vBulletin portal software

[eclectica]

Modifying the forum software is done with "hacks". Hacks on a vBulletin forum are found at vbulletin.org (http://www.vbulletin.org). Adding hacks to a forum makes the database more unstable but also gives it more features. The vBulletin company (Jelsoft) does not officially support any of the hacks, but what they often do is take the features of popular hacks and integrate them into the next release of the software.

For the first time I installed a hack onto this forum here. It was to set up the home page 3-3-3.org (http://www.3-3-3.org) with something other than the Dali picture and redirect which was there before. (If you still see the Dali picture, then quickly refresh your browser, so that the index.php is activated.)

You can see all the portal hacks here (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=66) at vbulletin.org.

At first I tried out vbHome lite 4.2 (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=36756). The experience was not too difficult, and I learned a little something more about the forum coding in the process. I had trouble though getting the home page to avoid displaying the background color as #666696, which is the vBulletin default color. It worked fine in the forums but not in the portal (home) page. I also had trouble getting the text color to be different from the vBulletin default of #000000.

So I uninstalled it and gave a try to mYvBindex 3.22 (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44691). That is what this board is currently using. I found that there were more instructions but I was okay following them. I open all php files in notepad, and fortunately there is a search function so that I would be able to find the few lines of code which needed to be replaced, easily.

I had trouble getting the index page to display the results of not one, but two forums on the main page, which they assume are the "news forums". This part was harder than it was in vbHome lite, in which the only thing to do was specify the forums separated by commas in the admin control panel. Currently the page is gathering excerpts from two forums on this board: #5 (computers), and #7 (p2p jihad). Everytime a new thread is started in either of those forums, an excerpt is posted on the home page.

Here's how I got both forums to work properly. In the admin control panel, I set the News Forum ID to be 5. Then, I edited the index.php file, which was originally named "myvbindex.php". I found the following code:
WHERE forumid='$newsforum'
and replaced it with
WHERE forumid='5' OR '7'

Also, with mYvBindex, the images path has to be modified in the admin control panel. This is done by going to Styles-->Modify-->Image Paths and changing all from forum/images to http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/images. I also had to modify the paths of each smiley, but that went pretty fast using Ctrl+V. This allowed the images and smilies to work properly on both the home page and the forum page.

One thing I discovered while working with this hack is the ability to edit the vBulletin messages. That is done by going into the admin control panel to Templates-->Modify. I like how in the admin control panel, vBulletin displays a different color for the modified ones than the default ones, so it is easy to unistall a hack, by simply going down the list and restoring the defaults. Anyways, you will see the customized message that I myself put in whenever you log out from this board.

I noticed a slight problem when trying to log out from the index page, that it shows you as still logged in.

A difference I noticed between running vbHome lite and mYvBindex is that when viewing who is online (online.php), the mYvBindex makes no distinction between users being on the home page index and the forum page index, while vbHome lite makes the distinction. In fact, mYvBindex shows all of them as being on the forum index page.

There are many more things than what is currently there, that can be displayed on the home page. What is there now is very simplified, producing few queries and strain on the server. Here are the options:

News Forum ID
The ID number of your news forum.

News Posts Maximum
The maximum number of news posts to display on your homepage. Set to 0 for no limit.

News Maximum Characters
The maximum number of characters to display per news post before it is replaced by the "read more" link. Set this to 0 to disable it.

Allow News Comments?
Allow users to comment on news posts? Note: Your news forum may not have permissions set to make it a private forum if you wish to allow comments.

Show News Avatar?
Show the News posters avatar.

Show News Icon?
Show your news posts icon?

Show News Ratings?
Show the rating of the news post on your homepage.

Enable Printable Version?
Show the printable version icon and allow users to quickly print news posts.

Enable Send to Friend?
Show the send to friend icon and allow users to quickly send news posts to friends.

Enable HMTL for News?
Enable HTML for the news posts on your homepage. Note: This will not affect your News forum's settings.

Enable vBimage code for News?
Enable the [ img ] tag in for news posts on your homepage. Note: This will not affect your News forum's settings.

Enable Signatures News Posts?
Allow signatures to be displayed in news posts? (Note: You must still select to show your signature when you make the post as well.)

