Show Thread Enhancements - Twitter - Tweet Button in SHOWTHREAD

This mod is now outdated and as a result support for new installs will be limited, if any.

-July 7, 2011-

Please instead use my new mod which offers Twitter and many more share options for VB 4.x without template edits.

WARNING - It appears vBulletin has changed the location of the Facebook Like button in version 4.1.2. As a result it is likely the code changes below will be different in 4.1.2 and beyond, I will not be able to support installs beginning with version 4.1.2 since my license stops at 4.0.8.


Twitter released their new TWEET button.

Live Demo: http://www.juot.net/forums/showthread.php?t=41185
(Note my Live Board is VB 3.8, but I have tested this on 4.0.4 and 4.0.6)
(Update I have for the time being replaced the Tweet button with the Add This share button on my live forum. See the screen shots instead.)

I have tested this in latest versions of IE / Firefox / Chrome / Safari / Opera and it should work in all.

This will show you how to add this simple code to your SHOWTHREAD template above the page navigation bar, if visible.

If you DO NOT use the built-in Facebook Like button do the following:

Go to the Admin CP -> Styles & Templates -> Style Manager
Edit your SHOWTHREAD Template

Find: (The first instance of)

		<vb:if condition="$pagenav">
			{vb:raw pagenav}
		</vb:if>

Above this add:

<vb:if condition="!in_array($GLOBALS[forumid], array(X, Y, Z))">
<div id="mytweetbutton" align="right" style="height:27px;">
<a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="horizontal" data-via="YOUR_TWITTER_USERNAME">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
</div>
</vb:if>

Change the X, Y, Z in the first line to the forumid's of any private forums you may have. If a guest can't view a forum there is no reason to link a tweet to it. You can add as many or as few forumid's here as you need, just separate each with a comma.
Valid Examples:
<vb:if condition="!in_array($GLOBALS[forumid], array(2, 5, 9))">
<vb:if condition="!in_array($GLOBALS[forumid], array(7))">
<vb:if condition="!in_array($GLOBALS[forumid], array(2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8))">
If none of your forums are private or you want to enable this in every forum you can remove the lines:

<vb:if condition="!in_array($GLOBALS[forumid], array(X, Y, Z))">
and 
</vb:if>

Replace "YOUR_TWITTER_USERNAME" with your twitter username, it will be referenced in the tweet- but the tweet will not be from YOU, it will be from whoever hits the tweet button.

If you DO USE the built-in Facebook Like button do the following:

Find:

		{vb:raw fblikebutton}

Replace it with:

<div id="fb_likeframe" style="border: none; overflow: hidden; height: 27px; width: 95px; vertical-align: text-bottom; padding-top:1px;"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="horizontal" data-via="YOUR_TWITTER_USERNAME">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>{vb:raw fblikebutton}

Replace "YOUR_TWITTER_USERNAME" with your twitter username, it will be referenced in the tweet- but the tweet will not be from YOU, it will be from whoever hits the tweet button.

The Tweet button will now show up next to the Facebook Like button in anytime the Facebook Like button is displayed in a thread.

----

When you hit the Tweet button you will be given a box to type a message if you're logged in. If you're not logged in you will be asked to login or join, all within the pop-up window.

This button code will count the number of tweets people have made using it. For other options including the button with no counter visit: http://twitter.com/goodies/tweetbutton

The screen shots show the Tweet button both with and without the page navigation bar, and with the Facebook Like button.

Please click Install if you use this.

Download the .txt file for a copy of the install instructions. :up:

----

Known Issues- a few people have reported a 'slash' is missing in the URL submitted to Twitter on some boards. Other people have said URL's with non-english characters cause a URL error. The solution for both of these issues is in post #143 in this thread.

Also Twitter appears to be having widespread issues with the counter not working. Some sites it works, some it don't, sometimes it stops working, sometimes it starts working for no reason. If you find your count isn't working try the solution in post #147. If that doesn't work than disable your counter completely if you want by changing the word "horizontal" to "none" in the twitter code.

[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by zelnik

Perhaps it's something to do with vbseo?

BTW: when you click the number (which is 0 most of the time) it does take you to the tweeted link on Twitter.com

That's my guess as well but I don't have vbseo... I'm trying to see if I can replicate it with what I have.

That's good it does, probably because of that link you added.

[zelnik]

Heard back from the vbseo guys and they said it is nothing to do with vbseo!

[eternal_]

Originally Posted by zelnik

Well I thought I had it working but the counter seems to mess up?!

When I tweet something the counter will say "1" hit refresh and it will go back to "0" and each and every time after still "0" Any ideas?

I'm having the same problem, also with wordpress, always says 0. Annoying.

[eternal_]

Where is the headerinclude template, can't find it in my ftp client to make the change?

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

That's weird but this should fix it...

Edit your headerinclude template:

Find:

		<meta name="description" content="{vb:raw vboptions.description}" />
</vb:if>

Below it Add:

<vb:if condition="THIS_SCRIPT == 'showthread'">
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/forum/{vb:link thread, {vb:raw thread}, {vb:raw pageinfo_post}}" />
</vb:if>

Make sure you change http://www.example.com/forum/ to the URL to your own forums, whatever is before "showthread.php..." when you are viewing a thread. (In the example given it would be: http://www.baghdad4ever.net/vb/)

This will include a canonical link on your threads (and only threads) which over-rides the URL passed to Twitter, with hopefully, the right one now...

If this doesn't work please give me a link to your forums so I can see what is up...

[eternal_]

Oh I found it! It's not headerinclude, it's headinclude

[BirdOPrey5]

Whoops... my bad... will fix the instructions- thanks.

[tommac3]

I dont see the code ... {vb:raw fblikebutton}

in SHOWTHREAD ... did this change in 4.0.6 ?

[BirdOPrey5]

No, I use 4.0.6 so it's definitely there... It may only be there if you have Facebook Integration turned on- not sure... if you don't use the facebook like button there are alternate instructions listed...

Also make sure there's no spaces before or after "{vb:raw fblikebutton}" in your search... Look for this code before it:

<vb:if condition="$show['fb_likebutton']">

[zelnik]

Originally Posted by zelnik

Well I thought I had it working but the counter seems to mess up?!

When I tweet something the counter will say "1" hit refresh and it will go back to "0" and each and every time after still "0" Any ideas?

It seems to fix itself after a certain amount of hours after you click the tweet button!??!

If I go back to the thread the next day the indicator is correct (it also counts retweets which is nice)

Now the only issue is which i'm sure can't be worked around is that if the thread is multipaged the indicator only shows on one of the pages.

[BirdOPrey5]

Each page has it's own URL so if someone tweets page 2 people will be linked directly to the second page... the page # can be removed from the canonical link expression so it's always the first page that gets tweeted, but that could hurt the SEO of your forums because you giving the link to a different page then the actual content it on...If someone tweets page 2 instead of page 1 maybe the 'good' post is on the 2nd page anyway.

If it's 'fixing itself' it sounds like a Twitter server issue not keeping up with the counts... this is still new to them so maybe they will figure it out.