mYvBindex v3.1

mYvBindex 3.2.2 released! (5/22/03)

mYvBindex 3.2 will allow you to include different options from your vBulletin message board on your website's index page. Everything is completely template based so it is very easy to customize and change everything through your Admin CP.

Features:

• Login box for members to log in to your site on the homepage.
• Post News in a forum you specify and have it appear on your homepage.
• Show the latest threads started in your forum on your homepage.
• Show a poll and allow users to vote and see the results on your homepage.
• Shows users avatar, new private messages, and buddy list for members who are logged in.
• Shows a list of active users.
• Shows statistics such as total members, threads, posts, top poster, newest member, and today's birthday's.
• Shows a mini calendar with links to days with scheduled events, and a box with today's scheduled events.
• Search box to allow users to quickly search your forums.
• Current weather and updates on your homepage.
• Set and change all options via the Admin CP.
• Ability to easily switch on/off the polls, users avatar, buddy list, online users, search box, calendar, weather, custom templates, news icons, news comments, smilies, set the maximum number of news posts, and many other options via the Admin CP.
• Everything is completely template based so it is very easy to customize.
• Install file that will make all database queries and templates for you in seconds.
• Uninstalls in seconds.
• Tested and stable with vBulletin v2.6+

Screen Shots:
Guest Homepage
Admin Homepage
User Homepage
Admin CP


Queries:
A nice feature of mYvBindex is that it performs only 11 queries with all the options turned off, no matter how many news articles or latest threads you choose to display. Some options will cause the script to perform extra queries, but even with all the options turned on it still performs only 29 queries at max.

Here is a list of each extra function that will cause extra queries:

• Poll - 2 queries
• User's Avatar - 1 query
• Private Messages - 1 query
• Buddy List - 1 query
• Online Users - 3 queries
• Mini Calendar - 1 query
• Weather - 2 queries
• Poll and/or News Smilies - 1 query
• Stats - 5 queries

*Mini Hacks:*
Adding More Custom Templates
To add more custom templates to your mYvBindex, please see this post.

Stylin' Buddy List - by MartynJ
This will add your the users avatar and usertitle to the buddy list (Similar to and inspired by velocd's Stylin' Buddy List hack), and adds no extra queries to your homepage.
Download (Screen shot included in zip)

Shoutbox Integration - by MartynJ
This hack integrates the ever popular Shoutbox hack with your mYvBindex.
Download (Screen shot included in zip)

TWCommish's vB Shoutbox Integration - by Brahm
This is a slightly different shout box made by TWCommish. His hack is required and can be found here. After downloading his hack, use Brahm's instructions here to integrate it with mYvBindex.

Attachments in News Posts - by Tigga
This hack allows attachments posted in news posts to be viewed in the news section on your homepage.
Download

Allow users to set homepage options - by Tigga
This mini-hack will allow your users to set which options they would like displayed on the homepage. They will be able to turn on/off avatars, weather, custom templates, and etc on a per user basis.
Download *Note* It may be necessary to open this file in a text editor (other than notepad) to get it to display properly.

Multiple News forums from different links - by Tigga
This hack allows allows you to have a link to a "different index file" which will pull news posts from a different forum.
Instructions can be found here


Credits:
mYvBindex uses modified versions of the following hacks:
Mini Calendar from vbPortal - by wajones
vB Weather Mk. 2- by JJR512


Copyright:
This hack is NOT to be re-distributed or placed on website for download without permission. All copyright notes in the script itself must remain unchanged.

Please don't forget to hit the Install Button


Updates from version 3.2.1
After the release of v3.2.1 a couple of small bugs were found. They affected the ability to edit a news post from the link on the homepage, pulling the wrong post from a thread for the news section, and updating your most users ever online if a new record is set. The changes from v3.2 to 3.2.1 were minimal, so those should be the only bugs found. Upgrading once again is very easy. Just download the new files, change the path in the myvbindex.php file, and upload it over your existing one.

Updates from version 3.2
v3.2.1 is again just a small maintenance release. The main change in this version is the way the forum permissions are done. Before, the forum permissions would cause the latest threads query to take much longer than it should (mostly on larger forums). Now with the new permissions system in place, the query to pull the latest threads should take less than 0.01 seconds. Other than the permissions section, the only other changes were a few optimizations to the code syntax. Upgrading from v3.2 is simple - Just upload the new myvbindex.php file over your existing one and you're done.