Latest Threads Maximum
The maximum number of latest threads to display on your homepage. Set this to 0 to disable it.

Latest Threads Maximum Characters
The maximum number of characters of your latest threads title to display before it is replaced by "...". Set this to 0 to disable it.

Show Latest Threads Date & Time?
Show the time and date the thread was created.

Show Latest Threads Icon?
Show threads icon in latest threads section.

Polls Forum ID
The ID number of your polls forum. (Leave this blank to disable the poll, or enter RAND to select a random poll from any forum.)

Allow Poll Discussion?
Show the "Discuss this poll" link on your poll and allow users to discuss the poll.

Show Poll Smilies?
Enable smilies in your poll question and options?

Show Users Avatar?
Show users avatar on your homepage.

Show Private Messages?
Show users new private messages and pop up message if user has a new PM.

Show Users Buddylist?
Show users buddylist on your homepage.

Show Online Users?
Show the online users box.

Show Search Box?
Show a box to allow users to search your forums.

Show Mini Calendar?
Show a mini calendar with links to this months events on your homepage.

Show Todays Calendar Events?
Show todays events under the calendar (must have calendar turned on for this to work!).

Show Stats?
Show forum stats on your homepage (Total members, threads, posts, top poster, newest member, and today's birthdays.

Show Custom Template 1?
Show your first customized template.

Show Custom Template 2?
Show your second customized template.

[eclectica]

I upgraded this forum today from 2.3.2 to 2.3.3. It all went well, but it caused a problem with the mYvBindex hack for the index page (http://www.3-3-3.org/). After the vBulletin upgrade, I got a blank page there. So then what I did was run the admin/myvb_install.php file, which is used to install or uninstall the hack. There I selected the option "Click here to install ONLY the templates", and that fixed it.

Eventually when vBulletin releases a 3X series, in a few months, I will upgrade this board to that. It looks like that will be a more dramatic change. Currently the hack made by the same author of mYvBindex, Tigga, is called vBadvanced Homepage (http://www.vbulletin.nl/community/showthread.php?t=479), and works for the 3X series. So I will have to uninstall the current hack mYvBindex, then upgrade the vBulletin, and finally install the new hack.
:crazy:

[eclectica]

Before installing the hack I backed up the forum. I then uploaded the modified php files member.php, newthread.php, and admin/template.php. Installing involved using the install script admin/myvb_install.php. That is also the same script for uninstalling as well. It's pretty easy to use. See the attachment.

[eclectica]

The other day I uploaded the original vBulletin newthread.php file because I was troubleshooting a discovered bug (http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=339) in the bulletin board. Anyways, I never reinstated the modified one and I noticed that when new threads are created in the designated news forum, that they aren't updated on the index page automatically. In order to update the index page, I would have to manually update the news forums in the myvb_install script, and then select to update the news posts. So actually one could use this as another option, to allow administrators to preview the posts that end up showing up on the index page, by purposefully defying the instructions and choosing not to modify the newthread script.

[eclectica]

Here is the section at vbulletin.org for the portal hacks for vBulletin 3:
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=82

Yesterday I installed vBadvanced Homepage (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=59803) version 1.1, released 2004-01-27. It is made by the same author Tigga (Brian Gunter) whose other hack was installed on this board when it was running vBulletin 2 series, as seen by the earlier posts in this thread.

The installation was pretty easy, and since the calendar is not being displayed on the front page, I only made changes to the scripts includes/adminfunctions_template.php and includes/functions.php. One thing that I currently don't like about how the index page (http://www.3-3-3.org/), is how there is no direct link to the forum from there. It would be nice if one could click on the "Inferno" logo and have it link to the forum. Currently it links back to the index page rather than to the forum. I will look into that and see if I can fix something to produce a direct link.

[eclectica]

There is a thread (http://www.vbadvanced.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41) at the vBadvanced forum (http://www.vbadvanced.com/forum/) that explains how to set up the Forums / Home page link to appear. The bar on top is called the "navbar", and it can be edited in the forum admincp. To do so, go to Styles & Templates--> Search in Templates, and then do a search for "navbar" in title only. It will then show the navbar template. You can double-click on the template and then you will have the option to edit it in your various styles. There are currently two styles working on this forum, so I edited the template in each one.

