Quick Account Switch v1.2

Quick Account Switch v1.2.
by Ianomed

Uses of this hack:

This account will let you string together several accounts owned by the same person. Of course it will also let you string together accounts owned by different people, but that's a dangerous thing to do.

What then is the use of stringing accounts together? Well, this hack will let you switch from one to the other account without having to log out, then log in again. Those interested in the technical aspect I refer to the addition made to login.php, it's all quite simple. You'll see now why it's dangerous to string together your account with someone else's, they'd be able to switch to your account.

I wrote this for two play-by-board RPGs that I frequent, at each of which I have several accounts, an account for each character. This lets me assume another account in moments.

It's also used by admins to switch between test accounts quickly.

Maybe you'll find other uses, eh?

Changes required:

1. Adding of 1 field to user table (installer will try to do this)
2. Adding of 18 phrases (installer does this)
3. An addition to admincp/user.php
4. An addition to global.php
5. An addition to login.php
6. A modification to the navbar template (for each style)
   
   Time needed: 20-30 minutes
   Difficulty rating: moderate

Known issues with v1.2:

Changing the username of an account that's either a slave or master, it does not update these cached usernames. This will be taken care of in v1.3.
Work-around: If you rename a user, unlink it first, and relink after the renaming.
Since I don't see this happening very often on any board I'm releasing v1.2 with this caveat.

Item of note:

For some obscure reason vBportal does NOT play nice with this hack. It'll introduce cookie/header errors. Either do not install this hack if vBportal is installed, or vice versa. Since I don't plan on spending $20 to buy software I'll never use, there's no intention on my part to work out that problem. You're good to go with vbadvanced CPMS, however, this has been tested.

Warranties:

None, in the instructions you'll notice I tell you to backup before applying the hack. I've tested it on 4 boards, each of which have additional hacks installed, and it runs on many more. If it doesn't for you then, well... roll back the changes you've just made and blame yourself.

Tested (and works) on:

• vB 3.0.3. - vanilla
• vB 3.0.1. - vanilla
• vB 3.0.3. - With vbAdvanced Homepage / CPMS (out of the box)
• vB 3.0.1. - With vbAdvanced Homepage / CPMS (out of the box)
• vB 3.0.3. - With vBindex v3.0.0 RC5 (Instructions by bondjetta)
• vB 3.0.3. - Nexialys - ACP cookie hack. <- Recommended combination
• vB 3.0.1. - Nexialys - ACP cookie hack. <- Recommended combination
• vB 3.0.3. - Assorted mods

Future plans:

• v 1.3 - Optionally displaying the linked accounts on the public profile. (i.e. 'I am also ....')
• v 1.3 - Fix user rename issue (see known issues, above).
• v 1.3 - Under Users in the ACP add a Manage Linked Accounts option, listing all linked accounts and their slaves.
• v x.x - Very maybe: allow sharing of a secondary account between two users. This is the trickiest of all, since when on that account, who should you allow switching back to in a way that can't be circumvented.

Future non-plans (I will probably never implement these):

• A 'let users link accounts themselves' mode.

Thanks to Oblivion Knight for the updated dropdown look.

Enjoy

--- History ---
v1.2 - 17th November 2004

• Removed username colouring, it's not really necessary and only adds extra queries.
• No longer uses a custom profile field, instead an extra field in the usertable is made
• Fully phrased, installer written to add phrases
• The usernames for the linked accounts are cached, this means that running the hack now takes no extra queries at all for those logged on as master, or who have no linked accounts. Being logged on as a slave account adds only 1 query per page view, this used to be more too.

v1.1.1 - 27th October

Fixes session expiration problem occuring after switch. Users are encouraged to upgrade. To upgrade follow the instructions in switch_11_to_111.txt. For new installs the corrected code is in switch_111.txt, the installation instructions.

v1.1 - 26th October

Fixes a flaw where on some MySQL versions IDs were matched improperly, also the new session is now permanent. Users are encouraged to upgrade.
To upgrade roll back and redo the changes to global.php and login.php, no changes were made to the template or custom field.

v1.0 - 25th October 2004

initial release

[Lionel]

:banana: I found my problem.
Somehow, someday I woke up to find out that navbar for vbadvanced and forum got all messed up with the headers. Since that day, I have been carrying 2 navbars one for vbadvanced and one for vbulletin, both placed in their respective $header, that's for the loggedin bits. And used the normal navbar just for the links.

I just removed the condition in forum header (where the loggedin things are) and placed it anywhere in real navbar. That worked! :banana:

That is going to be some job to restore that navbar

Forgot to say thank you, for the hack, for the help, and maybe for that discovery that could finally fix my online problem

[Lionel]

All Fixed!

I dumped both $header and $index_header in the navbar. While doing so, I found out that there was a miscontructed conditional. Navbar template would not accept it, but both index did. It had to do with the hivenail hack. The conditional if bbuserinfo[userid] was not properly closed. I am leeping my fingers closed, maybe this is why the board was not recognizing me. Hehehe!

[bendigo-tech]

That could come in very handy. Thanks a lot!

[kaotic]

Genious! I've already thought of a creative method of use for this hack. Many thanks!

[Oblivion Knight]

Hmm.. When trying to switch to another account, I get the error:

An error occurred while attempting to log you out. Click here to log out.

The only thing I've changed from your original hack is the navbar code because I didn't like the layout..

[Lionel]

Originally Posted by Oblivion Knight

Hmm.. When trying to switch to another account, I get the error:

The only thing I've changed from your original hack is the navbar code because I didn't like the layout..

I get the same too. My observation is that this happens when you sstay inactive for a long time. And it will not log you out too sometimes.

[Ianomed]

Originally Posted by Oblivion Knight

Hmm.. When trying to switch to another account, I get the error:

The only thing I've changed from your original hack is the navbar code because I didn't like the layout..

This can happen if you put spaces in the IDs linked, Oblivion.
Example, account 1 has secondary accounts 10 and 45, you would enter

10,45

and not:

10, 45

I'm just about to release v1.1, fixing something else. For now please be observant of the IDs as above. In a future version I'll provide an easier way to select the slave accounts.

[Ianomed]

Originally Posted by Lionel

I get the same too. My observation is that this happens when you sstay inactive for a long time. And it will not log you out too sometimes.

The new session cookie was set to expire, instead of to last. This has been fixed in v1.1, which I',m about to release. So it could've been either of two things

[Oblivion Knight]

Hmm.. The ids were only separated by a commar and not a space.

It appears that the session has to be active before it can be switched. I successfully switched from my account to "Test Account", when trying to switch back I got the error occured while logging out again. I tested this again, this time clicking on a forum and returning to the forum home with Test Account, and switching back worked fine.

It appears that a bit more work is required with the queries or something, hopefully this issue is fixed with 1.1..

[Ianomed]

Originally Posted by Lionel

All Fixed!

I dumped both $header and $index_header in the navbar. While doing so, I found out that there was a miscontructed conditional. Navbar template would not accept it, but both index did. It had to do with the hivenail hack. The conditional if bbuserinfo[userid] was not properly closed. I am leeping my fingers closed, maybe this is why the board was not recognizing me. Hehehe!

Good to hear that, Lionel.

By the by, I've just released an important update (v1.1). It only requires to redo the additions to global.php and login.php, so no worries about the tempalte