PayPal Donations For vBulletin 3.5.0

Sorry Guys...I have disappeared from vB coding completely for the time being...RL is paying me $35/hour to ignore it lol. Hope you understand why I haven't been around...

Paypal Donations For vBulletin 3.5
Version 2.02b

Hack Provided and coded by )O( Cloudrunner )O( of The Noble Pagan.
Release version: 2.02b
Release Date: 03 July 2005

Change Log

Paypal Donations 2.02

• Fixed Bug introduced with the installer for the tables from 2.01
• Added Who's Online Support Plugins For Donations Script

Paypal Donations 2.01

• Fixed a small bug in the display of the top / last donors on the donate page.

Paypal Donations 2.00

• Ported system over to vBulletin 3.50
• Added ability for the installer to install template edits automatically
• System installs plugins automatically
• Fixed some minor bugs that were present in 1.07 of the 3.0.7 vBulletin donations system.

Special Thanks

Special Thanks goes to the following people, without their support, this would never have happened:

dsboyce8624
guvner
SLeeeper
And all of the Alpha Testers that helped out with this Hack!

I couldn't have done it without you all, Thank you!

)O( Cloudrunner )O(

What Paypal Donations Is:

Paypal Donations is a complete system that controls donations and how they are received via backend interfacing between your vBulletin server and Paypal's payment gateway server. The beauty of this marriage of servers is quite simply automation of the donation process as well as security of the transactions for both you, the administrator, and your users. With the Paypal donations system installed on your forums, you will be able to bring in that much needed income to not only keep your forums alive, but also to help defer costs of doing so to the users of your site without having to bug everyone and beg for money.

This seamless integration of Paypal as your backend payment processor not only provides your user with a well known and safe payment processor, but you are saved the hassle of opening a merchant account with your banking institution as well as saves you time in the process as it takes only a few short minutes to sign up with Paypal if you are not already an account holder there.

System Requirements

OS: vBulletin 3.5 (if you are running this already, then your server has the required installation, GD libraries are required, as well as CURL capabilities for this system to work)

Things To Do Before Installation

Direct File Edits To vB Resident Files: 1 (needed to group templates in AdminCP)
File Uploads: 34 (Of which 18 will be deleted after installation, leaving a total of 16 Files on your server)
Direct Database Queries: None, the installer does these for you
Direct Plugin Installation: None, the installer does these for you
Direct Template Modification: None, the installer installs all new templates, and modifies the resident templates as needed

The uninstaller will remove all modifications (to include the templates) should you decide to remove the system from your server.

How To Install / Upgrade Paypal Donations

Installation and Upgrading are as easy as a human like me could make it. Simply upload all the files from the archive to your server keeping the folder hierarchy intact and then point your browser to the installation file. On most servers it will be one of the following:

• http://www.yourdomain.com/admincp/donations_install.php
• http://www.yourdomain.com/forum/admi...ns_install.php

Just follow the prompts from there folks, the installer does all the database, template, plugin, phrasing, and settings automatically for you!

If you ever decide to remove the system, just upload the install files and folder again and run the installer and choose uninstall. The uninstaller will remove any and all modifications that it did to your files, database, and templates automatically as well. Its as easy as you can get!

Time to install: less than five minutes depending on your upload speed.

Steps To Perform After Installation

1. You must make sure that you have either a Business or Premiere account with Paypal.
   1. If you do not, then you will need to upgrade your Paypal account to that level before this system will work.
2. You must have Paypal's IPN (Instant Payment Notification) turned on in your Paypal Profile.
   1. You do not need to have it pointing at any particular file for this system to work as the system will tell Paypal where to send the IPN to credit your users and notify you of the transaction.
3. You will need to run through the donations settings at the end of the installer and make sure that you have all the required information in there.
4. Please note that this system can be placed into test mode (default setting is ON when system is first installed).
   1. This setting tells the system whether to speak with the real Paypal Server for transactions or with Paypal's Sandbox (testing) server. If you wish to test the system before going live you will need to have access to Paypal's Sandbox server, you can sign up for access there at: http://developer.paypal.com.
5. You will need to input your Paypal Account Email into the settings
6. You will need to input the full URL to your donate.php file so that your users can make it back to your site after payment
7. You will need to input the full URL to your ppverify.php file so that Paypal can send your IPNs to you and your system can process the information and give your users credit for the donation

License

Originally Posted by Brandon J. Briggs aka. Cloudrunner

As the original author of the Paypal Hacks for vBulletin 3.0.x and 3.5.x I give full authorization to modify, recode, compile and/or reverse engineer the paypal donation hacks to any and all fully licensed members of vBulletin.org. I also give permission to fully distribute any derivative works that are created due to this authorization without need of providing credit or other means of recompense.

I am releasing this authorization in the hopes that someone will be able to carry on the work that was begun.

Final words

You will need to add a link somewhere in your navigation system for vBulletin pointing your users to the donations page (if you installed the vBadvanced Module then you have a link on the home page, but you might want to add one in the nav bar as well), as well as setting up your paypal account to give IPN responses to you, you can do this in your Paypal Profile under Instant Payment Notification.

To play in PayPal's Sandbox you will need to be registered with their developer network and setup a few sandbox accounts to play with the sandbox properly. I have throughly tested the sandbox functionality, and it is working until they decide to change coding standards again.

I sincerely hope that you enjoy this hack, Please feel free to send feedback to tnp@noblepagan.com !

Thank you!