Here's how I did it. Once the navbar template is open for editing in your style, click "Find" (Search in Template box) and have it look for
<!--<td class="vbmenu_control"><a href="$vboptions[forumhome].php?$session[sessionurl]">Home</a></td>-->
It will be highlighted and then you can delete it. Replace it with this
<td class="vbmenu_control"><if condition="THIS_SCRIPT == 'adv_index'"><a href="$vboptions[bburl]$session[sessionurl]"> Forums <else /> <a href="$vboptions[homeurl]$session[sessionurl]"> Home </if></a></td>
Notice that there is no <!--comments--> in the change. That is because having comments allows one to turn on and off features without deleting them from the script, so by eliminating the comments it will then activate those features. The default navbar template of vBulletin has the "Home" link disabled, which can be enabled by simpling deleting the comments in the template and saving it.

Now that the navbar has been customized, there is a "Forums" link while on the home page, and a "Home" link while on the forum.

[Dollar_Girl]

i'm an idiot i know i know i know... but errr *ahem* how does someone, not naming names, reply to a PM? I dont see the option... i mean this person does not see the option . I will go look again. I feel like i should quickly write some excuse like "I'm so tired i probably missed it" instead of "duh i just dont get it"...


i go look agian :confused:

[eclectica]

For vBulletin, they reduced the number of buttons, and now the reply to a PM and a reply to a post both use the same button, which is by default this one:
http://images.vbulletin.com/images_vb3/buttons/reply_small.gif
but I changed it to this:
http://3-3-3.org/forum/images/buttons/reply_small.gif

It's confusing because it says "quote", but that is the reply button in PMs. There is no "send reply" that does not insert a quote, though I think it would be a nice feature for them to restore.

[eclectica]

For the vBadvanced 1.1 front page hack, I follow the instructions and modify these two files. I don't bother modifying the calendar files because I have chosen not to display the calendar on the front page.

1. includes/adminfunctions_template.php
find:
'forumhome' => $vbphrase['group_forum_home'],
below it add:
'index' => 'Index',

2. includes/functions.php
find:
if (THIS_SCRIPT == 'online' OR THIS_SCRIPT == 'calendar' OR (THIS_SCRIPT == 'index' AND $vboptions['showevents']))
replace with:
if (THIS_SCRIPT == 'online' OR THIS_SCRIPT == 'calendar' OR (THIS_SCRIPT == 'adv_index' AND $vboptions['showcalendar']) OR (THIS_SCRIPT == 'index' AND $vboptions['showevents']))

The way I modify the php files is open them in Microsoft's Notepad. Then I highlight all of the text in the file. Afterwards I go to Edit-->Find and it searches for the terms that I wish to edit. When it is done correctly Notepad ends up highlighting what I searched for in the php file, which is convenient when it comes to doing a replacement, (as I do here with includes/functions.php) so that I can just delete that part and copy in the new part.

The instructions for the necessary modifications come with the download of vBadvanced 1.1, but the instructions for includes/adminfunctions_template.php is outdated as indicated by Tigga in the first post of this thread (http://www.vbadvanced.com/forum/showthread.php?t=402), so I'm posting all of this information for my own notes in preparation of an upgrade to vBulletin 3.0.1 and to educate anyone else who is interested.

[eclectica]

The upgrade from vBulletin 3.0.0 to vBulletin 3.0.1 caused an improvement with the
http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/images/buttons/quote.gif<-reply with quote to a post
and
http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/images/buttons/reply_small.gif<-reply with quote to a PM
to have different filenames and therefore potentially different buttons now. It used to be that the filenames of the buttons were the same for both usages, with a filename of reply_small.gif. That has been changed, and the reply with quote to a post button now has a filename of quote.gif. The vBadvanced 1.1 version of the template for the front page still uses the old filename though.

To fix it, find your index_newsbits template and in the "Find" box type in
reply_small.gif
It should be highlighted. Delete it and replace it with
quote.gif
then save the template and repeat the procedure for all of your styles.

