Add-On Releases - vBExperience 3.8

vBExperience 3.8 (aka xPerience)

Created by Marius Czyz aka Phalynx.

Triple Winner of the "Mod of the Month"-Award (March 2008, September 2009, July 2010) on vBulletin.org.

A version for vBulletin 4.0 has been released! Thread: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=245023


vBExperience 3.8.6 is currently (August 2010) in development.


Description
vBExperience is your feature packaged solution for motivation and satisfying your users. vBExperience is an advanced Level/Promotion and Activity System with Shop, Awards and Activities. It will calculate an activity and experience score for every user based on their activites on the forum. Now your users will see how their level is increasing by participating on your forum.

This mod was developed by me because I was never satisfied with the post count. Communities are not only defined by post count, they need much more parameters: Are the postings the user creates helpful? Are his threads frequently read? Does the user participate on the community by posting pictures, attachments, leaving visitor messages, tagging threads? All this can be answered with this mod.

Comments, suggestions, translations, bugs, etc... are very welcome! Support is only given to people who have clicked Mark as Installed.


Compatibility
This mod will work with vBulletin 3.7.x and 3.8.x. For vBulletin 3.6 you will need vBExperience 3.7



Demo:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience.php?langid=5

Demo 3.8.6:
http://www.insidetwoworlds.com/xperience.php

Other Demo Site:
http://www.insidesupcom.de/xperience.php?langid=1


There are mainly four things visible for the users: The users score, his level, his next level up in %/points and his activity in %.


Calculation of the score
Taken into calculation are these things:
Threads
- Created threads
- Thread views of own threads
- Thread replies of own threads
- Thread votes of own threads
- Thread tags
- Replies to own threads
- Sticky threads
- Socialgroup Discussions (Discussions, Posts)

Posts
- Created posts
- Views on attachments

User
- Days since registration
- Average posts per Day (for users who are on forum for at least seven days)
- Referrals
- Received infractions
- Reputation / Use of reputation system
- Visitor messages on profiles
- Members of own social groups
- Albumpictures
- Friends
- Completing Profile

Misc
- Calendar entries


Additionally there is support for 3rd party addons (some are already installed):
- vB Tournaments and Ladders (via CDP Addon)
- Post Ranking System (via CDP Addon)
- Helpful Answers (via CDP Addon)
- AWCoding-Donation System LITE and PRO (via CDP Addon)
- Cyb Paypal Donate (included)
- DownloadsII (included)
- ibProArcade Highscorer Points (via CDP Addon)
- LDM Links and Downloads Manager (included)
- PhotoPlog 2.1 (via CDP Addon)
- PhotoPost vBGallery (via CDP Addon)
- PhotoPost Pro (via CDP Addon)
- Post Thank You / Use of Post Thank You (via CDP Addon)
- QuoteIt! 3.16 (via CDP Addon)
- SAPR: Advanced Post Rating system (via CDP Addon)
- thanks via vS-Hide Hack Resurrection (Expanded Edition) (included)
- v3arcade Highscorer Points (via CDP Addon)
- v3arcade Submissions Points (via CDP Addon)
- vBulletin Blog (included)
- Who Downloaded This Attachment? (included)
- Other Addons can be easily added via CDP - Custom Data Provider plugins.

Additionally you can install these modifications:
- Thread Necromancer: Gives (minus-) points when a user is posting in old threads.
- Scrupulous Poster: Gives points for editing posts. Award users that are editing own posts instead of doing double post.
- Deletion Addicted: Gives points when an user/nod soft-deletes post, thread, visitormessage, groupmessage or picturecomment.
- Arm of Law: Give points for moderators who are using the infraction system
- Discussion Ender: Give points for people who are the last on a discussion
- RadioActivity: Reduce points for every day the user is not online

Also, there are already addons available that are working as Custom Data Provider (CDP). A CDP can extend vBExperience by collecting data and adding it to the vBExperience datastore. All point providers can be used for Awards and Shop.

You have to install these hacks for your own, vBExperience doesn't install nor touches these.


vBAdvanced
There are three vBAdvanced 3.0 XML modules: Most Active Users, Most Experienced Users and Last 20 Activities. Import them via vBAdvanced AdminCP.


Awards
There are six default awards: Most Popular, Activity Award, Posting Award, Community Award, Frequent Poster, Blog Award, Calendar Award. The awards are shown in Rankings and Profile. You can set them also to display in postbit near the username. There is a scheduled job running once a day (02:30h) to calculate them.
Via AdminCP they are completely customizeable and can also be assigned manually.
Awards can be created for every data provider.


Rankings
Showing User, Level, Awards, Activity Points (experience, thread, post, user, misc) - sortable.
Since 3.8.3, there is a also a ranking for Social Groups

Shop
A virtual Shop will motivate your users to earn more points. You can define categories and put virtual items with pictures in it. A currency can be defined seperatly for every item, e.g. 20 points from threads or 100 points from gallery. Users can purchase the items, they appear in their profile. The costs of the item are substracted from their xperience points. Additionally you can set quantity of the items.
The Shop will motivate your users to collect specific points to buy an item. Optionally you can show the last purchased items on postbit.
You can put virtual items in it, like WoW addons: Sell WoW Items in exchange of f.e. thread points. Great for RPG forums.
Non-Virtual Items like bold Usernames or Downloads for Points are already on my todo list.

