Supporting members

[Ninth Dimension]

Hi, I've decided that my forum needs to have some cash coming into it so help with the hosting costs, etc... As a result of this i've decided to set-up a supporting members group which will get some extra benefits, such as custom user text, custom avatar, no adverts, etc...

What I want to know is what is the best way of doing this? How can I prevent non supporting members from getting avatars, etc... while leaving it open for the supporting ones?

Thanx for your help.

[Xenon]

well most of the special things you can achieve within your usergroupsettings, and the others you have to edit member.php and add if clauses:
if($bbuserinfo['usergroupid']!=2) {
to prevent normal users to get such stuff...

[Ninth Dimension]

OK, that sounds easy enough to me, problem is that i'm working on an exzisting userbase, so i'm going to have to go though and remove all the custom things for my members

Can you think of what type of things I can offer the supporting members?

I'm going to have 3 levels of membership

• Guest - Ads, no posting, pop-up message asking them to regester.
• Members - Ads, allowed to post, no pop-up
• Supporting Members - Less Ads (maybe), no pop-up, special features

[Xenon]

Well, depends on your forum as well

i'd say something like that:

• Custom Avatar
• Custom Usertitle
• Maybe img in sigs
• Special Subforum just for them
• Special Style to choose
• if you want to add hacks, for example my custom postbit hack just for these users

the list is nearly endless, it really depends on your forum and you

[Ninth Dimension]

I like some of these suggestions, very good indeed. I can also install the award hack and give them a special award to show what wonderful people they are

[matthew tucker]

Originally posted by Xenon
well most of the special things you can achieve within your usergroupsettings, and the others you have to edit member.php and add if clauses:
if($bbuserinfo['usergroupid']!=2) {
to prevent normal users to get such stuff...

this looks like what I've been looking for ... but

How can I find out which usergroup has what 'usergroupid'?

Is this just trial and error?

[Ninth Dimension]

upi can find the user id's by going into the admin CP, selecting modify groups, but because i'm such a kind guy, here they are:

1, Unregistered / Not Logged In
2, Registered
3, Users Awaiting Email Confirmation
4, (COPPA) Users Awaiting Moderation
5, Super Moderators
6, Administrators
7, Moderators

[matthew tucker]

> upi can find the user id's by going into the admin CP, selecting modify groups ...

Thanks ... I did get that far, but the "usergroupid" array index is important, no? I don't have any list of numbers by the groups as you indicate.

On my board, the user groups - and I have created some of my own - appear in a different order to yours. For example, the (COPPA) users appear in position 1, Administrators in position 2, etc. Looks very alphabetical to me! If I rename any group, they appear in another (sorted) order.

So, is the order in which they appear a guide to the actual index?

Somehow I doubt it. Can I query the sql database to find out which is the right index? How would I do that?

Thanks

[Ninth Dimension]

Personally I would not suggest re-numbering any of the usergroups, or vB will go out of loop.

I forgot to meantion that when at the usergroups screen the id is not listed, to find this you need to highlight one of the links and you should be presented with a url like this:

http://savepoint.co.uk/forum/admin/user.php?action=find&usergroupid=4&limitnumber=300

notice the bit i've highlighted, this is the number you need. anyway, as you see, i've already listed the main ones, and you should now know what to do to find the rest.

[Xenon]

matthew tucker, to download hacks you will need to go to this page and enter your email address, to show you are licensed. (you will need to use your customer number and password to access that page)
Thank you.