[eclectica]

I installed a second hack on this board, called Deleted Post & Thread Management (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=59807). It is a hack which allows the management of all soft deleted posts which are scattered throughout the forum. Soft deleted posts are a new feature of vBulletin 3.

The hack was easy to install. These are the actual instructions that came with the hack:
================================
+ Deleted Post Management +
+ Hack by Tigga (Brian Gunter) +
================================

Open your forum/admincp/index.php file and look for the following line of code:

construct_nav_option($vbphrase['move'], 'thread.php?do=move', '|');

Right Below that Add:

construct_nav_option('View Deleted', 'deleted.php', '|');


Upload the deleted.php file and your modifiled index.php to your forum/admincp directory.

That's it! You will now see a new link called "View Deleted" under the "Threads & Posts" management section in your Admin CP.
That's all it is when it comes to hacking the board. It just involves changing a couple of things in the php files and then uploading them.

[eclectica]

Today I installed a newer portal hack called vBadvanced CMPS 1.0.0 (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=65797), which is an upgrade of vBadvanced 1.1. First I removed and uninstalled the old vBadvanced before installing this one.

The altered files called for in the instructions are:
forum/global.php
forum/admincp/index.php (also modfied by the "deleted threads" hack)
forum/includes/adminfunctions_template.php
forum/includes/functions.php
forum/includes/functions_calendar.php

After uploading those files by way of ftp I had trouble even running the installation script which is located at forum/admincp/vbacmps_install.php. It mentioned something about a table adv_pages not existing. I then had to upload the original unaltered vBulletin forum/global.php file in order to be able to run the installation script. Afterwards I uploaded the altered forum/global.php file and it didn't cause problems, because the installation script must have installed the table it was looking for. But then I had problems with the file forum/includes/functions_calendar.php, so I uploaded the original unaltered file on that and the problem was fixed. I don't display the calendar on the portal index page.

The name of the templates has changed from the previous version, and now the template named adv_portal_newsbits is responsible for the edit and quote images. As indicated two posts above, I had to change "reply_small.gif" to "quote.gif" in the templates for all styles.

The hack creates four tables in the database:
adv_modules
adv_pages
adv_setting
adv_settinggroup

[tim]

Modifying the forum software is done with "hacks". Hacks on a vBulletin forum are found at vbulletin.org (http://www.vbulletin.org). Adding hacks to a forum makes the database more unstable but also gives it more features. The vBulletin company (Jelsoft) does not officially support any of the hacks, but what they often do is take the features of popular hacks and integrate them into the next release of the software.

For the first time I installed a hack onto this forum here. It was to set up the home page 3-3-3.org (http://www.3-3-3.org) with something other than the Dali picture and redirect which was there before. (If you still see the Dali picture, then quickly refresh your browser, so that the index.php is activated.)

You can see all the portal hacks here (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=66) at vbulletin.org.

At first I tried out vbHome lite 4.2 (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=36756). The experience was not too difficult, and I learned a little something more about the forum coding in the process. I had trouble though getting the home page to avoid displaying the background color as #666696, which is the vBulletin default color. It worked fine in the forums but not in the portal (home) page. I also had trouble getting the text color to be different from the vBulletin default of #000000.

So I uninstalled it and gave a try to mYvBindex 3.22 (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44691). That is what this board is currently using. I found that there were more instructions but I was okay following them. I open all php files in notepad, and fortunately there is a search function so that I would be able to find the few lines of code which needed to be replaced, easily.

I had trouble getting the index page to display the results of not one, but two forums on the main page, which they assume are the "news forums". This part was harder than it was in vbHome lite, in which the only thing to do was specify the forums separated by commas in the admin control panel. Currently the page is gathering excerpts from two forums on this board: #5 (computers), and #7 (p2p jihad). Everytime a new thread is started in either of those forums, an excerpt is posted on the home page.

Here's how I got both forums to work properly. In the admin control panel, I set the News Forum ID to be 5. Then, I edited the index.php file, which was originally named "myvbindex.php". I found the following code:

and replaced it with


Also, with mYvBindex, the images path has to be modified in the admin control panel. This is done by going to Styles-->Modify-->Image Paths and changing all from forum/images to http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/images. I also had to modify the paths of each smiley, but that went pretty fast using Ctrl+V. This allowed the images and smilies to work properly on both the home page and the forum page.

