Miscellaneous Hacks - Tips of the Day

Many computer programs display a "Tip of the day" window when you open it. This mod offers the same functionality for vBulletin.

- The tips are displayed as vB's stock notices.

- You have complete control to define how often a tip is shown. There are the following options: always on, once in a browser session, once a day, once every X minutes or once every X page views.

- Tips are phrased. If you have a multilanguage board, you can easily translate them.

- Every tip can be assigned to a user-group, so only its members will see it. It also checks secondary groups.

- The mod will chose one of the available tips randomly. You can change the probabilistic weight of every tip to control how often they will be shown.

- The appearance of the Tips can be easily configured using stylevars (including background, shadow color, font for the title of the tip, and color for both the title and main tip text). For advanced needs, you can also customize the pod_tips.css template.

- Import / export utility, so you can make security copies, or share with your friends.

- Option to deactivate tips for guests.

- Setting to disable for non-confirmed users (awaiting email confirmation or in moderation) and banned users.

- With the package, I provide a file with a few tips about basic vBulletin usage that you can import after installing the mod, so you have some default tips (if you find some mistake in the file, please tell me, English is not my first language).

- There's a setting to add an icon next to the tips. (The icon used in the screenshots comes from http://www.iconfinder.com/icondetail...es_system_icon ). You can very easily customize the CSS style for that icon using stylevars.

- You can let your users dismiss the Tips of the Day. After dismissing them, they can be enable by clicking the appropriate option in the Quick Links menu. Optionally, users must have been registered for a configurable number of days before they can dismiss (so you ensure they see some Tips before dismissing them). At any moment, users can undismiss Tips by selecting an option in the Quick Links menu.


PERFORMANCE

All the information of the Tips is retrieved using the second call of the datastore (just after init_startup). If you have any other mod that uses the same call to the datastore, it will use the same query.
Also, the mod avoids to load the datastore if it's possible to determine beforehand that there will be no tips displayed (it's not always possible, but most often).
Therefore, this mod increases your query count in AT MOST one single query on every page load.

Furthermore, the CSS uses the main-rollup file (if you are storing css in the file system), or the main call to css.php (if you are not). So it never requires an extra HTTP request.


INSTALL/UPGRADE INSTRUCTIONS

1. Unzip the mod file.

2. Upload all the files in the "upload" folder. Note: If you have renamed your admincp folder in your vb installation, make sure to do so before uploading. This is the file structure you have to upload:

./includes
./includes/xml
./includes/xml/bitfield_pod_tips.xml
./includes/xml/cpnav_podtips.xml
./includes/xml/cssrollup_pod_tips.xml
./admincp
./admincp/pod_tips.php


3. Import the product file.

4. Add few tips in the admincp: Notices > Tips of the day manager. Optionally, you can import the default vB usage tips provided with the package.

5. Go to Settings > Options > Tips of the day Settings, configure options as you wish, and set active to "yes" (the mod installs itself deactivated to give you a chance to add tips before activating).


MEANING OF PROBABILITY

If you set the probability of a tip to be "10", it doesn't mean that it will appear with a probability of 10%. The actual probability will depend on how many tips are availiable to display. The probability setting is relative to other tips. For instance, a tip with probability 10 will appear two times more often that one that you set to 5.


MODIFIED STYLES

This mod partially depends on the built-in notices system. Therefore, if you have modified your navbar template to a way that it cannot show regular vB's notices, this mod will probably not work. Since version 0.2, Tips should most likely work on most styles if ordinary notices are working, but cannot guarantee.


COMPATIBILITY

I tested this mod in vbulletin 4.0.4. However, it might probably work on any 4.0.x release (please, tell me if you run into any problem using this mod on earlier 4.0.x releases).


SIGNIFICANCE OF A BETA RELEASE

Please note that this mod is, at best, in beta stage. Therefore, I hold no responsibility on any harm or data loss it might cause. I strongly recommend testing it as extensively as possible in your testing environment before installing it in your production site.


SUPPORT

Despite its beta status, I'll do my best to support all vb admins that mark this mod as installed. Sometimes, support will be impossible without providing me admincp access (in a test install, preferably).