Updates from version 3.1
v3.2 is mostly another maintenance release, and will hopefully be the last release for vBulletin 2.X (unless any bugs are found). Here are a list of all the changes.
Fixed a bug where setting the "Show Latest Threads Icon?" option to "No" could disable the latest threads section.
Fixed a bug where signatures with vBcode were not displayed properly in the news section.
Fixed a bug where the icons in the news and latest thread parts weren't displaying the right icon for some users.
Added an option to completely disable signatures in news posts.
Added an option to select a random poll from any forum for the poll part of the hack.
Further optimized parts of the code and slightly changed part of the structure.
Now shows "No Buddies Online" in the buddy list if no buddies are online.
Changed so it will no longer show a default icon for the news and latest threads unless your options are also set to show a default icon on the forumdisplay page.
Now shows the last poster and last post time when you hold your mouse over the title of a thread in the Latest Threads part.
The install script has been re-written so you can install, upgrade, uninstall, update your news posts (useful for first time installations where a news forum already exists), or install just the templates (useful after upgrading vBulletin to a new version) all from one file.
Significantly reduced the size of the weather_install.php file (from 3.0 MB to 1.25 MB) so it will not take so long to upload to your server.
Fixed a couple of small spacing issues in the poll templates.
Fixed a problem with JJR512's weather hack not pulling the weather forcast.
Added a FAQ section to the readme file to help common problems.

Upgrading should take no longer than 2 minutes and instructions can be found at the bottom of the readme file.


Updates from version 3.0
v3.1 is mostly a maintenance release to help cut down on first time installation problems. Other than that, the biggest difference you will notice is the template "style" has changed to mesh better with vBulletin (see screenshots above). You do not have to install the new templates as you will have the option to install the new templates or to skip that step in the install file. Other than the templates, here is a list of the other changes:
A few more "error checking" features have been added to ensure you won't get a nasty sql error if you leave your News or Poll Forum ID, or any of the other fields blank.
The problem some users were experiencing with the temperature for the weather part of the hack should be fixed for good.
The "Show Poll" option in the Admin CP is removed as this can now be disabled simply by leaving the "Poll Fourm ID" filed blank.
Fixed a small typo and optimized parts of the code a little further.
Slightly changed the position of the days and numbers in the calendar part.
Fixes a bug where the Today's Birthday part wouldn't point to the correct url.

Upgrading should take no longer than 2 minutes and instructions can be found at the bottom of the readme file.


Updates from version 2.0
Removed the option from the Admin CP to allow smilies in News posts as this can now be set per post just as you would when making a regular post.
Added a stats section with info such as total members, threads, posts, newest member, top poster, and today's birthdays.
Added a "Today's Events" section under the calendar that will display any events that are scheduled for the current day, and will only be visible if there are events listed for the current day.
Added an option to show the poster's avatar with the news post.
You can now have your signature displayed with the news post. This is controlled when posting the message just as you would with a regular post.
Added an option to display the news post's rating with the news.
Added options to show small icons to allow users to show a printable version of the news post and an option to allow users to email their friends a link to the news post.
Added an option to allow/disable HTML in news posts.
Added an option to allow/disable the [img] tag in news posts.
Shows the number of times a news post has been viewed.
Shows the number of new posts since the users last visit.
Shows the number of replies to the poll if poll discussions are allowed.
Fixed a bug where the search box would take you to the search page rather than displaying the results.
Fixed a bug where setting the News Posts Maximum to 0 would disable the news rather than giving it no limit.
Optimized the code a little more to increase performance.


Help & Support
Before asking for support Please read the F.A.Q in the readme.html file! Most common problems are answered there! If you have any problems or questions that are not covered in the F.A.Q. please please post them here. I will be more than happy to help in any way I can if the request for help is made here. Anyone trying to contact me via email, private message, my website, or any other means will be ignored.