One thing I discovered while working with this hack is the ability to edit the vBulletin messages. That is done by going into the admin control panel to Templates-->Modify. I like how in the admin control panel, vBulletin displays a different color for the modified ones than the default ones, so it is easy to unistall a hack, by simply going down the list and restoring the defaults. Anyways, you will see the customized message that I myself put in whenever you log out from this board.

I noticed a slight problem when trying to log out from the index page, that it shows you as still logged in.

A difference I noticed between running vbHome lite and mYvBindex is that when viewing who is online (online.php), the mYvBindex makes no distinction between users being on the home page index and the forum page index, while vbHome lite makes the distinction. In fact, mYvBindex shows all of them as being on the forum index page.

There are many more things than what is currently there, that can be displayed on the home page. What is there now is very simplified, producing few queries and strain on the server. Here are the options:

From what I understand of this the $newsforum is known as a variable in PHP scripting language....you usually have to set the values for it like this:

<? $newsforum = 5 ?>

the <? ?> open and close the php tags just like <html></html>
the php is known as "server-side scripting" which means any php-code you use in your html pages on a server with php installed first reads the instructions contained within the php tags and acts upon those instructions sending that information out as output to the webbrowser...if you were to view source on a webpage containing php scripting you wouldn't see any of the code used as its parsed or acted upon by the browser...so if i did a code like the one below:

<? echo "hi" ?>

all you would see if you viewed source would be hi (without quotes and php begin close tags)

most likely you would need to edit that variable $newsforum just like you did...only by assigning a value to the variable rather than using the literal interpretation...example you used

'5' instead of the $newsforum

(if I read and understood correctly...possibly I got this all wrong)

lol I have a book on php (actually 2 or three books on it but only one is any good)

Not to bore you but assigning a value to a variable

such as:

<? $newsforum = 5; ?>

damn I'm rusty (forgot to add the semicolon...every php command (instruction) such as assignina a "value" to a "variable" has to be terminated or ending by semicolon to let the parsing engine (php.exe usually) know that the command or instruction is done.

your modification was unique and creative:

[color=blue]WHERE forumid='5' OR '7'

and obviously worked or was acceptable otherwise you wouldn't have had the success with you did have.

Anyhoo I think the recommended way to fix that problem would probably have been to edit the template themselves (or its self) through the admin control panel (if this was possible) if not then through directly editing the templates yourself (backing up and making copies of everything just in case of a goof-up)....mostly doing it they way you edited it already only this time searching for that variable $newsforum and assigning a value to it

like this:

<? $newsforum = 5 ; ?>

I'm not sure if it needs quotes around the "5" or not..in my book it doesn't have any...its also possible to assign more than one value to a variable...having more than one value to a variable is known in php language as being an "array" whereas having only one value for a variable is called being "scalar"

[eclectica]

Here is something I discovered for the site index page. The index page of the portal hack can be found at http://www.3-3-3.org/index.php. Also within that directory is a file we don't see http://www.3-3-3.org/index.htm. Normally the browser reads the index.php file rather than the index.htm file when someone visits http://www.3-3-3.org/. However, when I renamed the extension of the file to .html from .htm, the browser refused to read index.php and was reading the index.html file instead. So it appears that the browser or the Apache webserver places this priority of reading files that are within the same directory:
index.html
index.php
index.htm

[eclectica]

vBadvanced CMPS 1.0.1 (http://www.vbadvanced.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5103) was released 2005-01-27, and yesterday I upgraded this forum to use the newer portal. I also upgraded the bulletin board from vBulletin 3.0.6 to 3.0.7. First I upgraded the portal hack and followed the instructions in the installation script to upgrade. After all the upgrades were done, there was a problem with the Navbar on top giving bad links. The links did not contain /forum and therefore didn't work. That also happened on the bottom with the link to the Archives. I also noticed in the admincp-->vBa CMPS-->Default Settings I did not have the Global vBadvanced Settings listed there, which was the place where the Navbar issues could be fixed. So how I fixed the problem was I uninstalled vBadvanced CMPS 1.0.1 using the install script forum/admincp/vbacmps_install.php, and then using the same script reinstalled it. It was easy and all I had to do was click through the steps. I didn't have to modify any files to do that. Basically the problem was that upgrading from version 1.0.0 to 1.0.1 didn't work as it was supposed to, so version 1.0.1 had to be uninstalled and reinstalled.

