Miscellaneous Hacks - Hide Online Status of Usergroups/Users

Overview:

This product will give you complete control over who knows who is online. You can select usergroups and users whose online status is hidden from everyone, except members of usergroups and individual users from whom you decide no one will be hidden. When a user's online status is hidden, those from whom it is hidden will never see them shown as online in the "Currently Active Users" section of "What's Going On?" (WGO) or on the "Who's Online" page, or on their profile page or in their postbits.

A hidden user will show up in the list of recent visitors in the WGO section, however, their cited time of last activity will be either their last visit time, or time of last post/PM/VM...whichever is the most recent, so as to arouse the least suspicion. This same time of last activity will be shown on their profile page as well.

You can also define "Troublesome Users" which are dual sets of users, the first set which is hidden from the second, and if you enable the reciprocity for this setting, the second set will also be hidden from the first. You may define as many dual sets of troublesome users as you want.

Also, you can set whether hidden users are hidden from themselves. If you wish to make it less obvious to users that their online status is being hidden then set this to "No" and if you want hidden users to see that they are hidden, set this to "Yes."

The users you set as those from whom no online status is hidden will see everyone's true online status, regardless of the other settings.

Updates:

Version 1.1:

• Added option to show hidden users as guests.

Version 1.2:

• Hidden users shown as guests now moved to the end of the guest list on Who's Online.

Version 1.3:

• Fixed reported issue of memberaction dropdown giving away online status.

Version 1.3.1:

• Added option to turn off online status tooltip from all memberaction dropdown links.

Version 1.3.2:

• Amended option to turn off online status tooltip from all memberaction dropdown links to include online status indicators in postbits.

Version 1.3.3:

• Added option to set whether the active usercounts will be adjusted to account for hidden users or not.

Compatibility:

Tested and working on VB 4.2.x and may work on all 4.x versions of vBulletin.

Backup/Warning:

This product does not alter your database, however it is always good practice to make regular backups and you should make a backup before installing ANY new mod.

As always, products are USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. I will provide support and do my best to help but no absolute guarantee is offered.

To Install:

1. Download and extract the attached .zip file.
2. Follow AdminCP -> Plugins & Products -> Manage Products -> Add/Import Product.
3. Click on "Choose File" and browse to the product .xml file that was packaged in the .zip file.
4. Click "Import."
5. You MUST enable the product in the settings before it will function.
6. Configure the remaining settings to your liking. Each setting has a detailed explanation of its use.

Support for this product can be found here:

• MHB - Hide Online Status of Usergroups/Users
• TAZ - Hide Online Status of Usergroups/Users

[In Omnibus]

The only concern I have in using this product is it might make a forum appear inactive to guests. If guests can see who's online then it serves no purpose to block registered usergroups.

I'm sure there's a way around this but I'm not quite sure what it is.

[chloe101]

That was fast! Thank you. Now they all show as offline which is great. Is there any way to turn that useless little hover message off totally?

[MarkFL]

Originally Posted by In Omnibus

The only concern I have in using this product is it might make a forum appear inactive to guests. If guests can see who's online then it serves no purpose to block registered usergroups.

I'm sure there's a way around this but I'm not quite sure what it is.

Guests cannot see hidden users, nor can they see users who have chosen to be invisible either.

You probably wouldn't want to have a large number of users as hidden with this product. However, there are more indicators of an active community besides the number of users seen to be online at any given moment, such as new threads/posts, etc.

This won't hide who has visited within the last 24 hours either.

[MarkFL]

Originally Posted by chloe101

That was fast! Thank you. Now they all show as offline which is great. Is there any way to turn that useless little hover message off totally?

Yes, but you'd likely want to do that for everyone, rather than just the users affected by this product, so that no one stands out as being "different."

Do you want me to add an option to turn that off for everyone?

[chloe101]

Yes please! Or just let me know how to do it. My members consider it an invasion of their privacy to have their online status showing so I am trying to turn it off everywhere, zap every trace of it (except for Admins/Mods of course).

[MarkFL]

Originally Posted by chloe101

Yes please! Or just let me know how to do it. My members consider it an invasion of their privacy to have their online status showing so I am trying to turn it off everywhere, zap every trace of it (except for Admins/Mods of course).

Update - Version 1.3.1:

• Added option to turn off online status tooltip from all memberaction dropdown links.

[chloe101]

That was fast! I can't believe how responsive you are. Thank you again.

I feel really dumb asking this but what is the ' online status tooltip' and where are the 'memberaction dropdowns'. I've set your last setting to yes and no but don't see any difference. I can still see the little box that says "x is offline now". I hate to bother you with this but really appreciate your responsiveness.

On edit: I should add that I was looking on the postbit legacy if that helps

[MarkFL]

Originally Posted by chloe101

That was fast! I can't believe how responsive you are. Thank you again.

This last change was pretty simple to implement.

Originally Posted by chloe101

I feel really dumb asking this but what is the ' online status tooltip' and where are the 'memberaction dropdowns'. I've set your last setting to yes and no but don't see any difference. I can still see the little box that says "x is offline now". I hate to bother you with this but really appreciate your responsiveness.

On edit: I should add that I was looking on the postbit legacy if that helps

A tooltip is handled by an HTML element's "alt" and/or "title" attribute. It is the informative popup that you get when you hover your mouse cursor over an element with such attribute(s) defined.

The member action dropdowns are the popup menus that appear when you click a username in certain places, such as the last poster of threads you see on the forum home page, or the username in postbits.

The tooltip on the usernames is what the latest setting will turn off. If you choose to turn off the tooltip, then hovering your mouse cursor over a username with the memberaction dropdown associated with it, there will be no tooltip.

Can you post a screenshot of exactly what it is you want disabled?

[MarkFL]

Okay, I think I know what you're talking about now...

Update - Version 1.3.2:

• Amended option to turn off online status tooltip from all memberaction dropdown links to include online status indicators in postbits.

[chloe101]

I think what I'm talking about is the tooltip then. Unfortunately, I can't take a screenshot because the minute I hit another key to take the screenshot, the message disappears. I'm currently logged in as a normal user, not an Admin. When I put my cursor over the little gray circle button next to the name, it returns the text "(name) is online" - the same way it works here when you hover over the green online status button next to a user's name.