Miscellaneous Hacks - Activity Modification

This is the vB3.7/vB3.8 version of this modification.

Description
This hack adds an activity metric for users to your forum; this metric takes into account a variable number of weeks. Also provided is a Junior/Normal/Senior member system based on this metric, and a longevity metric (user registered time as a percent of the amount of time the first user has been registered).

Visiting each day and posting the configured amount of times per day for the configured number of weeks will yeild 100% activity. Posts are checked individually for each day, so days cannot be skipped then spammed up afterwards. The weight of visiting for the day relative to posting is configurable. Weeks are weighted so the most recent has a bigger impact on the activity percent than the most distant.

When a user logs in with activity above the configured threshold, they are promoted from Junior Member to Member. When they log in with the configured amount of time as Member, they are promoted to Senior Member. You can configure the mod to also add secondary usergroups when these promotions happen.

Complexity
This modification requires 1 XML import, uploading of images, and the addition of some CSS, depending on what options you choose

Technical
This hack adds 1 query to showthread for each user who posts in that page (or only 1 for the logged in user by configuration). In addition, the first time a member's post or profile is accessed during a day (GMT), 3 queries are performed to find that user's activity. By configuration, 1 query may be added to each page load to find the logged in user's "activity today". By configuration, 1 query may be added to each member profile view to find that member's "activity today".

Upgradability
This modification will import your settings and data from the 3.0/hack version
This modification will import your settings and data from the 3.5/3.6 mod version

Frequently Asked Questions

• I don't see the Activity Settings section or Activity Maintenance link on the AdminCP navbar
  You're probably seeing a cached (old) copy of the navbar. Try pressing Ctrl-F5 in IE or FF, or whatever your browser requires to force it to load the current version of the page.
• I installed this mod and nothing shows up
  First, go to AdminCP|Activity Settings|Display and make sure the dropdown settings are not set to None. If they aren't set to none, the most likely cause is using an old style which does not have template hooks; verify this by creating a new style without a parent and checking to see if the mod displays on it (the images probably won't load, though). If the mod displays on the default style but not your normal one, you need to add template hooks, otherwise post here for help.
• I installed this mod using the Download/Upload Plugin page and there was an error/it doesn't seem to work
  To install this mod, you need to use the Add/Import Product link on the Manage Products page
• I just installed and everyone's activity seems low
  1. Part of the activity calculation is what days users visited on. This information isn't collected before the mod is installed, so no user can have 100% activity untill you've been running the mod for the full period of time you have it set to monitor
  2. Please realize that there is no "roll over" for activity; if you have it set to look at 4 posts per day, your users must post 4 posts on each individual day to obtain 100%.
• I founded this forum, but I don't have 100% longevity
  Somehow a user's join date has been set before yours. When you install, the mod looks for the earliest join date to use to find longevity, but you can change the baseline date. To change the "Start of board" time, go to Maintenance>Activity Maintenance>Set Start of Board, enter your user number in the text field, then click Set Start of Board
• Why don't the images don't show up?/Why does the postcount have 's's in front of it?
  Be sure to upload one of the activity directories from activityimages.zip to the misc directory for each of your styles. To find a style's misc directory, goto the Style Manager, then from the dropdown next to the style, choose Stylevars. The setting Miscellaneous Images Folder contains the path to that style's misc directory, where you need to upload the activity directory
• Can I use activity for promotions?
  The project to build a full-blown promotion hack for use with this mod has been cancelled, after losing all of my work, however a much simpler system that adds secondary groups based on two thresholds has been added to the main hack.
• Can you make X number get split up into digits?
  I understand where you're coming from with this one, but I just can't figure out a way to work this that would be simple to use.
• The tooltips don't wrap and get cut off with FireFox
  The same thing happens to other vB tooltips (the thumbnail ones, for example). If you know a way to add line breaks to FF tooltips without scripting, please let me know.

Change log

Note: To upgrade, with the old version still installed, go to the Add/Import Product link on the Manage Products page, select the XML file for the new version, choose Yes for overwrite, then click Import.

Update 3.03 release

• Fixed a PHP error that some people were having

Update 3.01 release

• Fixed a PHP warning that did not break anything. It should no longer be added to your error logs.

Update 3.00 release
No changes

Update 3.00 beta 3

• Fixed template to use correct forumhome location
• Separated text-version stat block into its own template
• Moved settings into their own navigation group on the left (refresh AdminCP page after upgrading)
• Added new customization reference page to install zip

Update 3.00 beta 2

• Fixed a bug which prevented the postbit display option from working
• Fixed a bug where the Top Activity link could be in the navbar without the Top Activity page being enabled
• Fixed a bug where certain users have postcount of 'n/a' in Top Activity
• Added diagnostic screen
• Set minimum forum version

Version 3 (3.00 beta 1) vs Version 2 (2.80)

• Added template hook and DOM based styling; manual template modification no longer needed
• Split the options page into four options pages
• Added many options to control the style of the mod
• Added "Countdown to 100%" feature in the Top Activity page
• All new profile page display for vB3.7

Support

Please click the install link if you install this hack
I will support this hack in this thread on about a weekly basis.