Earn Points
There is an overview for the user on how points can be collected, with a list of users own points. All data is beeing pulled from the database (settings, phrases)

Statistics
The statistics is showing a Top-X list of the leading users. Usefull for optimizing points of the point provider. Only enabled point providers with results will be displayed.


Promotion system
To motivate users to do more on your forum I created the promotion system. By reaching defined xperience points the user will be moved to another usergroup - where you can set graphics, shadows, highlighting, etc... What is interesting in combination with this: you can give the user more possibilities f.e. larger avatars or bigger PM box. A log of the promotions is available.


Calculation of the activity
The system calculates the activity by taking the average post count/visitormessages/group discussion/Blog entries of the ten most active user and comparing it to own post count. This can be set to count only the last X days, f.e. 21 days.


Settings
You can control how many points are given to every calculation. For example you can give many points for creating new threads but only a few for views of that thread. Setting a value to 0 will disable a setting.
Additionally, you can set ignore users (f.e. for bot users), forums (f.e. offtopic forums) and usergroup id's.


Performance, Big Boards
vBExperience has been tested on smaller and also on some bigger sites. I know from boards with around 120k users running this mod smoothly. More about this topic can be read in the file readme_optimization.txt


Frequently asked questions
Q: How do I change the name Experience to something new?
A: You can change the name via phrases. Just search and replace all phrases that contains vBExperience.

Q: When installing vBExperience, does everyone start from scratch, or will it automatically configure everyone's points based on actions before the install?
A: If you recount, vBExperience will calculate ALL existing data since the beginning of the board.

Known Issues:
- Awards: On "Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread" awards are only shown for the user who is viewing this.
- Awards: If activated in with rich username, they are attached to the username. If the username is linked, the awards are also linked. If a link is underlined, the awards are also underlined. This behaviour is hardcoded in vBulletin and cannot be fixed.
- Settings are showing only a blank page, read here: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/proje...6979#note74140
- If you completely remove vBExperience, you need also to uninstall the product XML manually from the pluginssystem

Credits for icons
- FAMFAMFAM, http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/
- IconExperience


History
3.8.4.3 / 3.8.5 Beta 5, 10th July 2011
- Prio 1 security patch, please update just xperience.php!


3.8.5 Beta 4, 25th September 2009
- Promotions: Listing now also the last Usergroup. Please notice the new settings for nethermost/uppermost usergroups.
- Several minor cosmetic changes
- Clear Activities (except Shop)
- Fixed error with GetActivityAll() on profile
- Several Beta 3 fixes

3.8.5 Beta 3, 18th September 2009
- Fixed Promotions
- Fixed Notifications
- Added Activities to Promotions
- All Activities are not obeying limit
- AdminCP/Experience has a recount for Promotions and Achievements
- Fixed listing of Achievements with Firefox
- Several Beta 2 fixes

3.8.5 Beta 2, 02nd September 2009
- Just a short note: Condition in Achievements and Promotions are calculated in POINTS, not in counts of items.
If you choose 10 Day, you must enter the points needed for this.
For example: You have an achievement for 10 days. You have set 2 points for every day since registering. Calculation: 10*2 = 20
You will have to set 20 as the condition.
- New tabbed interface. If you want to change the style, edit the template xperience_navbar_css
- Promotions now showing usergroups and conditions for a promotion to the next group
- You can import old vBExperience Legacy promotions (that were created within level.xml)
- Achievements in Profile
- Achievements below Avatar
- Several Beta 1 fixes

3.8.5 Beta 1, 28th August 2009
- Achievements!
- Promotions!
- Notification on Awards, Promotions and Achievements
- GAP: Empty pointfields will not be displayed anymore
- Activity: Showing percent values with a decimal
- Activities now also for users
- Awards below Avatar
- Default Awards are now also creating new category
- Shop: Fixed issue in not returning cash on sells
- Reworked Edit Shop Items



For more see history.txt

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by veenuisthebest

hii.. before i install, I was just concerned about its load on forum. I have read optimization.txt file.

Just wanted to know, if it adds any global queries and does it affect any other page than profile, at all.

It does NOT add any global query, beside the profile. It stores it's info in the user table, which is cached at the beginning.

Originally Posted by jetgaming

i added some custom points to my account but now my levels and points dont show in a thread but everybody else does..how do i fix this?

i also recounted again..

Originally Posted by jetgaming

EDIT:

im totally of the rankings aswell..

Did you added negative points? If you are below 0 you would be not shown.

Originally Posted by veenuisthebest

1. Awards: phrase in profile under Experience tab still display when a user has no awards.

Right. In earlier version it showed a link to the awards ("See all awards"), I have to check why it disappeared.

Originally Posted by veenuisthebest

2. On xperience.php?go=awards, the user avatar size scales to a larger size. For example, the original size of an avatar is 80x60 but it displays scaled to 107x80 for some reason. I tried on both avatar storage types. This does not seem to be happening on your demo link though.

