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

[Ianomed]

Originally Posted by bondjetta

NO problem, glad to help

I don't mind the Become, it seems fitting (at least for my purposes)...and FYI i combined it with Nex's admincp cookie hack and it's working fine w/ vbindex & admin-cookie (i know you tested it, just a further test )...and helps me TREMENDOUSLY considering I normally have 3-4 tabs going at once w/ different user id's

Wo0t! same here. Three different browsers normally, two of which are tabbed. With switching this quick and thanks to Nex's hack a seperate ACP session this is in the past now

Edit: make that two browsers + IE :devious:

[bondjetta]

Originally Posted by Ianomed

Wo0t! same here. Three different browsers normally, two of which are tabbed. With switching this quick and thanks to Nex's hack a seperate ACP session this is in the past now

Edit: make that two browsers + IE :devious:

yeah, i should start testing IE too i'd rather stick to FF and Opera

[Oblivion Knight]

Updated to v1.1, but I still get the error logging out message doing the method I explained.

I switch from "Oblivion Knight" to "Test Account", I then try to instantly switch back from "Test Account" to "Oblivion Knight" and the userid when logging out is parsed as 0 which gives the error logging out message. Is that something that can be fixed, or a design flaw in the way that vB handles user sessions?

[Ianomed]

Do you have any unusual cookie/session settings in vB? That being shorter than usual timeout, things like that.

For some reason the session has expired when you switch back to Oblivion Knight. I'll look into this for 1.1.1 or 1.2 *nods*

If it can be fixed, which I believe it can, then it's likely not going to be a drastic change to the code I introduced in login.php.

[Oblivion Knight]

Nope.. My cookie settings are all default I believe.!

Time-Out for Cookie: 900
Path to Save Cookies: /
Cookie Domain:
GZIP HTML Output: Yes
GZIP Compression Level: 1
Add Standard HTTP Headers: No
Add No-Cache HTTP Headers: Yes
Remove Redirection Message Pages: Yes

Could it have anything to do with this setting:
Simultaneous Sessions Limit

This is currently on 0 (disable)..

[Ianomed]

If a limit is disabled... then probably not. As it is I'm fairly certain I'll have this problem worked out tomorrow, in which case I'll up the version to 1.1.1. for maintenance release. The other improvements as charted in the first post will still be for v1.2.

[Lionel]

I have same problem too. Logs me out (timeout) or prevents me from login out. I noticed it does so when I go in admincp and spend sometime in there

[Ianomed]

@Lionel: Should be fixed in 1.1.1., released tomorrow/today (midnight here now) sometime if it goes according to plan. I'm going to more closely model the switch code creating the cookie to vB's own login code.

[Lionel]

regardless of inconveniences, I'll never uninstall that hack...

[Ianomed]

Alrighty then

The session expiration problem has been solved, maintenance version 1.1.1. released.

For those who have v1.1. already installed there is an attachment with the upgrade instructions, switch_11_to_111.txt.

Anyone installing from the new installation instructions (switch_111.txt) will end up with v1.1.1., which has the same fix applied.

Both of these files can be found in this thread's first post.

No updates to this hack are expected to take place until v1.2., introducing new features (and less overhead).