vbArticles v0.4 -- For your repository of Articles/Tutorials/FAQs etc.

UPDATES
version 0.4 is out

- Now allows for basic VBCODE input.
- Fixed somemore bugs.


Background
Required a section on my site to display articles/tutorials
No such hack in the Hacks Database
Decided to try my hand at it

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This hack uses a lot of code from Arunan Sridharan's vB Links Directory v2.0
I use that hack too and was inspired to code something around that
A big thank-you must go out to him for coding the Links Directory in the first place (I merely modified much of the code to suit my needs for this hack)

Appreciation also goes out to Kars10 for aiding me in this hack
He coded the portion in version 0.3 on number of articles count as well as article hits count
He also suggested several template changes which have been incoporated into version 0.3
A great big special shout out to TheComputerGuy, 97cobracpe, dontpanic for stamping out the bugs with your fixes. Thanks guys


WHATS IT DO ?
This hack allows you to have a database of articles/tutorials etc on your site/forums.

FEATURES

AdminCP
Installer script

Admin options

View Categories
Edit Categories
Add Categories ( category name, category icon, category order, category description )
Delete Categories
Add new article ( title, description, author, date, content )
Edit article
Delete article
View ALL articles in database
Option in vB options to turn validation of articles on/off
Fully template based as to how you wish to display the articles,categories and main article home page.
Addition of articles accepts basic VBcodes

Member options

View Categories
Browse Categories
View articles
Submit new article
Submission of articles accepts basic VBcodes


INSTALLATION & UPGRADING
This Hack should work on ALL 2.2.x versions and v2.3.0
Please read the install_readme.txt file in the package for fresh installation instructions
IMPT: If you installed a previous version pls read the upgrade_readme.txt file carefully for upgrade instructions

HACK DOWNLOAD

Version 0.4 of this hack can be downloaded here

ADD-ONS
i) Add-on for vbHome
ii) Add-on for ForumHome
iii) Add-on to enable only registered members to be able to view the article section


DEMO SITES
http://www.runaked.com/forums/articles.php ( running v0.4 ) - TheComputerGuy's site

http://www.mcseworld.com/forums/infocenter.php ( running v0.3 ) - dontpanic's site


Feel free to submit your sites if u installed this hack so it can be listed as another live demo site

SUPPORT
I cannot promise any support on this as i am pretty new to this but I will try my best.
If you are using this hack , pls click the INSTALL button
to be kept in the loop of any bug reports, add-ons and hack version updates.

Thanks everyone

[cinq]

Originally Posted by memobug

Yours may be a moot question since there doesn't appear to be any way to download this hack any longer. However, this hack looks better to me, from the installations I've seen.

hehheh
took it down as it is no point installing a buggy version.
when 0.5 is cleaned up and proper, will then post the attachment again in a new thread in Full Releases section.

[sabret00the]

when will that be?

[Russ_T]

Cinq: I am running 0.3 and apart from the bugs its doing a good job for everything at www.zclub.net thank you :-)

Are there any plans to add a proper independant admin page later on? In our club I'm dividing jobs up, we have a gallery admin and such but I really dont wanna give out access to my forum control panel so people can moderate the articles.

Also a "tick" mod, like photopost has so that when a new article is uploaded you get a visible tick for admins to see or an e-mail would be very nice :-)

Thanks for your time, hope 0.5 is about soon

[Dominick]

this looks to be a good hack. Im keen on the next release

[cinq]

Yipee, seem to have sub categories working

[cinq]

Originally Posted by Russ_T

Are there any plans to add a proper independant admin page later on? In our club I'm dividing jobs up, we have a gallery admin and such but I really dont wanna give out access to my forum control panel so people can moderate the articles.
Also a "tick" mod, like photopost has so that when a new article is uploaded you get a visible tick for admins to see or an e-mail would be very nice :-)

Russ, I'm afraid I wont be working on an independent admin page as this hack is meant to be integrated with the vb admin panel all along.

A future additional feature would be to automatically send a PM or email ( by admin choice/option ) to the admins when a new article is submitted, so that the admin will know to check and validate or delete if neccessary.

Time is very limited but rest assured i work on this all i can.
Just be patient people and thanks for your understanding

[dontpanic]

Originally Posted by cinq

Yipee, seem to have sub categories working

AWESOME!! Cing, you know my v 0.3 is hacked all to hell and back...but I am anxious to see the next version with subcategories and all of the other goodies you've going on. If it can be done, please consider my earlier request that the script be modified to write the complete URL into another field in the row. This of course would be dynamic as each new ID was generated. I use to get my search engine right that indexes the Library, so there might not be too much demand for it. Let me know if you have a question about what I'm trying to get at.

[cinq]

dontpanic , will try to see what I can do for you once I finish up with this hack. Will be considered an addon ( assuming I know how to do it heh ) since it is likely not a feature wanted by many others.

[dontpanic]

Understand. I just added the extra field to the articles table and I put the URL in by hand after the fact using phpMyAdmin. With as many articles as I've got currently, and as many as I've got coming up, the addition of the search engine was a real requirement for MCSE World. Again, the hack is awesome and the sub categories is even better. Looking forward to the next version!

[dontpanic]

Oh yeah...one more thing...something I just noticed yesterday as a matter of fact. Date sorting is screwy when multiple years are involved in regards to the X most recently added articles display on the main page. I had December 2003 articles that showed as more recent than January 2004 articles when the dates were in the format of mm/dd/yyyy. I have changed them to long dates now like December 1, 2003. I know this is due to that field being plaintext instead of a date field. Maybe you fixed in v 0.4...just thought I'd bring it up.