Major Additions - 8WayRun.Com - Media Library

Don't forget to click INSTALL!
I'm an unemployed computer programmer... if you appreciate the work I have done on this mod, please don't hesitate in offering me a donation by clicking the "Support Developer" link to the right of this text. A donation of $50 or more automatically gives you the right to remove the copyright footer for this modification from a single forum.

This is a new modification, spawning from the old VB 3.x Video Directory modifications.
For all intents and purposes, both my old Video Directory Remixed mod, and Survivor's original Video Directory mod have been discontinued. Neither of us are maintaining these older versions, they will not receive any future updates and we will not be providing any support. This version has a new name because it has been completely rewritten from scratch and is not being built on Survivor's old code. Because of this, if you are upgrading to this new version, from the old version, be sure to read this entire post in order to understand the upgrade process.

What is this mod?
Simply put, this mod is a directory for media. It supports URL inputs, in order to extract meta data and directorize media into a simple and easy to understand library. Users can add their favorite media from a select few online distribution centers (such as Youtube or Vimeo) and categorize and tag them as they see fit. This mod offers rudimentary support for the hosting of local media. An administrator can upload a media to the /customVID/ (default) directory; then add the media to the library using the URL code of "local:filename". Media hosted locally will be displayed using JWPlayer, but will not provide meta data, so that kind of information will need to be entered manually.

Demo:

http://www.8wayrun.com/media.php

Features:

• Integrated directly into the vBulletin user database and product manager.
• Fully phrased and built on tempaltes for easy re-skinning and styling.
• Simple to use administration features and usergroup permission settings.
• Landing page with the most recent, most popular and highest rated media.
• Ability to add media into a single category, while adding multiple tags.
• Ability to browse media through categories, tags, and user contributions.
• Summary tag cloud with a link to the entire list of tags in the system.
• Comment and rating system based on AJAX including graceful degredation.
• Individual RSS Feeds for newest videos, categories, tags and user media.
• Search function for titles and descriptions.

Installation:

If you are upgrading from before version 1.1, please install that version first.

1. Upload all the files in the "upload" directory of the attached zip file to your forum root.
2. CHMOD the /customVID/thumbs/ directory to full read/write/execute 777 permissions.
3. CHMOD the /customVID/sitemap/ directory to full read/write/execute 777 permissions.
4. Import the product file called "product-medialibrary.xml" in the Product Manager of vBulletin.
5. Set your usergroup permissions and media library settings in your administration control panel.
6. OPTIONAL: Enable the "Generate XML Media Sitemap" scheduled task in your administration control panel.
   
   NOTES: Make sure you decide what you wish to use for your thumbnail quality setting. By default, thumbnails are saved at 50% quality. At 50%, thumbnails will only be 2kb in size, but at the expense of quality. At 100%, thumbnails will be about 15kb in size, but will have the highest quality. I recommend setting it to 80%, which would leave thumbnails at 5kb in size with still excellent quality.
   
   Every time you change your thumbnail quality setting, you will need to run the "Rebuild Media Thumbnails" to see any changes.

Upgrading from VDR:

1. The "video*" tables from your previous installation of VDR need to exist in your database.
2. Enable the "media ADMIN import" plugin in the plugin manager of your control panel.
3. Run the "Import Media from VDR" process in your update counters menu in maintenance.
4. Disable the "media ADMIN import" plugin in the plugin manager of your control panel.
5. Run the "Rebuild Media Thumbnails" process in your update counters menu in maintenance.
6. You may now uninstall VDR once you confirm everything has been imported as intended.
   
   NOTES: You will mostly likely get at least one error while rebuilding media thumbnails...
   
   When you get an error, click the details link for that media. If the media displays some sort of error such as "This video has been removed" or "This video no longer exist", then that means that media is gone and you'll be unable to generate a thumbnail for that particular media. Use the available options on that media's detail page to DELETE it from your library. Then go back to your browser window which is rebuilding thumbnails and click the "retry from this position" link.
   
   If you got an error for a media, but after clicking the details link you can find no obvious error with the video; then the error could have just been a simple syn/ack failure. Just click the "retry from this position" link and the system will try to rebuild that thumbnail again.

Known Bugs:

There is a conflict with this modification and some of Valter's VSA modifications that will prevent navbar permissions from being handled correctly. I don't know exactly who's fault it is; but I'm pretty sure there are no errors in my code that would be causing this problem. There is a work around for this however.