[WetWired]

I hand drew them.

[puregraf]

Originally Posted by WetWired

What settings are you using? There are many settings that will increase your load, especially "activity today" settings.

Have you tried enabling the mod at a low activity time and seeing how it reacts when activity rises? (because if you have a lot of users, activity must be calculated as posts are viewed authored by users whose activity hasn't been calculated yet for the day; you can "schedule" this load increase to happen when load in general is low) If this is effective, you can set the "midnight offset" setting to keep this schedule. (changing the setting, however, invalidates all activity calculated to that point since the setting effects the calculation)

A load average of 5.00 indicates 100% utilization (for a 1 to 5 core server), so 55% would be a load decrease...

When you say the old version for the older vbulletin, you are refering to vB3.0 or vB3.5?

weeks reflected: 6
vistit weight 2.0
counted posts per day. 4


Find today's activity for all users
If enabled, then the activity today information is queried for each post; this requires an additional query per user per thread.
If disabled, then the activity today information is only queried for the logged-in user.

No


1
Find today's activity for member profile
If enabled, then the activity today information is queried for member profiles. This adds a query to the member profile page.

No


1
Find today's activity for logged-in user
If enabled, find the logged in user's activity today on each pageload. Adds an extra query to each page load for logged-in users. Note that this information is not included in the default template modifications.

No


1
Show activity breakdown in tooltip
If yes, will show visit% and post% in the activity bar tooltip

Yes

1
Use text-only stat block
If set to yes, will display activity, longevity, and activity today as text instead of using images. When this is set to yes, you do not need to upload the images directory or add the style-specific CSS.

No

1
Automatic postbit alteration
Whether or not template hooks are used to alter the postbit. Choosing "Alternate location" uses JS to move the stat block from the template hook location -- into a separate column on the horizontal postbit, or right under the avatar on the vertical postbit. If your postbit templates are siginificantly modified, "Alternate location" may not work well and you should set this to "None" and add the changes manually.

Error:
1
Remove postbit text postcount
Use JS to remove the div containing the text postcount, since the images version repeats it. Ignored if postbit alteration is "None"

Yes

1
Remove postbit text joindate
Use JS to remove the div containing the join date, since longevity is the same information displayed a different way. Ignored if postbit alteration is "None"

No

1
User profile page statistics
Choose where to display a user's activity information in their profile page

BOTH


Enable Top Activity page
YES

Top Activity detects ties
NO

Display countdown to 100%
NO

[WetWired]

I don't see anything wrong with your settings. Nothing you have set should cause a continuous load increase. Again, what version of vB was it that you didn't have the problem with?
Also, I submit for your consideration that, as I said earlier, if your server's load average is usually at 5.00, your server is usually at 100% utilization already. Adding even a small amount of extra load to an overloaded server will just stack up and cause requests to take even longer. Maybe it's time to upgrade.
That said, there are significant changes between the vB3.0 and vB3.5 version of my mod to deal with hook locations, and it is possible that that is contributing.

[dxflw]

how do i remove the word OWNER?

[WetWired]

It's in the Rank and Promotions settings. The bottom option.

[xyzmary2001]

I have a problem - that may look really hilarious, but to me is quite difficult.

What in the world is "main CSS page" and where can I find Additional CSS Definitions? I adore this mod and I always get an error, I suspect because I didn't add the definition.

Please, help me even if the question is one of a beginner. Thanks!

[WetWired]

It's a selection on the dropdown next to the style name in the style manager. I doubt that not adding it would give you an error, though. If you are getting a JS error, it is due to the way that the mod tries to use JS to get arround the limitations of template hooks. If you turn off the display options that mention JS, it should get rid of the error.

[Nadeemjp]

wet wired
i would liek to suggest that in ur next upgrade, please give more options concerning the placement of the images. i love this hack and dont want to undo it. but it is alongwith other mods, occupying a lot of place in the vertical postbit, thus making the posbit too wide.

is it possible to move it in the center of the vertical postbit? i mean not on the left, not on the right (near the avatar), but in the center? so that the width of the vertical postbit is controlled a tad. if by doing it manually it is achieved, then please do let us know which codes should we add and where should we add, cause not all of us are professional coders

[WetWired]

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to achieve. Can you throw together a mock-up in paint or some such?

[Nadeemjp]

The following is what i wanted to do:

Taking the activity display from the right side and putting it in the center of the postbit.
as u can see my postbit vertical width is too much wide. my users complain about it but neither i nor my users, want to get rid of these hacks and mods. we wanna use all of them.