Paypal Donations (With Instant Payment Notification) -- RC1 (Public Testing)

This hack is obsolete, and is currently being ported to 3.0.7, and will be ported to 3.5 when it is allowed.

Thank you for your understanding.[b]

Version 0.9.5 is a major fix to a bug that was found by shortywz. Please download the new archive and overwrite your old files to upgrade to 0.9.5 if you are running 0.9.4, if you are running any version lower than 0.9.4 then after overwriting the old files run the installer

Paypal Donations for vBulletin

What it does:
Quite simply this hack provides you a way to receive donations from your website's users and provide them with the recognition deserving of a donating member of you community. It uses Paypal exclusively for the time being because of Paypal's "Instant Payment Notification" system. For more information on Paypal's IPN, please see the supplied manual for IPN located here in the docs directory. The file name is: "IPN.PDF".

The basics are this, your users goto your donations page where you have certain levels of donations available via hyperlinked "buttons". These buttons take your user to paypal's secure payment processing system where they pay you your donation. Once payment has been received, paypal sends your server a notification containing certain information pertaining to that specific transaction. Your server then repeats this information to the verification server (which is hardcoded into the system so that *spoofing* is rendered virtually impossible) which first checks to see if the information was sent by it, then checks the validity of the information. If everything checks out, it then sends your server a response of "VERIFIED". When this hack see that word after running the script it inserts all the information into your database so that you can see what was donated, who donated it, and where.

If the server returns a response of "INVALID" then this script drops the information into a separate table so that you can investigate the transaction further to detect fraud attempts. It also does this on any suspicious entries after a few checks. Once payment is verified and information has been inserted into the tables, the system then adds a few toys and items for the user to be recognized as a donating user. What you do with that recognition is up to you.

Features:

• You as the admin have the ability to show as little or as much as you want about what happens with your donations.
• Your users will only see what you want them to see.
• Can block other admins from seeing the actual payment information (you have to explicitly allow them access to that).
• Your members who have donated are recognized for doing so in the memberlist and their postbit.
• You can show your donation goals to the public and on your forumhome.
• Automatic updates EVERY time a user donates or retracts a donation.
• Postbit Awards for certain levels of donations that you decide on
• User has the ability to choose whether they receive the awards recognition
• Admin can customize the PM sent to donators thanking them for donating.
• Guest donations are now listed individually, sorted by IP(not displayed) on the Top Ten list, and within the database

**Coming Soon**

• Add a time-limited feature for the donation buttons
• Fix guest donations to show each indiviual guest's donations sorted uniquely
• Integration with Lesane's Store Hack
• The ability to verify Paypal's Secure Server ID and transfer the payment information via SSL if you have that enabled

Stuff you have to do:
Files to upload: 9
Files to modify: 7
Templates to modify: 4
Queries to run: (The install script does this for you, uninstallation is also provided as well)
Ease of install: Simple, but abit intensive with some file edits
Time of install: ~10 minutes

***REMEMBER! Add your email address that Paypal has on file in the ppfunc.php file. This step is not an option, your payments, although they may be valid, will all be considered invalid if you do not do this! Sign up for Paypal's Premiere Account (Business), and setup IPN.

Paypal Registration:
You will need to register with Paypal for a premiere account if you have not already, if you have, but your account is probably a personal account, you will need to upgrade the account to a premiere account. Assuming that you have a premiere account and have been verified, you then go into your profile at https://www.paypal.com and the select Instant Payment Notification. There will be a checkbox that you must check, and an inputbox where you will need to place your script file. Simply place your entire URL to the paypal.php file there.

On most systems it will be either:

http://www.yourdomain.com/paypal.php

or

http://www.yourdomain.com/forum/paypal.php

That's all there is to setting up Paypal to work with your site!

Install:
Upload the following files to your $ROOT/forum directory:

paypal.php
ppverify.php
ppfunc.php

Upload the following files to your $ROOT/forum/admin directory:

paypal_admin.php
paypal_donations_install.php

Upload the following files to your $ROOT/forum/images directory:

donate.gif
donate2.gif
donate3.gif
donate4.gif

Run the provided install file, after installation, DELETE THE FILE!

