Add-On Releases - [AJAX] Helpful Answers - Allow users to rate individual posts

Helpful Answers has been used to record over 6 MILLION times on more than 2,000 forums. If you're not using HA your users are looking for it!

Every day your users contribute hundreds if not thousands of posts making it hard for new members and guests to separate out the best answers from those that are less helpful. The Helpful Answers System offers your members a quick way to rate individual posts as either helpful or not allowing future visitors to understand the value of each post.

Designed to be flexible, HA has over 30 configurable settings:

• Use image or text ratings AJAX or traditional links.
• Offer yes/no or scaled 1-10 point ranking.
• Turn off negative ratings for a positive only system.
• Decide which forums are open for helpful answer ratings.
• Audit the system and identify top users and potential abusers.
• Ban specific members from using the system.
• Customize the message shown after a post is rated.
• Show a page with the top helpful posts.
• Show rating stats on a user's profile.
• Hide posts that rate "too low"
• Template driven so you can customize it all for your forum.

For advanced users template conditionals and variables let you further extend the functionality to color highlight good or bad posts, include ratings in user?s profiles and much more.

Modification Installation [Must Read]:

Step 1: Upload the addon files found in the upload/ folder to your forum directory
Step 2: Install the plugin through your vB Administration area
Step 3: Configure settings & enable the mod in individual forums

You must configure settings & enable forums before voting will show up.
Anonymous Stats Tracking (optional):

By default this addon will pass basic rating data (positive or negative) to a 3rd party site for statistical purposes. Only the most basic data is captured (the vote and your site name) and no user information or specific forum details are logged, not even an IP address. You can disable this through the admin.

Mod Philosophy -- Drive Your Own Success:

All of my mods are inspired by my work in digital marketing and are designed to drive registrations, interaction or other engagement activities the core platform does not address.

Each is designed to fit a general need by providing a starting point but it's on you to decide how to make things work to their best possible outcome. Feel free to suggest what you'd like to see next but don't wait to have what everyone else has; figure out what your forum needs and customize away.

[FractalizeR]

Ted, if you need help with mod... Why not to thematically split it into several *.php files so that there are only require_once() statements left in *.xml and use Launchpad for example for development?

It's hard to code in one big xml file and checkins/checkouts by several devs are not possible in this way.

I think there will be several devs, that are interested in helping with development including me.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by FractalizeR

Ted, if you need help with mod... Why not to thematically split it into several *.php files so that there are only require_once() statements left in *.xml and use Launchpad for example for development?

It's hard to code in one big xml file and checkins/checkouts by several devs are not possible in this way.

I think there will be several devs, that are interested in helping with development including me.

Completely open on bringing others in here, what functions do you see adding includes support for?

[FractalizeR]

I suggested to split *.xml into several *.php files only to ease collaboration. For example, I can work on adding mod data to user's profile and for that there should be ha_userprofile.php with the code for appropriate hook. And you just require_once() this file in main *.xml. I will be able to checkin/checkout this file independently from others and will not interrupt any other work.

[mad@Max]

FractalizeR, is not a panacea

[FractalizeR]

Panacea for what? I don't get you.

[mad@Max]

Выводить код в файлы для увеличения производительности. Плюс получим небольшое неудобство в редактировании

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by FractalizeR

I suggested to split *.xml into several *.php files only to ease collaboration. For example, I can work on adding mod data to user's profile and for that there should be ha_userprofile.php with the code for appropriate hook. And you just require_once() this file in main *.xml. I will be able to checkin/checkout this file independently from others and will not interrupt any other work.

I'm not seeing the added benefit of the require files for splitting things up but I am all for making this extendable, and not just by me.

How about I add a hook to cover additional modules, you write your profile data tool and make it an addon release. I'm glad to support any modifications to the core code but this would help avoid the multiple devs working on the same source that you identified.

Aside from the profile I'm actually rather low on user input so I'm crafting up more ideas of my own. Lots of the stuff to do is really documenting... things like profile votes exist (for showing in posts), I just need to educate on how to use them better.

[FractalizeR]

Originally Posted by mad@Max

To push code out to files to increase performance. Plus we will get a minor inconvenience for code editing

Please speak English here. I am not suggesting to split code out to files to increase performance. However, that will increase it if server have APC or similar op cache installed. VBulletin is executing it's hooks via eval() and that sucks in performance.

I am suggesting to split plugin into several files by functionality to improve the ability to collaborate. Editing one XML is like editing a... I don't know... Will you be able to code editor like Microsoft Paint all in one C++ source code file? Is that convenient? Of course, you can pull code parts out of XML at least to have some code highlighting and after editing - put it back there. But is that convenient? I prefer rich IDEs like Zend Studio for writing code. And they are, of course, no suitable for editing XML files with embedded PHP code.

Also if something like Git will be used, we will be able to push code for review by Ted and he will be able to easily pull it and import into the project.

Originally Posted by Ted S

Aside from the profile I'm actually rather low on user input so I'm crafting up more ideas of my own. Lots of the stuff to do is really documenting... things like profile votes exist (for showing in posts), I just need to educate on how to use them better.

