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

[Varsh]

All forums have an ID, make sure that the parent forum/category ID is the same one you want your social forums to be in. For instance:

General (1)
Gaming (3)
Social Forums (7)
- SG Forums1 (2)
- SG Forums2 (5)
- SG Forums3 (6)

In brackets is the forum ID, basically in this case I would set the parent forum as "7".

[queengoc]

I'm sorry, I am confused. Do I need to create a parent forum on the main page? If so, then how does that differentiate a social forum from all of the other forums I have set up? I thought the social forum went in the social group area where they are currently posting. Do I great a forum or child forum and then make in not visible so that it only shows up in the group area?

Thanks!

[Phalynx]

You can set your parents forum display level to 0 to hide it. All social forums are hidden then.

[queengoc]

Awesome, it works like a charm. :up: Thanks again Phalynx!

[queengoc]

Sorry, one final question (I hope). How do I prevent posts from the social group forum from showing up in the new posts search?

Thanks!

[Varsh]

Go to the forum and edit the settings, you want to turn off "Index New Posts in Search Engine" and set "Show Private Forum" to no. The old posts will still be viewable however.

[queengoc]

Fantastic! Thanks Varsh! That setting will help me in the future also. Now I have everything set just the way I want it. Thanks everyone for your help. It's been greatly appreciated and I learned some new things along the way. You definitely get my vote for MOTM!

[irishblue]

This looks like a great mod.
The default vb social groups looks kind of messy now with the group messages. It would be nice to see them organized as threads like how a forum works perhaps with stickys and all.
I hope to install this once the private groups protection issue is solved

[queengoc]

Varsh, posts are still showing in the new posts search. Is there something else I need to do? Thanks!

[Varsh]

Try rebuilding the cache and posts, if that doesn't work then I guess it's just waiting for the privacy settings which'll hopefully be this week or next.