the gender symbols in your postbits.
• Gender Bit Ext x.x.x (requires Gender Bit x.x.x).zip is an extension product that displays gender-aware default avatars for your users. Only install this if you want to have the default avatars showing sillhoutte of a man or a woman depending on your users' genders.

Installation guide:

1. Upload the includes and images folders (inside the zipped upload folder) to your vbulletin directory (usually /forum). The folders should merge with existing /forum/includes and /forum/images.
2. Import the product XML in AdminCP product manager. Then, head straight to the option page for Gender Bit under vBulletin Options.
3. Configure the "User profile field name" to be the name of the user profile field. Usually it is in the form of 'fieldX' where X is a number.
4. Also configure the "Field value: Male" and "Field value: Female" to be the value(s) of the profile field when a member selects "Male" or "Female" respectively. If there are multiple values that refer to male (or female), separate them using pipe characters, example: Boy|Gentleman
5. Lastly configure the other options to your likings.
6. Save and the gender symbol will appear in postbits for members who have set their gender profile field.

Upgrading guide:
Same as installation, with the only difference is to tick the "Overwrite" checkbox when importing the product xml). Also, you would need to check the options page (Admin CP > vBulletin Options > Gender Bit) for any new settings.

Uninstallation guide:
To uninstall simply uninstall the product from AdminCP product manager. Optionally delete the images and xml files:
/images/misc/gender_*.gif
/images/misc/unknown_*.gif
/includes/xml/bitfield_genderbit*.xml

Changelogs:

Version 1.0
- Initial version

Version 1.0.1
- Replaced align="absmiddle" with CSS to pass XHTML validation
- Extra image sets for male/female with a new option in vB Options to choose which set to use

Version 1.0.2
- Fixed php errors in private messages and a few other places
- New: Option to show gender symbol in memberlist
- New: Gender Bit can now take care of default profile pictures and friends' avatar to show default male/female avatar
- New: Exposes a globally-scoped function genderbit_getgender($registry, $userinfo, $unknown='') that returns 'male', 'female' or $unknown. The three parameters are:

• $registry: the vbulletin core object, usually $vbulletin but may be $this->registry in some vb classes
• $userinfo: the userinfo array, which usually holds 'userid' and 'username'
• $unknown: string to return if $userinfo does not contain gender information. default to empty string

Version 1.1.0
- Major revamps.
- Added: a lots more places where the gender symbols will appear, with options to turn each one of them on/off in vBulletin Options
- Added: the third gender for those who think two genders are not enough.
- Changed: Gender Bit will only look for the images in forumdir/images/misc by default unless overridden in vBulletin Options.
- Starting from this version, the handling of gender-aware default avatars and profile pictures have been separated into an extension product named "Gender Bit Extension". Gender Bit does NOT require Gender Bit Extension to operate but Gender Bit Extension REQUIRES Gender Bit.

Note: Should also work in vB 3.6.x, but I haven't done any testing in that vB version.

Troubleshooting (aka why aren't the symbols/images showing?)

Step 1:
In { AdminCP > vBulletin Options > Gendet Bit } check if you have configured "Field value: Male" and "Field value: Female" to match what your members would choose if they are male or female. If in your forum/language "Shalabadaba" means "male" and "Shubidubidu" means "female", enter Field value: Male = "Shalabadaba" and Field value: Female = "Shubidubidu". Just overwrite the default "Male" and "Female" in the textboxes.

Step 2 (version 1.1.0 and above):
Still in { AdminCP > vBulletin Options > Gendet Bit }. Try setting Gender symbols image set = "Text/Font" to see if the symbols appear. If it does then you forgot to upload the images into ALL /images/misc folders for ALL STYLES installed in your forum.

Step 3:
From your showthread pages, find the following part (page navigation):

Right-click on the down-pointing arrow and select "Properties" from the popup menu. Check the path to the file, usually in the form of "http://www.yoursite.net/forum/images/misc/menu_open.gif". The bolded part is the path of the misc images folder for your current style. If it says "http://www.yoursite.net/forum/images/yuppie/v4/misc/menu_open.gif" then upload the gender images into forum/images/yuppie/v4/misc/

[PAKIDIL]

i want to know formats like .swf or flv will work using this hack ?

[ReCom]

Originally Posted by PAKIDIL

i want to know formats like .swf or flv will work using this hack ?

What are you going to do with the .swf or .flv?

[LisaJH]

I dont understand what i have to write in the Profile Field bit....

[ReCom]

Originally Posted by LisaJH

I dont understand what i have to write in the Profile Field bit....

Please refer to the second screenshot and see if it helps you, otherwise read on.

First, do you already have a User Profile Field for gender (look in AdminCP > User Profile Fields > User Profile Field Manager).

If you don't, create one by going to AdminCP > User Profile Fields > Add New User Profile Field. Select Profile Field Type = Single-selection Menu and click 'Continue'. On the next page put title, descriptions etc, but for the Options box, enter 'male' and 'female' text in your forum language. Save the new user profile field.

Back in User Profile Field Manager, find the user profile field for gender that you created. Look at its 'Name' column, there should be 'fieldX' written there (where X is a number). In my forum it is 'field5' but it might be different in yours.

Now go to AdminCP > vBulletin Options > vBulletin Options > Gender Bit and enter the 'fieldX' in the "User profile field name". Also configure the 'male' and 'female' values to match the texts you entered in the 'Options' box when creating the user profile field.

That said, this addon will only give useful outputs if your members update the gender profile field.

[ReCom]

Version 1.0.2 is up with many changes (see change logs)

A special note to other coders, version 1.0.2 exposes a globally-scoped function (refer changelogs) that your mod/plugin can call to get the user gender so that it is possible to build upon this mod. One nice idea for mod is the gender-aware phrase system that many have requested in this forum.

Maybe I should stop looking at the code or else I won't stop adding features ...

[shlomot]

Thank you so much for this long awaited conditional default picture display for male/female and anything in between (on my site we have also bi-directional transgenders).

Works great on vb3.8 beta 3

As they say - appetite comes with eating, and now we ask you to implement the same conditional default for avatars.

I believe that you'd like to mention that the male and female pictures that are provided with the package can be replaced to fit different site themes. These images are unknown_male.gif and unknown_female.gif respectively.

Bless you. INSTALLED, VOTED & NOMINATED.

[Hannan]

Nice Mod, Thanks

[ReCom]

Originally Posted by shlomot

As they say - appetite comes with eating, and now we ask you to implement the same conditional default for avatars.

Version 1.1.0 is coming soon. The male/female default avatar/profilepic will be a part of main feature together with gender symbols, and there will be separate configuration options for the two features. All this warranted the sudden jump in version number from 1.0.2 to 1.1.0

Originally Posted by shlomot

Bless you. INSTALLED, VOTED & NOMINATED.

THANKS!

p/s: attached is screenshot of configuration options for symbols and avatars to drool over

[shlomot]

Thanks a lot. Drooling has warrented drooling indeed.

Since there's a lot of terminology interchange in these posts, I just hope that the new version takes care of both member picture and member avatar.

Would we be able to show one image for avatar and one for the picture?

Thanks again for a MOD well done.

Originally Posted by ReCom

Version 1.1.0 is coming soon. The male/female default avatar/profilepic will be a part of main feature together with gender symbols, and there will be separate configuration options for the two features. All this warranted the sudden jump in version number from 1.0.2 to 1.1.0


THANKS!

p/s: attached is screenshot of configuration options for symbols and avatars to drool over

[ziggylol]

Thanks, Great Mod