So... should we craft some code example on integrating data to user profile? Can you send me your latest plugin XML so that I could try to do that? FractalizeR@yandex.ru.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by FractalizeR

So... should we craft some code example on integrating data to user profile? Can you send me your latest plugin XML so that I could try to do that? FractalizeR@yandex.ru.

I was actually suggesting you write what you want and I'll make it work as an addon. This way you can modify as you see fit, and I can build any support needed to make it work.

I don't see a check in/ checkout system making sense for this mod as it's a pretty small project but am very open to supporting other coders working on addons / edits for it as needed.

[FractalizeR]

Patch for member profile info for 2.3.0:

1. Add to cache_templates hook:

PHP Code:

                if (THIS_SCRIPT == 'member')
                {
                    if($vbulletin->options['helpans_stats_ten']) {
                        $cache[] = 'helpful_statsbit_ten';
                    } else {
                        $cache[] = 'helpful_statsbit';
                    }
                } 


2. Delete member_build_blocks_start hook and make member_profileblock_fetch_unwrapped hook with the following contents instead:

PHP Code:

        <plugin active="1" executionorder="100">
            <title>Helpful Answers -- Profile Stats</title>
            <hookname>member_profileblock_fetch_unwrapped</hookname>
            <phpcode><![CDATA[
            
            if ($this->registry->options['helpans_stats_votes'] OR $this->registry->options['helpans_stats_ranks'] OR $this->registry->options['helpans_stats_ten']){
                
                // if we're using standard 0/1 voting show counts
                if(!$this->registry->options['helpans_rank_ten']){
                
                    if ($this->registry->options['helpans_stats_votes']){
                    $helpfulanswer = $this->registry->db->query_first_slave("
                        SELECT COUNT(helpfulanswerid) as count 
                        FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "helpfulanswer as helpfulanswer
                        WHERE userid = " . intval($userinfo['userid']) . "
                    ");    
                    }
                    
                    if ($this->registry->options['helpans_stats_ranks']){
                    $helpfulposts = $this->registry->db->query_first_slave("
                        SELECT SUM(helpfulpost.goodrank) as goodranks,SUM(helpfulpost.totalrank) as totalranks
                        FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "helpfulpost as helpfulpost
                        INNER JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "post AS post ON(post.postid = helpfulpost.postid)
                        WHERE post.userid = " . intval($userinfo['userid']) . "
                        GROUP by post.userid
                    ");
                    }
                    
                    $helpfulposts['badranks'] = $helpfulposts['totalranks'] - $helpfulposts['goodranks'];
                    if($helpfulposts['goodranks'] > 0 AND $helpfulposts['totalranks'] > 0){ $helpfulposts['average'] = ($helpfulposts['goodranks'] / $helpfulposts['totalranks']); }
                    
                    ($hook =  vBulletinHook::fetch_hook('helpfulanswers_user_stats')) ? eval($hook) : false;
                    
                    $templater = vB_Template::create('helpful_statsbit');
                    $templater->register('helpfulanswer_count', $helpfulanswer['count']);
                    $templater->register('helpfulanswer_goodranks', $helpfulposts['goodranks']);
                    $templater->register('helpfulanswer_totalranks', $helpfulposts['totalranks']);
                    $templater->register('helpfulanswer_badranks', $helpfulposts['badranks']);
                    $templater->register('helpfulanswer_average', $helpfulposts['average']);
                    $template_hook['profile_stats_last'] .= $templater->render();
                                
                
                // if we're using 10 scale votes show different
                } else {
                
                    if ($this->registry->options['helpans_stats_ten']){
                    
                        $helpfulposts = $this->registry->db->query_first_slave("
                            SELECT SUM(helpfulpost.goodrank) as goodrank, SUM(helpfulpost.totalrank) as totalranks
                            FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "helpfulpost as helpfulpost
                            INNER JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "post AS post ON(post.postid = helpfulpost.postid)
                            WHERE post.userid = " . intval($userinfo['userid']) . "
                            GROUP by post.userid
                        ");
                        
                        if($helpfulposts['goodrank'] && $helpfulposts['totalranks'] > 0){ $helpfulposts['avgrank'] = $helpfulposts['goodrank'] / $helpfulposts['totalranks']; }
                        $helpfulposts['avgrank'] = number_format($helpfulposts['avgrank'], 1, '.', ' ');
                        
                        $templater = vB_Template::create('helpful_statsbit_ten');
                        $templater->register('helpfulanswer_goodranks', $helpfulposts['goodranks']);
                        $templater->register('helpfulanswer_totalranks', $helpfulposts['totalranks']);
                        $templater->register('helpfulanswer_badranks', $helpfulposts['badranks']);
                        $templater->register('helpfulanswer_average', $helpfulposts['average']);
                        $template_hook['profile_stats_last'] .= $templater->render();
                        
                    }
                
                }
    
            }
            
            ]]></phpcode>
        </plugin> 


Also you can find ideas for next versions here: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=362