I changed the image path of the post reply by modifying the template adv_portal_newsbits in both styles. By default it used the button from PMs http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/images/buttons/reply_small.gif so I changed it to instead show the button from posts http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/images/buttons/reply.gif. In the template I found
reply_small.gif
and replaced it with
reply.gif

One thing that is still not working right is that post icons in the right column under Latest Forum Topics do not show up properly, because the image path of the icons do not contain the /forum link. You see it with the Internet Explorer browser because it shows boxes with red Xs when it encounters broken image links, but Firefox does not do that.

[tim]

So it appears that the browser or the Apache webserver places this priority of reading files that are within the same directory:
index.html
index.php
index.htm

Yes this is configurable in the apache setup in a file called httpd.conf usually located in the conf folder of an apache installation. Same path on linux and windows servers.

If you are running apache locally (meaning on your own machine using your internet connection as your webserver) you will be able to set this option by editing the file I mentioned.

If you have your site remotely hosted like this one you would have to have the webhoster do this for you....unless the webhoster has allowed the use of .htaccess files in your webfolders in which case it may be possible to set the preferred order for loading those extensions yourself..although I do not know how this is done using .htaccess files.

[tim]

vBadvanced CMPS 1.0.1 (http://www.vbadvanced.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5103) was released 2005-01-27, and yesterday I upgraded this forum to use the newer portal. I also upgraded the bulletin board from vBulletin 3.0.6 to 3.0.7. First I upgraded the portal hack and followed the instructions in the installation script to upgrade. After all the upgrades were done, there was a problem with the Navbar on top giving bad links. The links did not contain /forum and therefore didn't work. That also happened on the bottom with the link to the Archives. I also noticed in the admincp-->vBa CMPS-->Default Settings I did not have the Global vBadvanced Settings listed there, which was the place where the Navbar issues could be fixed. So how I fixed the problem was I uninstalled vBadvanced CMPS 1.0.1 using the install script forum/admincp/vbacmps_install.php, and then using the same script reinstalled it. It was easy and all I had to do was click through the steps. I didn't have to modify any files to do that. Basically the problem was that upgrading from version 1.0.0 to 1.0.1 didn't work as it was supposed to, so version 1.0.1 had to be uninstalled and reinstalled.

I changed the image path of the post reply by modifying the template adv_portal_newsbits in both styles. By default it used the button from PMs http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/images/buttons/reply_small.gif so I changed it to instead show the button from posts http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/images/buttons/reply.gif. In the template I found

and replaced it with


One thing that is still not working right is that post icons in the right column under Latest Forum Topics do not show up properly, because the image path of the icons do not contain the /forum link. You see it with the Internet Explorer browser because it shows boxes with red Xs when it encounters broken image links, but Firefox does not do that.

A lot of your problems during upgrading stem from you insisting upon upgrading your hacks (modifications to the default templates in vbulletin software) first before upgrading the vbulletin software its self.

Each time there is a new patch or rather 'upgrade' for vbulletin it explictly states you will have to reinstall any hacks after the upgrade has taken place and you will lose any previous hacks as a result of upgrading to a higher version number of vb.

That's just how it works.

[eclectica]

Each time there is a new patch or rather 'upgrade' for vbulletin it explictly states you will have to reinstall any hacks after the upgrade has taken place and you will lose any previous hacks as a result of upgrading to a higher version number of vb.

vBulletin doesn't want to take repsonsibility for any problems and if you have hacks on a board they want them removed before a trouble ticket is submitted. When I upgrade the board say from version 3.0.6 to version 3.0.7 I don't bother to remove the hack because it supposed to be compatible with both versions of vBulletin. If it were a change to vBulletin 4 then I would probably have to remove all the hacks and find new ones to work with the new version of vBulletin. What I do when I get a new version of vBulletin is download the new package, and then hack whatever needs to be hacked in the new php files. Then I upload the new files, upgrade the vBulletin, and afterwards rerun the hack installation script, which has a part to run when you have upgraded vBulletin. Some hacks are so simple, such as the Deleted Post & Thread Management (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=59807) hack, that I don't have to run any hack installation script after upgrading the vBulletin forum. The reason why is that for those simpler hacks, there are no tables in the database or templates, so there is nothing to upgrade after vBulletin upgrades.

