Miscellaneous Hacks - Staff Tracker - Tags Posts Made By Staff With "Next Staff Post" Button

This is Staff Tracker 1.0.0 Beta 1 for vB3.8 by GeekyDesigns!

As the version number states, this is a beta release. I've tested it myself and it should work, but there is only so much I can throw at it. Nothing bad should happen, but I can't guarantee that it'll work 100%. With that caveat out of the way, I'm sure you're wondering exactly what this does.

What this addon does it fairly simple. In vBulletin Options -> Staff Tracker, there are two important settings. You choose the groups you want to be tracked as "staff" (by default, the default administrator and super moderator groups) as well as choose whether or not those with can_moderate permissions in the forum the post is in are tracked as well. After you have set those to your liking and saved them, use the link below the settings to build the data for current posts, and check out the results!

• On the thread list in forumdisplay, there will be a new icon if any of the staff members defined by the setting above have posted in the thread. The icon will link to the first staff post in that thread.
• In the showthread, there will be an icon at the top if a staff member has posted in the thread linking to the first staff post.
• In the postbit, there will be a new icon on staff posts linking directly to the next staff post in the thread. If it is the last staff post in the thread, it'll have a different icon to signify that it is the last staff post.

See the screenshots to see this product in action.

Installation instructions:

Upload the included images and import the XML. Modify the settings (admincp/options.php?dogroup=gd_stafftracker) and then use the "Rebuild Staff Posts" link to build the initial data from the current posts.

Now, as this is a beta, my top priority is squashing any bugs that come up. Feel free to post any feature suggestions, but my main goal here is getting enough testing to declare it stable.

Known Issues:

• It is sorted by postid, not by the actual dateline of the post. This can cause confusion when a post is copied and merged into a thread containing posts that are newer by date but older by postid. I'll be working to fix this, but I feel it is minor enough and too complex to fix, so I feel it is safe to make the first release.

I don't think I've forgotten anything for this first post, so let's roll to the credits.

Images from: http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/

[Link14716]

Reserved.

[Dan]

Nice one! I like it!

[Link14716]

Going to toss this a bump.

To the 4 people who I don't know of that clicked "install" and the couple more that presumably gave this a download, is it running fine? I assume no real issues have come up, because otherwise I'm sure it'd have been posted about by now.

If there are no new known issues, I'm going to prod it a bit more and drop the beta tag.

[BigDog56]

Going to check it out. Thank you!

[BigDog56]

Can everybody see this? I would like to see it where only certain user groups can see it. So far, seems to work just fine.

[Link14716]

Anyone can see it, but a template conditional in the 3 templates should do what you want to do. (postbit_stafftracker, threadbit_stafftracker, and showthread_stafftracker)

Edit: Add this to the start of those templates with something like this:

<if condition="is_member_of($bbuserinfo, array(5,6,7))">

Replace 5,6,7 with a comma seperated list of the usergroupids you want it to show to, and don't forget to add </if> at the end of each of the templates.

[BigDog56]

Originally Posted by Link14716

Anyone can see it, but a template conditional in the 3 templates should do what you want to do. (postbit_stafftracker, threadbit_stafftracker, and showthread_stafftracker)

Edit: Add this to the start of those templates with something like this:

<if condition="is_member_of($bbuserinfo, array(5,6,7))">

Replace 5,6,7 with a comma seperated list of the usergroupids you want it to show to, and don't forget to add </if> at the end of each of the templates.

That will work, thank you!

[TheInsaneManiac]

An icon showing staff posts would be nice as well, so members who scroll through posts will know what content is trusted if it has a nice little staff icon next to it.

[Link14716]

Originally Posted by TheInsaneManiac

An icon showing staff posts would be nice as well, so members who scroll through posts will know what content is trusted if it has a nice little staff icon next to it.

I'm confused. Isn't that what this addon already does?