Contextual Forum Subscriptions Hack

This hack is similar to the "2.0 Email new thread notifictions to subscribed users" hack by chrispadfield. My hack is an enhanced replacement to the Padfield hack.

Without this hack, subscribing to a forum does nothing but add the forum to one's user CP. By installing this hack, an email will be sent with the post's content when a new thread is posted.

The major differences between this hack and the Padfield hack are:[list=1][*]Email notification contains the posted text.[*]When posting a new thread to moderated forums, notification will be delayed until the thread is approved. This also works with Wayne Luke's moderate user hack.[/list=1]This hack has been tested on vBulletin 2.2.1 through 2.2.5.

Post any problems/suggestions here. My users like it as is but would appreciate any improvement.

[hadley]

Yes, it could -- but I have 400 users, 10 forums, and about 2 new threads a week (not day) -- total, across all forums. So, I'd be looking at about 800 emails a week.

Most of my audience is accustomed to (and seems to prefer) listservs; I want to use this hack to get a bit more "in their face" -- so that when there is a new thread, they will be (hopefully) encouraged to visit the forums and add their own posts.

Of course, when/if the activity at my forums picks up, I would revert back to making the subscribe feature optional by default -- and then only those who want it could turn it on. (That's the way it runs now.)

[chrispadfield]

Yes, it is not recommended for a very busy forum. If you are getting more than a few hundred subscriptions per forum then you are going to start causing yourself problems when new threads are started.

[hadley]

kippesp, the hack is still not working since I upgraded to 2.2.5.
My techie (Bill Cameron) worked on it, and here's what he sent to me via email:

Okay, as far as I can tell, it should be working. If it's not, I don't know why. All the new templates and edited templates are present, and I can see the changes I made are there, but it's not working.

Now here's the weird part. I downloaded the instructions again, to do a little comparison, and they don't look like the same instructions. Yet I've looked at it again and again. Kippesp's Contextual Forum Subscriptions Hack.

But his instructions say, for example, "Two templates must be added: email_newthread and emailsubject_newthread."

And yet, the templates I had added previously were "emailsubject_threadstarter" and "email_threadstarter". I made edits to the newthread.php template, but can't match the changes he indicates in the instructions with anything I've done.

Furthermore, I reverted the newthread.php template back to the original, then tried to reinstall, but his instructions don't match up with what is in the template.

I am confused, I have to admit. Perhaps I am looking at the wrong instructions, or the wrong templates. But this is just making no sense to me.

[kippesp]

I suspect there may be mixture of hacks and hack instructions going on: mine and chrispadfield's. They are replacements and should not both be installed.

His template names are email_newthread and email_newthreadsubject. We both use email_newthread. But I used emailsubject_newthread because of existing vB conventions.

My instruction file hasn't changed since 21 March--not even to update the version numbers. Double check which install instructions are being used. (Mine starts out "This hack is similar to the "2.0 Email new thread notifictions to subscribed users" hack by chrispadfield. My hack is a replacement to the Padfield hack. The major differences are:")

Keep in mind that even if the templates were mixed or not even there, emails should still go out. If no templates exist, the email will be blank. (I'm using qmail so blank subjects & bodies are okay. This may not translate to other platforms/emailers.) Also, the thread starter is not notified.

If you still don't figure out, email me a diff of your newthread.php against an unmodified v2.2.5 using "diff -cw".

[tkeil69575]

Hi kippesp,

I installed your hack today, unfortunately im not getting emails from subrcribed forums. I looked at your code

if ($enableemail and $visible)

I presume that means, that users must be Visible and must have emails actived. I have my board setup so that emails-Adresses from users are not shown and quite a few users are not visible. Does that mean thats why its not working?

What would happen if I just removed this if clause?

greetings Tina

[kippesp]

Originally posted by tkeil69575
I installed your hack today, unfortunately im not getting emails from subrcribed forums. I looked at your code

if ($enableemail and $visible)

I presume that means, that users must be Visible and must have emails actived. I have my board setup so that emails-Adresses from users are not shown and quite a few users are not visible. Does that mean thats why its not working?

What would happen if I just removed this if clause?

$enableemail is controlled from the admin control panel ("Enable Email features?"). The user cp option for admin emails does not matter (as with thread subscriptions).

$visible is generally used for moderated threads. It is true if (the poster is a moderator) OR (the thread is not moderated) OR (the thread is not a poll). If the thread is to be moderated ($visible == false), the hack's notification is delegated to the mod/moderate.php file. If your forums do not moderate new threads, $visible isn't necessary nor the changes to mod/moderate.php.

One error that I do have in this hack is the poll path. Obviously, I made no modifications to poll.php so nothing is sent. I'll put that on my to-do list.

My only suggestion on testing is to (1) subscribe to a forum, (2) log in using an alternate account, (3) post a new thread to the forum subscribed to in (1).

Also, my instructions may be unclear. The inserted code for file newthread.php needs to be outside the braces (i.e immediately before the line "// redirect"). Let me know if my instructions are unclear in this area. If this code is put in the wrong spot, the checks will be in the wrong if clause and highly unlikely to work.

[tkeil69575]

ok thank you for the explanation. now I understand. I did what you said in regard to posting a new thread with an other account and its working!

Thanks for the great hack

[malcolm fraser]

I've installed this hack and it works perfectly. Just what I needed!! Thank you!

What I need now is a way to see which users have subscribed to which forums - either from the Admin CP or whatever.

I know enough to know that this should be a relatively simple case of looking up tables and displaying them, but I'm afraid I don't know enough to actually do this myself.

Can anyone help??

Thanks,
Malcolm

[mkunichi]

works great in 2.2.8.

umm. a bit late now, but is there a preferred hack to this one?

[kippesp]

What do you mean by "preferred hack." I'm not familure with that.