I made it relatively easy for myself because every time I upgrade the board I refer to this thread (http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/showthread.php?t=452), which lists all the altered templates and php files on the forum (besides the ones that the portal hack uses, which is dealt with specially in this thread). Whenever vBulletin makes an announcement of the new version they also list what templates have changed and what php files have changed, so I know what I have to rehack and what I can leave alone, as well as what templates I will have to revert and modify again after the upgrade.

[eclectica]

Here is an update on the current hacks installed on this board. One hack installed is the home page hack that can be found at http://www.3-3-3.org/index.php and is called vBadvanced CMPS v2.0.0 (vB 3.5) (http://www.vbadvanced.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10700). The second hack which I just installed in the last couple of hours is located at http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/modcp/softdeladmin.php and is called Soft Deleted Archive v3.2 (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=90840).

Soft Deleted Archive keeps track of all soft deleted threads and posts on the board. Although it was designed for the limited function of having admins keep track of what has been soft deleted by staff members, I uploaded the softdeladmin.php file into the moderator control panel so that moderators would be able to see as well all those soft deleted threads and posts. It lists all the soft deleted threads and posts on the board regardless of who deleted them.

Staff members can take note that on the home page (http://www.3-3-3.org/) of the forum, the Online Users link now displays the User Agent when clicked. I did that by editing the module link. I also edited the link for what was formerly named as "Quick Moderation". I changed that module name to "soft deleted threads and posts" and then changed the module link to point to http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/modcp/softdeladmin.php. Then below it, and also part of the module, is the same old Quick Moderation information showing if anything is awaiting moderation.

There is a new feature of vBulletin 3.5 in which hacks are easy to install and are referred to as "products" and "plugins". In order to install the Soft Deleted Archive "product", all I had to do was upload some files by way of ftp and then import an xml file from my hard drive into the admin control panel. I didn't have to edit any vBulletin files, which is good so that if a newer version comes out I won't have to go back and edit them all again.

[eclectica]

I just discovered that the Soft Deleted Archive Manager did not work for Super Moderators due to the lack of administrator permissions even though I had uploaded the file into the moderator control panel. So I took off that link and restored the Quick Moderation module close to its original state, since it wasn't working for Super Moderators.

It would be nice if I could create something in which all the members of the board could search for the links to the soft deleted threads and posts, because even registered members can view their existence through deletion notices, though they can not view the contents. But that is beyond my abilities because I am not good enough with my skill level to code php files and create modules for vBulletin.

The home page (http://www.3-3-3.org/) that is run by vBadvanced CMPS v2.0.0 (vB 3.5) has modules which can be disabled and enabled, and viewable only to certain usergroups. I have posted the options as an attachment. There are three columns: left, center, and right; but currently just the two columns left and center are enabled. The center column is therefore also the right column, because there is no right column. I can move each of the modules to any column. Currently the left column is set to be 30% page width, with the center column taking up the rest of the space.

As you can see from the attachment there are currently 8 modules enabled, but the amount of modules that you will see on the home page depends on what usergroup you belong to. Unregistered guests can see 3 modules: Recent Threads, Stats, News. Registered members can see 6 modules; in addition to the above: Welcome Block, Mini Calendar, Today's Birthdays. And Administrators and Super Moderators can see all 8 modules; in addition to the above: Online Users, Quick Moderation.

[eclectica]

I just found the user's manual for vBadvanced CMPS located here (http://www.vbadvanced.com/membersarea.php?do=viewusermanual&productid=4), that is six pages long, but you can't read it unless you are a member of the forum. It's useful to look at if you want to create modules, add modules, and integrate pages with vBulletin to add to the forum.