Right, I'm using a fixed height to avoid bad looking page. See template "xperience_awards_awardbit". Just remove the height="80" from it

Originally Posted by veenuisthebest

Also, I think a <br /> would look good after award description to leave some descent space between the text and the avatar within the fieldset.

It is already: <span class="shade">$myawards[awarddesc]</span><br/>

Originally Posted by veenuisthebest

3. When I Add a new Award, an award is created immediately and added to the list. It would be much better if the award is created/saved only after we click Save button on Edit Award page. Same thing happens with Manage Shop and Manage Custom Points.

Right, I don't see a chance to change this.

Originally Posted by veenuisthebest

4. On what basis are the awards automatically given? It seems to be favoring admins. I did a Recount twice.

It favours people with the most points of the fields an award has. If in your case this users are admins, then you need to use the query position and also the award limitation.

Originally Posted by veenuisthebest

5. I understand the issue that the award images would display linked besides rich username text in postbit, but then how are user_online/offline.gif images display fine.

on/off is builtin, awards are not and must be "hooked" somewhere. It would require to touch original PHP files or at least templates.

Originally Posted by veenuisthebest

6. Is there a way to see a detailed list of points of a user as I am surprised to see few user's points even after recounting twice or thrice. This would be a nice feature.
For example, for a specific user, it shows "Points for User: 148". Can I see some kind of details/breakup as to how he earned 148 points.

Of course, check Statistics.

Originally Posted by veenuisthebest

7. If "Only Active Users" is opted, the pagination does not display correct results in Ranking (xperience.php). It still takes all users into account, thus making all other sub-pages (page2,3,4) display empty results. The pagination should also adjust itself according to the number of active users.

Will be fixed in next version.

Originally Posted by veenuisthebest

Thanks a lot for this lovely addon. I had been playing with this for some time now.

Thanks for your feedback. Such feedbacks helps me a lot.

[veenuisthebest]

It is already: <span class="shade">$myawards[awarddesc]</span><br/>

I meant adding another <br /> , don't you think they look too close currently?



8. There seems to be few minor xhtml errors in various templates that mainly includes closing of img tag without the slash /> and using <br/></br> instead of just one <br /> (which validates properly)

9. On the Statistics page:-

Points for Threads: Total points display as 15 = 8 (Threads) + 2 (SG Discussions) + 4 (Replies) + 1 (Views)

.. which is fine. Similarly, Points for Posts is fine.

But, in Points for Users: 378 = 40 (Filled Profile) + 324 (Per Day) + 5 (SG) + 9 (Pictures) + 99 (Activity)

Shouldn't Activity points be added in total count too?

Thanks.

[820Media]

Did you added negative points? If you are below 0 you would be not shown.

Thanks, added some points then recounted and im back there.

[820Media]

Show items on postbit? = 5

Position of Shopitems = Below Rep..

it doesn't show on the default Vb skin or on my other skin.

its working now, but there showing up large, anyway to automaticly resize them?

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by veenuisthebest

I meant adding another <br /> , don't you think they look too close currently?

This seems to depend on the browser. With IE I got a space between description and avatar. Check for yourself with the IE. Will do a work around for all browsers.

Originally Posted by veenuisthebest

8. There seems to be few minor xhtml errors in various templates that mainly includes closing of img tag without the slash /> and using <br/></br> instead of just one <br /> (which validates properly)

Will fix for next version.

Originally Posted by veenuisthebest

9. On the Statistics page:-

Points for Threads: Total points display as 15 = 8 (Threads) + 2 (SG Discussions) + 4 (Replies) + 1 (Views)

.. which is fine. Similarly, Points for Posts is fine.

But, in Points for Users: 378 = 40 (Filled Profile) + 324 (Per Day) + 5 (SG) + 9 (Pictures) + 99 (Activity)

Shouldn't Activity points be added in total count too?

Thanks.

No, as activity is a 100%-based value, not points.

Originally Posted by jetgaming

Did you added negative points? If you are below 0 you would be not shown.


Thanks, added some points then recounted and im back there.

Glad to hear that you got it working.

Originally Posted by jetgaming

Show items on postbit? = 5

Position of Shopitems = Below Rep..

it doesn't show on the default Vb skin or on my other skin.

its working now, but there showing up large, anyway to automaticly resize them?

You need to define 2 types of shop items: small and big one. The smaller one should not be larger than 16x16, otherwise they are too big for postbit.

[Phalynx]

I've added to the first post the updated french translation for 3.8.2.

Thanks goes out to mitch84!

[Teresa]

Any chance you could include this mod?: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=203801

[Code Monkey]

Trying this out for the first time as it seems kind of cool. One question I have is why is everyone at level 1?

EDIT: oh never mind I found the text file.

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by Teresa

Any chance you could include this mod?: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=203801

Please ask the author of the modification to include it via Addon/CDP (Custom Data Provider).

[KURTZ]

@ Marius: just updated your mod, but i don't see the award's images for the addons ... how i can fix this?