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.

[sticky]

Originally Posted by Carnage

What do you mean by wrecks havok on the RSS feed?

Do you know if this working with 4.1.4?

[Carnage]

Sorry sticky but it carried over to 4.1.4, which is why I had to uninstall this for the first time since it was released. My RSS feed is more important.

It seems it still breaks the RSS feed. I can't imagine a fix being very easy at all...

[Maischter]

Originally Posted by sticky

Do you know if this working with 4.1.4?

it works, maybe with rss bug... but i dont use rss...

[sticky]

Originally Posted by Maischter

it works, maybe with rss bug... but i dont use rss...

What is the RSS bug and what version did it start with?

[Videx]

Originally Posted by sticky

What is the RSS bug and what version did it start with?

One guy reported trouble with RSS but didn't stick around long enough to verify or even confirm an RSS problem.

If I had to guess, I'd say replies wouldn't go to the feed because they aren't actually being manually posted. But we already knew that.

[sticky]

Originally Posted by Videx

One guy reported trouble with RSS but didn't stick around long enough to verify or even confirm an RSS problem.

If I had to guess, I'd say replies wouldn't go to the feed because they aren't actually being manually posted. But we already knew that.

If the only issue is replies going to the feed that isn't even that big of a problem. Why not just use the forum feed then?

I use RSS mainly to tweet out new articles automatically. If that works fine, I can upgrade.

[Aramist]

is it working fine on 4.1.4?

[archet1337]

Installed this on my 4.1.5 board, working great.

[zhai]

i'm sorry this might sound stupid, but how do I use it?
I installed it, but no option/setting page shown on my ACP

[Carnage]

There aren't any settings to configure.

when a thread is promoted to the front page; this mod prevents vBulletin from creating a new comments thread for it. Instead the original thread is used for comments.