New to modding, need to create one

[Sykoi]

The title is a bit vague but explains the problem I'm having quite well - I just got a vB license (Love it), but I need to create a mod for it... Something similar to Xoops donation module - Where users can simply select a donation amount (Or other for 'insert amount'), select if they want to be shown or not, and then be forwarded to paypal - after they're done with Paypal's end, they're forwarded back to a seperate 'thank you page', and marked as a Donator.

Basically I want to do something similar, but when forwarded back, have the user added to a special group.

Now this would be simple if I were creating it for my own site engine, but I'm obviously not - and am very new to vB.

So, basically, my question is this: Aside from the Paypal IPN (Which I'm fully aware of), what would I have to do, to get this to work in vB, and add said user to a special group?


Where do I put the mod files, the template files, etc. - whats the command to add a user to a group? How do I get a user's ID (Send user's id as a ipn variable and the thank you page will add said variable to a group)? Is there anything I need to know before creating a vB mod?


If I can get this working correctly, I'm going to release it to the vB modding community - I searched the forum, and there doesn't seem to be any module like this - only requests.



Well, thanks to anyone who can help me in advanced - I've been using Xoops, but am very disappointed in it (As the template system isn't that great, most modules are clunky, and the support is terrible) and am moving my site to a vB/plain php mixture (Gallery and articles will be in vB, while some other pages will be left in plain text)

[Reeve of shinra]

hint: check out vb3's subscription features. Im pretty sure it does all you want it to do already.

[Sykoi]

Actually, no - it doesn't allow custom amounts, which is really what I need. If there were a way to easily edit the subscription to allow custom amounts - then yes, that is exactly what I need.

Edit: How difficult would it be to edit it so it can allow 'unlimited subscription' (Aka - one-time payments), and custom amounts? What files would I have to edit? I realize that all thats involved would be changing the links; but I'm not sure which files to edit, and most importantly - how to edit the admin area for it as well)

Edit2: I've noticed that vB cuts the description off; is this a MySQL-side thing, or code? Don't have access to either right now, so I can't check for sure :ermm: