Miscellaneous Hacks - [CMS] Use original thread for comments

As of 4.1.11 this functionality is included in vbulletin. So you no longer need this mod.

What does this do?
This is a really simple hack that sets the thread for article comments to be the original thread for any thread that is promoted to an article.

What can I use it for?
This mod has two major uses:

1. If you have a wealth of information in your forums and you want to promote it into articles, this mod allows you to retain the rest of the thread as comments in the cms while adding any new comments as replies to the thread; essentially allowing it to function as both a forum thread and a CMS article.

2. If you want to use multiple fourms for CMS comments. This is a fairly none obvious use case, but probably a popular one. If you have three sections in your cms (for example) and want each section to feed into its own forum, the current cms dosn't allow you to do this. With this mod installed, you can. Instead of creating your new article directly in the cms create it in the forum you wish to use for comments. Write your article as the first post of the thread and promote it to a cms article. Fill out the extra information needed (eg publish date) and save. Comments will be saved into the original thread, in the forum you created it in.

Installation Vb 4.0.1 and later
1. Import product

Uninstallation
1. Disable the plugin "set thread id"

Full uninstallation
1. Move threads that have been promoted to articles into the vbcms comments forum.
2. COPY the threads back to their original forums
3. Remove product

Steps 1 and 2 are needed to retain cache functions on the comments threads. Without them new comments will not appear on the article.

Changelog

• 4.0-0.1 a2
  • Fixed bug causing original thread to be delete when the article was deleted
• 4.0-0.1 a1
  • Initial release

Notes

• I believe this is the first mod for the CMS (not including addon widgets/content types)
• Removing this product entirly will cause issues with the cache on any articles using the original thread. Follow the uninstall steps to remove functionallity while retaining the ability to comment on these articles this mod has altered.
• [S] Although its compatible with vbulletin 4.0 Rc 4, a bug in RC 4 and 4.0.0 Gold prevents it from acctually working. I have provided a replacement hooks_vbcms.xml file which corrects the issue in the interim.[/S] (fixed in vb4.0.1)
• [s]Deleting an article will remove the associated original thread This is considered a bug in this product and will hopefully be fixed with the next release. [/s] (fixed)
• The above bug has been fixed, however pending this request: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/proje...?issueid=34188 Thread tags for the original thread will still be removed. There is /nothing/ I can do about that until the issue listed is resolved. (this has been marked as fixed in 4.0.2; will update further when i've tested that its fixed.)
• [S]If you hard delete the original thread without first removing the article you will be affected by this bug: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/proje...?issueid=34187 the fix I posted to that issue needs to be applied BEFORE deleting the original thread. After more research, this only becomes an issue if you promote a thread more than once. If you've done this, you can fix the error by clearing the CMS cache.[/S] (fixed in 4.0.1)

As of 4.1.11 this functionality is included in vbulletin. So you no longer need this mod.

[Magz]

Folks, I installed this on 4.0.6, and it appeared to be working really well.

However, someone reported they couldnt post to facebbok from a thread reply.

Digging into it, i didable mods one by one, and it was only when disabling this, the facebook post from threads worked again.

Can anyone else confirm if this is a prob for you also?

Thanks

[Acido]

Hi Carnage. Thanks for share this useful mod.

Suggestion:
It's possible add a feature to this, that hide the editor for comments when the thread is closed? I notice that the article doesn't accept new comments when the thread is closed, but without any warning to the user. The post simply doesn't appear.

Hope you can figure how add this in future versions, if come.

[Videx]

I too was wondering how it deals with closed threads. We have all our threads set to close automatically after x days, so there's a good chance articles will have closed threads.

I just sort of assumed if the associated thread was closed, comments would go to the default comment forum. But your idea is a better solution.

[Rho'd Berth]

I can't import this into 4.0.6, I get: "Invalid File Specified" when I press "Import"

[Rho'd Berth]

Is the attached hooks_vbcms.xml ok?
When I look into the source there's hardly anything in it. If I compare it to the alpha-file the difference is huge. Maybe that's the reason that I get this error when I try to import it?

[Rho'd Berth]

Never mind, I was importing the wrong xml file.

[Carnage]

I've updated the mod to remove support for vb 4.0.0 The extra hooks.xml file was confusing people.

This mod is now only works on vbulletin versions 4.0.1 and above.

[carrlos]

Originally Posted by Carnage-

I've updated the mod to remove support for vb 4.0.0 The extra hooks.xml file was confusing people.

This mod is now only works on vbulletin versions 4.0.1 and above.

The Uninstallation and Full Uninstallation steps still refer to the extra hooks.xml file. Should they be updated?

[Carnage]

Thanks, fixed.

I can also confirm that this mod works on vb4.0.6 as my own forum has been upgraded to 4.0.6 without issues.

[djbaxter]

Still working on 4.07 as well. You're an update behind.