[ivanmcp]

Intex,

Any adjustements to the way your home page (mYvBindex) looks is in your vBulletin admin section. Go to the Templates > Modify, and than find 'mYvBindex Templates', click on the [expand], and first template is 'index'. Click on 'edit' and this is where you control the look of your home page.

You can create your page in Dreamweaver and copy all of the html code into the 'index' template. So, let's say you created page with three equal width columns and you want to place poll in the middle column. To do this, you just place $currentpoll in html code where poll is to appear. Same goes to all the other bits, like $currentweather, $calendar, $search etc.

I found this feature (vB template) to be of great help, as now I can be anywhere in the world, and can still change home page, as long as I can find a computer connected to the net, and some html knowledge.

[Intex]

Thx. for the info ivanmcp.

[silverlex02]

I have a quick question. Everything worked fine for me, but when you load my site it goes straight to the forum unless I rename the vbindex file to index. Then If I do that I can't access the forum it won't take me to the page with all the forum theads and so on. What do I have to do to get the vbindex file to pull up when you load my url and then how could I access the forum?

[silverlex02]

Check this out http://host53.hrwebservices.net/~oforums/index2.php what do I have to do to change the top left corner so it's the same as the rest?

[QCumber]

Can you quote the chdir(''); line that's around line ~8 for us please?

QCumber - What did you set for your path to your forums? I don't see why that would give an error on line 12, but (as long as you haven't made any modifications to your myvbindex file) then that should be the only thing that would produce an error like that.

Cloudrunner and Tigga, here's what I put into line 8 of myvbindex.php:

chdir('d:\www\vbulletin\');

I have vBulletin running on its own virtual server under IIS5.

Regards,

Sean McCormick
---
Hudson Highland Group, Inc.
Knowledge Management Centre
Edmonton AB Canada

[certify]

I'm using v3.2

How to exclude certain forums from showing in Latest Forum Topics?

[Cloudrunner]

One thing to try is to use the correct address...according to your error you are running the system in: D:\www\devforum.kmc.hhgroup.com\ but have your chdir set to: D:\www\vbulletin, try making the vbulletin the right directory for your forums, or, I may be wrong in this, but simply try removing the "d:" from the chdir...I've not yet run PHP under IIS so I may be wrong, I'll defer this to Tigga.

[Intex]

Tigga - how do you display flash on the homepage?

[QCumber]

One thing to try is to use the correct address...according to your error you are running the system in: D:\www\devforum.kmc.hhgroup.com\ but have your chdir set to: D:\www\vbulletin, try making the vbulletin the right directory for your forums, or, I may be wrong in this, but simply try removing the "d:" from the chdir...I've not yet run PHP under IIS so I may be wrong, I'll defer this to Tigga.

Ergh - I think I'm starting to lose it from trying to do too many things at once.

I've got the problem fixed. It turned out to be the trailing slash. I was experimenting with renaming the directory when I discovered the problem. Apologies for not posting my followup sooner. The correct path was:

d:\www\vbulletin

The path that produced the error was:

d:\www\vbulletin\

Thx very much for the help all the same and my apologies for the messed up reply I posted this morning. I really shouldn't touch a computer until I've had my first pot of coffee of the day.

Tigga, if you're reading this, my compliments to you on the hack. It's very easy to modify and it hardly places any strain on my server.

[Tigga]

Intex - I'm not quite sure if the "Force Update" link is working properly with the weather part of this hack or not. I'll be rewriting it so that it will function much better, but I'm not sure when I'll be able to get around to it. As for putting flash on your homepage, you would just put the HTML code in your index template just as you would a normal page.

silverlex - The file is generally placed in your root folder and serves as you main index page. If you want the page somewhere else (like in your forums directory) you would have to rename the file.

QCumber - Glad you got everything worked out and thanks for the compliment.

certify - If you open your myvbindex.php file and look for:

PHP Code:

$forums=$DB_site->query('SELECT forumid,parentid,displayorder FROM forum WHERE displayorder<>0 ORDER BY parentid,displayorder'); 


Change that to something like:

PHP Code:

$forums=$DB_site->query('SELECT forumid,parentid,displayorder FROM forum WHERE forumid != XX AND forumid != YY AND displayorder<>0 ORDER BY parentid,displayorder'); 


Then change XX and YY in that code to the forums you wish to exclude.