This will usually be:

http://www.yourdomain.com/forum/admi...ns_install.php

or

http://www.yourdomain.com/admin/payp...ns_install.php

Upgrading:
Upload the following files to your $ROOT/forum directory overwriting the old files:

paypal.php
ppverify.php
ppfunc.php

Upload the following files to your $ROOT/forum/admin directory:

paypal_admin.php
paypal_donations_install.php

Upload the following files to your $ROOT/forum/images directory:

donate.gif
donate2.gif
donate3.gif
donate4.gif

Run the provided install file and follow the upgrade instructions, after upgrading, DELETE THE FILE!

This will usually be:

http://www.yourdomain.com/forum/admi...ns_install.php

or

http://www.yourdomain.com/admin/payp...ns_install.php

After Install:
You will need to add a link somewhere in your navigation system for vBulletin pointing your users to the donations page.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
I sincerely hope that you enjoy this hack.

This thread is specifically for the use of bugs reporting and feature suggestions.

You are allowed to hack the crap outta this here script for your own personal use, BUT, if you do, I will not be able to provide you with support for the system if the base code has been changed! Also, if we find another hack that interferes with this one, I will do my best to provide a work around for it, but I will not garuantee that to occur!

For those of you who have been alpha testing this for me, THANK YOU! To upgrade from Alpha to Beta, you will have to do a complete uninstall (including file modifications) and reinstall. This is due to the extensive redo of code in vb resident pages. I hope you can understand.

Thank you!

)O( Cloudrunner )O(

P.s. --> I you want to be notified whenever I updated the Paypal Donations System, I suggest that you push that little button up top and down below that says install, It's especially useful to you to do so, cus when a New Version comes out, I can simply update and anyone who has it installed will be notified.....Just a suggestion...

A special thank goes out to ap0c for keeping me on my toes during Alpha testing...dude can find some bugs, lemme tell ya! And thanks for the suggestions as well bro! I added all of em.

Attached is the full release which includes screenshots and the manuals from Paypal for IPN and Donations for those of you who really want to play with the code for reference. Warning, the file is large!

If you want a smaller file, then look here. The archive in that post is the smaller of the two at ~30K compared to ~1M. It does NOT contain the manuals OR the screens (as requested by gmarik).

Enjoy

(with the addition of the manuals and screens, the archive is too big to attach. If you want these, pm me and I'll send it them too you, or simply download the screens archive a few posts down, and then download the manuals from Paypal.)

[Cloudrunner]

ADDED FEATURE:

A user on my forums actually asked for this feature, so I did it. Anyways, It allows your users to choose whether or not their donations award is displayed on the postbit and memberlist. Also I fixed that other misscode ap0c found.

To upgrade, upload all files, overwriting the old files on the server, then run the installer again, this time choosing the upgrade option.

The archive has been updated with the new release...

Enjoy, Let me know if any problems arise!

)O( Cloudrunner )O(

[gmarik]

Why is the zip so big?
Can you make an archive without screenshots?!

[Cloudrunner]

done...

but it's not the screens that take up most of the room, it's the IPN and Donations manuals that paypal provides. I've provided them for reference for those who want to play with the code.

This one doesn't contain the screens or the manuals, so it's about 30 Kb in size....enjoy

)O( Cloudrunner )O(

edit: check the bottom of the first post

[Dean C]

Any chance you could change this so you can add a time frame for which the donation expires in. This is one of the features i had on my system. Also i had it so it sent users a PM on their donation being excepted and when it expired. The user the PM came from, the title and content was all customizable through options.

But definately i think you should have timed donation periods so they automatically expire

Sound good?

- miSt

[gmarik]

Cloudrunner,

Thanks. And yes, as Mist noticed, if if would PM them
you're code would be out of comments, get what I mean?!

[Cloudrunner]

I can see what I can come up with, shouldn't be too hard

Mist, can you PM me with more details on that so we don't bog the thread down? Thanks.

I'll get right on the auto PM, prolly be added before I go to bed tonight.

[Dean C]

Come in the IRC chat sometime. I'm in their most of the time now that i have finished my exams .

We'll talk in private there ?

- miSt

[Crazy Pete]

Will this work with non-forum members as well? For example if someone were to donate that wasn't a member of the forums, what would be processed then?

[Cloudrunner]

Absolutely! Even guests can donate, I've not made that a feature to turn off guest donations yet in the adminCP. But yes, guest users can donate, and it will be processed, it just won't show up on the memberlist or postbits.

[Crazy Pete]

Ah ok, great. It will still show up in the "Contributors" list though, correct? That's excellent, I can replace my current (static) donations page with this much better one. Thanks very much for writing this!