TRANSLATIONS

I provide a Spanish translation for this mod. You are most welcome to translate it and distribute your translation (only the language file) in any site, provided that you link to the official thread of the mod in vbulletin.org.

Note that you can only distribute the language file, downloaded from the Languages & Phrases section in your admin cp. Redistribution of the product itself is not allowed.


CHANGE LOG

v0.1 (June 21, 2010) Initial beta releases

v0.2 (June 26, 2010)
- Fixed missing phrase in tips manager, when there are no tips to show.
- Setting to disable for non-confirmed users (awaiting email confirmation or in moderation) and banned users
- Import / export utility.
- Setting to add an icon next to the tips. (The icon used in the screenshots comes from http://www.iconfinder.com/icondetail...es_system_icon ).
- Changed the way used to inject the tips into the page (thanks ragtek for the idea). Hopefully, will work better with modified styles.

v0.2.1 (June 27, 2010)
- Fixed bug that made the mod incompatible with mysql prior to 5.0.2.
- Fixed bug that made the mod incompatible with vBulletin prior to 4.0.4.

v0.3 (July 12, 2010)
- Style of the tips can now be customized using stylevars (there's also a pod_tips.css template for advanced needs).
- A new setting now allows you to choose in which areas of vBulletin should tips be displayed.
- Now you have more control to define how often a tip is shown. You have the following options: always on, once in a browser session, once a day, once every X minutes or once every X pageviews.
- Path and style of the icon for the tips has been moved from vBulletin options to stylevars (you'll need to configure it again, sorry).
- Option to make the Tips dismissible.

[giorgino]

Great great great plugin!
It's compatible with 4.0.4?

[Pod]

Originally Posted by giorgino

Great great great plugin!
It's compatible with 4.0.4?

Yes. Actually, pretty much all my testing has been done in 4.0.4, but vb.org isn't updated and didn't let me chose that version

[Bounce]

Any chance of some "default" tips

[chipc0i]

nice mod!
can add tips for each forum ID?? if have many tips, can show random tips?

[Boofo]

Wouldn't using Notices do the same thing?

[Pod]

Originally Posted by hIBEES

Any chance of some "default" tips

My idea on why this mod would be useful was to use site-specific tips (like reminders of some rules, etc). That's why I've chosen to not populate the tips table on install.

However, in future versions I want to add a import/export feature that would allow to release a file with some default tips.

Originally Posted by chipc0i

if have many tips, can show random tips?

Yes. It picks one random tip (based on a configurable probabilistic weight defined by yourself).

Originally Posted by chipc0i

nice mod!
can add tips for each forum ID??

Not in this version, sorry. And I don't think I'll be including it in future versions. Because my guess is that most people will set tips to be non-persistent (only 1 tip for browsing session, in the first page view), so forum specific tips would only be shown if the user enters to that forum. Even then, since the mod picks only one tip randomly, the forum specific tip would not always be seen.

You can use regular notices, they are more appropriate for forum specific messages.

Originally Posted by Boofo

Wouldn't using Notices do the same thing?

Regular notices don't allow you to pick one of the available ones randomly. If there are several of them that mach the criteria, they are all shown.

So to speak, this mod adds a notice displaying a random "tip of the day".

[Boofo]

Originally Posted by Pod

Regular notices don't allow you to pick one of the available ones randomly. If there are several of them that mach the criteria, they are all shown.

So to speak, this mod adds a notice displaying a random "tip of the day".

Ok, great. Thank you for the explanation.

[mobe00]

not working..no notices are showing up. i use a custom style i made myself. ordinary notices working thou.

[Pod]

Originally Posted by mobe00

not working..no notices are showing up. i use a custom style i made myself. ordinary notices working thou.

First of all, have you tried to use persistent tips? If not, sometimes browsing the admin panel sets the session cookie to not display more tips, so when you go back to the front end you don't see a tip.

You can set persistent tips in the vb options (in the same place you activate the mod after adding some tips).

If that doesn't help, would you allow me to take a look into your navbar template, so I can see if it's feasible to support your style?