Miscellaneous Hacks - SocialForums 1.4

SocialForums for vBulletin 3.7
Created by Marius Czyz aka Phalynx.

This mod will work *ONLY* with vBulletin 3.7 or higher. It will not run on vBulletin 3.6.x due to non existent feature of "social groups".

Support will be only given for people who clicked Mark as INSTALLED.

Description
Not satisfied with vBulletin social groups messaging function? With SocialForums your social group leaders can create a standard forum for their group.
A group leader can only create a forum if the group has at least 5 members - this can be changed via settings. Optionally the group leader can be a moderator of such a social forum.

Permissions
Since 1.3 there are advanced permissions active (Forum and Archive). This includes read/write public and private (moderated/invite only) socialforums and creation of forum. As this needs two additional queries on every page you can disable this.

Demo
None, see screenshots

Installation
This product is fully phrased and uses template hooks. No file changes or manual template edits needed.
1. Upload bitfield_socialforums.xml to existing folder /includes/xml/
2. Upload functions_socialforums.php to existing folder /includes/
3. Fresh Installation: Just import the product. Upgrade: Import the product, allow overwrite. No forums get lost!
4. Check settings, especially for parent forum. Don't forget to set permissions via usergroups!

Troubleshooting
Q: I don't see a link to create a forum. Why?
A: Check permissions for the usergroup, espacially if the user is allowed to create forum.
A: Check if the usergroup meet min users requirement, see AdminCP/Settings/SocialForums.

Q: My users see the forums, but they shouldn't!
A: Check permissions for the usergroup, if the users usergroup is set to "can see".
A: Did you disabled the restriction mode? Enable it.

Todo
- By deleting a group the forum should also be deleted/archived. Currently this has to be done manually.

Known Issues
- On big boards with hundreds of social groups this mod can really impact the performance because of the mass of new created forums. If you still want to use this mod use the "Minimum Members" feature with a higher value. Using the permission check there are additional two queries on every page.

History
1.4.6, 6th October 2008
- Permissions are now also active in Archive

1.4.2, 27th May 2008
- Added: If a group has a linked forum the grouplisting has the last post date and count of postings (with permission check).
- Added: Recent threads in linked forum on group home
- Added: Private groups: Link to forum only shown to members of group
- Changed: Enabled permissions for unregistered usergroup. Unregistered Users are not more explicit denied without a check of it's usergroup

1.3.1, 23th May 2008
- Fixed: Not existing array

1.3.0, 23th May 2008
- Added: Permissions are now active. This includes read/write public and private (moderated/invite only) socialforums and creation of forum. Please check permissions for every usergroup! As this needs two additional queries on every page you can disable this.
- Added: Checks for permission before the creation link will be displayed
- Changed: Default View Age set to "Show all Threads"

1.2.1 8th April 2008:
- Added: Group messaging can be disabled via options (previously: always disabled)

1.2.0 4th April 2008:
- Added: Groupleader can now be moderator of group forum
- Added: Minimum Members that are required for own forum
- Added: Group messaging will be automatically hide for group that has own forum
- Added: Forums are created with more allowances
- Added: By deleting a forum the linked socialgroup get's updated
- Added: Forum's description contains link back to social group
- Added: By changing group's name it synchronize it with the forum's name

1.0/1.1 1st April 2008:
- Initial releases

[Zeb Zoober]

I'm getting this error when trying to create a social forum -

A required field called groupid is missing or has an invalid value

I have the parent ID set to 1 in the SocialForum settings. Any ideas?



******Nevermind. Found my database error.

[Fastbird]

Major error. I installed the template hack for the group display, which isn't written for this hack. I found this out after installing this hack.

I tried to uninstall and it did not uninstall the usergroup options. I am left with 3 blank selections at the bottom of my usergroups and I get a DB error everytime I try to change anything in the usergroup options.

I tried to reinstall and it did nothing. I would really like to just remove it since I can't use it with that template mod. Can anyone help me stop the DB error?

[Fastbird]

Anyone have any ideas?

MySQL Error : Unknown column 'uscpermissions' in 'field list'
Error Number : 1054
Request Date : Friday, September 12th 2008 @ 09:18:08 AM
Error Date : Friday, September 12th 2008 @ 09:18:08 AM
Script : http://ltxtech.com/forums/admincp/us....php?do=update
Referrer : http://ltxtech.com/forums/admincp/us...&usergroupid=2
IP Address :
Username : phantomzer0
Classname : vb_database
MySQL Version : 5.0.67-log

[Fastbird]

I'd really like to be able to edit my usergroups again.... :/

[Fastbird]

Comon' anybody?!?!?!?

[Fastbird]

Omg, I'm sorry. This product is fine. I uninstalled something right before this which was causing the problems. I'm so sorry!

[shri]

Originally Posted by waza

I like forums for social groups, but if you do it with regular forums you will totally blow up forums cache (datastore).

On (semi-)large forums this will be disastrous (even with the limitations) on performance.

In the past there was already a hack that created blogs by creating a forum for members as a blog, with the same results (ok, the blog thing will be worse than this, but still)

Could someone elaborate on the caching issues? We've noticed that with multiple front ends, there is a problem that sometimes the forums seem to disappear for some users.

[Defkalion]

Originally Posted by Mark.B

NO, I disagree.

Unless there is going to be some sort of integration with "Today's Posts" and "New Posts" then the new Social Group Threads is going to be useless, at least on my site, as almost everyone navigates with getdaily and getnew.

Thus this mod will still be needed.

You're correct. Also, it's not only when members navigate with getnew searches. If you have the groups for ontopic discussions (and not for general community use with offtopic groups), then you need to keep all the content (discussions) in one place. With this mod, we have the groups' forums inside our forums list. With 3.8, discussions are only found inside each group.

[punchbowl]

Originally Posted by Defkalion

You're correct. Also, it's not only when members navigate with getnew searches. If you have the groups for ontopic discussions (and not for general community use with offtopic groups), then you need to keep all the content (discussions) in one place. With this mod, we have the groups' forums inside our forums list. With 3.8, discussions are only found inside each group.

Yep this mod is much better than what's built into 3.8. Hopefully we'll be able to turn off social group thread completely and use this mod instead.

[Alfa1]

With vb 3.8 coming up with similar functionality, do you have any idea's about importing Social group threads from this mod into vb 3.8's 'social group discussion' threads?