Admin Control Panel > Plugins & Products > Plugin Manager > "media NAVTAB"

Find the code:

    $perms = media_permissions();

Replace with:

$perms['rate'] = true;
$perms['comment'] = true;
$perms['submit'] = true;
$perms['playlist'] = true;
 
if (is_member_of($vbulletin->userinfo, explode(',','5,6')))
{
    $perms['modtags'] = true;
    $perms['modcategory'] = true;
    $perms['modservice'] = true;
}

[Xencored]

Originally Posted by DragonByte Tech

Regardless, Hope that clears things up for you, Good luck with your mods =)

I soooo lol'd at that line

[Jaske]

Great mod but I have one question- which file would I edit to fix these jumbled words (see screenshot)? Thanks!!

[your24hourstore]

Originally Posted by Jaske

Great mod but I have one question- which file would I edit to fix these jumbled words (see screenshot)? Thanks!!

those are not jumbled your browser is set to small
go to the bottom of IE and see that 100% make it 75%

or you could change your screen resolution from what you have to a higher resolution

[dbigras]

Originally Posted by Jaxel

I think this has to do with the AJAX, please temporarily turn off AJAX on your forum and see if french characters start posting correctly.

Yep, you were right it works fine when I disable Ajax. But Ajax works fine everywhere else on my site and it's all french.

Now, what can be done?

[Jaxel]

Originally Posted by dbigras

Yep, you were right it works fine when I disable Ajax. But Ajax works fine everywhere else on my site and it's all french.

Now, what can be done?

Okay... turn AJAX back on, post something in french, (you should see that the text is all messed up?)... Then hold CTRL and hit F5 on your keyboard. Then tell me if the text is still messed up after the refresh.

[dbigras]

Originally Posted by Jaxel

Okay... turn AJAX back on, post something in french, (you should see that the text is all messed up?)... Then hold CTRL and hit F5 on your keyboard. Then tell me if the text is still messed up after the refresh.

Yep, still messed up after a CTRL-F5 refresh.

[Jaxel]

Originally Posted by dbigras

Yep, still messed up after a CTRL-F5 refresh.

Hmm... then I will admit, I really don't know. I'm still pretty new to AJAX, so I'm using built in libraries. I'm posting foreign characters without any issues on my forum, so I guess I'm going to have to fallback to my default answer when it comes to these sort of problems...

I have specifically programmed this mod to assume the character set of your forum. So if you have a foreign language forum, and your forum is still set to non-unicode character sets, you will have issues. So I recommend you switch your language charset to UTF-8... it will probably speed up your forum too...

[DragonByte Tech]

Originally Posted by Jaxel

Hmm... then I will admit, I really don't know. I'm still pretty new to AJAX, so I'm using built in libraries. I'm posting foreign characters without any issues on my forum, so I guess I'm going to have to fallback to my default answer when it comes to these sort of problems...

I have specifically programmed this mod to assume the character set of your forum. So if you have a foreign language forum, and your forum is still set to non-unicode character sets, you will have issues. So I recommend you switch your language charset to UTF-8... it will probably speed up your forum too...

Hey there, hope you're not too offended if we pop in here and resolve this. It just requires the use of PHP.urlencode();

Without:
Attachment 117171

With:
Attachment 117172

I hope that this might help out your users. On a side note, perhaps a better mastery of programming before you criticise others work in future would be advisable. As before, feel free to give us a buzz if you're unsure how to apply this.


Fillip

[Big-Pete]

Love this mod, Just what I needed, Will be sending donation as this is superb!..

The only issue I have is with the CMS, If i use the BB code and place the media tag into an article in the cms i get a border appear around title in both the preview and the full page, how would i either adjust this border or remove it?? Any help will be greatly appreciated

[Jaxel]

Originally Posted by DragonByte Tech

Hey there, hope you're not too offended if we pop in here and resolve this. It just requires the use of PHP.urlencode();

I'm already using that...

if ($ajax)
{
	$message = convert_urlencoded_unicode($message);
}

I also personally feel that using checks like "function_exists()" is a big mistake. I think a program should either DEGRADE gracefully and silently without the user knowing, or FAIL as loud as possible. If you start using "function_exists()", the program doesn't degrade as it should, it instead FAILS, but it doesn't tell anybody it fails; no one knows it failed until things just don't work as it should. Error messages are there for a reason, to inform you that there was an error.