)O( Cloudrunner )O(

P.s. Should you feel the need to donate to me in thanks, I will not stop you , in fact I will say thank you and that your support is greatly appreciated. If you do donate to me for this hack, I will give the recognition here as well as on The Noble Pagan. You can find my donations page here (also works as a demo site should you feel the need to check it out):

The Noble Pagan Donation Page

[Q-v-n-s-Q]

This is bushyt why do we have to register new account, You're people's dad or mom, they have to re-register to donate ?

[Cloudrunner]

Originally Posted by Q-v-n-s-Q

This is bushyt why do we have to register new account, You're people's dad or mom, they have to re-register to donate ?

Um, excuse me, but first off, how about a bit more of an explanation as to what the problem seems to be, in other words what are you talking about?

Secondly, who do you think you are jumping in here with a post like that without an explanation as to what you are talking about?

In response to the question that I am understanding it as pertaining to my hack here, the answer is, no you do not need to register with a site that runs this to donate, unless the site in question is setup to disallow guests. My mod here does not differentiate against guests or registered members for donation purposes, it only differentiates for the recognition of registered members who have donated.

So back to my original question to you; What are you talking about?

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Originally Posted by Q-v-n-s-Q

This is bushyt why do we have to register new account, You're people's dad or mom, they have to re-register to donate ?

Could we please communicate like decent people.

Thank you.

[Cloudrunner]

Originally Posted by MarcoH64

Could we please communicate like decent people.

Thank you.

Sorry, I'm not normally like that, was in a rotten mood last night and that post just tweeked me wrong. I'll edit my response accordingly.

[Neutral Singh]

Hi Cloudrunner,

Hope you are in good mood now. This is just to inform you that your hack is wonderful and really producing the goods for me. Thumbs up for you, dude!

Some of my members have requested that there should be an option to make automated monthly donations. Could i expect you putting your energies in this direction soon... perhaps it can be for vB 3.5.0 version.

Regards

[chikkoo]

Originally Posted by Cloudrunner

*Points to first post*IOW, you will need to edit your navbar template to best fit your forum and add the link yourself. I did not modify this template because of the fact that this template is the most hacked up template in most users forum.

Dear Cloudrunner,

Thank you for spending time to repond me.

I still have no clue on what to do after installing this mod. I can run the "alldoners.php" that has a donate button that calls "donate.php" but no way to donate thru Paypal.

Is there any detailed manual or step-by-step information on this mod available anywhere?

I am a novice newbie, I am really sorry to bother you.

[Cloudrunner]

Originally Posted by chikkoo

Dear Cloudrunner,

Thank you for spending time to repond me.

I still have no clue on what to do after installing this mod. I can run the "alldoners.php" that has a donate button that calls "donate.php" but no way to donate thru Paypal.

Is there any detailed manual or step-by-step information on this mod available anywhere?

I am a novice newbie, I am really sorry to bother you.

It's not a problem boss.

the first post *should* detail what follows, but I'll try to go into more detail here:

after installing, you have a blank slate, kind of like a blank page in a note book...you have to fill it in with your system. This is not a "one size fits all" system, nor do I want it to be. To fill in the page, as it were, there are a few steps to take. The first being adding a goal for your site to achieve via the donations.

To do this simply go into your admincp, and if you installed everything correctly, you will see a submenu on the navigation panel on the left called Paypal Donations. Open that up and the bottom three options are where you want to begin. Add a goal first, this is basically how much you want to make for a specific reason. The input is self explanatory, simply title the goal, give the goal a description, then tell the system how much you want to make via donations.

Next is to add buttons for the users to make their donations through, same navigation panel, just click add new button.

In there you simply title the button, write a brief description as to what the button does, and how much it's worth. Then choose your goal from the drop down. Those are the only required fields. If you leave the amount input blank then the system will allow the user to put in their own amount for the donation, if you put an amount in there, then the system will only use that amount. Simple. The rest of the options should be fairly self explanatory.

Third to do, this is optional, is to add donors who have donated to your site before you installed the mod. Again, it's a basic walkthrough, choose the username, and add an amount. Side note here, if you want that amount to go to a specific goal you need to add it manually to that goal by editing the goal of your choice and then adding it to what's already there. I'm currently working on getting the system to do that for you automatically, but have ran into a small snag in doing that. It will be in the next update.

And that's it. Lemme know if you run into any more snags.

)O( Cloudrunner )O(

[Cloudrunner]

Originally Posted by Neutral Singh

Hi Cloudrunner,

Hope you are in good mood now. This is just to inform you that your hack is wonderful and really producing the goods for me. Thumbs up for you, dude!

Some of my members have requested that there should be an option to make automated monthly donations. Could i expect you putting your energies in this direction soon... perhaps it can be for vB 3.5.0 version.

Regards

I've added this to the suggested features list for the mod. Thank you for the idea!

I've suspended work for a little bit for a project for my own site where I'm putting together some videos to show my users the intricacies of the new vB so that they have a basic knowledge of how to use the site. When that is finished, I'll get back on the ball...

And thank you for the kind words.

Namaste
)O( Cloudrunner )O(

[Brinnie]

what is a member wants to keep their donation anonymous?

[Cloudrunner]

Originally Posted by Brinnie

what is a member wants to keep their donation anonymous?

That is built in, the user merely needs to edit their usercp -> memberoptions and uncheck the option checkbox for displaying the donation. If they uncheck that box in the useroptions, then the system ignores them in all the recognitions that have been included, including the main donor page, and the postbits, and member pages.