Do you ever dream of having a custom Error 404 page inside vBulletin?

Do you think that you could be more than happy to even offer your visitors the capability to create new error messages for the fun of it?

The error bits is just that.

Error Page for more than just the 404… 400 to 503 errors are managed thru the system, displaying the correct error message and some details if possible.

And in addition, a « citation system » that let your members enter some new funny quote…

We can even add the search box for the entire forum in the footer of the main error page, for easier browsing…

so here is the AdminCP Setting page:

And the adminCP for Managing the quotes from members:

… The Main page of the Error page is here… and you can see a screenshot here:

you can see on this screenshot that the Admin Only have a link to delete the quote, and the Members Only can see the link to Add a new or browse the list…

… To make it installed, there is a .htaccess file to install or edit your existing one, one file to upload and the product file to import.

nexia added 3 minutes and 18 seconds later…

The system comes with no random quote in the database at first. This is to let your members add their own things. But if you want to start with some quotes related to Error 404, i added a bank of 656 quotes from the dead site « notfunny.org »… (with accreditation!)

vB variables list comes in handy now. Should be useful to all.

Site Statistics:-

• $totalthreads – Displays the total number of threads in the forum
• $totalposts – Displays total number of posts in the forum
• $numbermembers – Display total number of members in the forum
• $totalonline – Displays the number of total users currently online
• $numberregistered – Displays the number of total registered users currently online
• $numberguest – Displays the number of total guests currently online
• $recordusers – Displays the number of most users ever online
• $recorddate – Displays the date on which most users were ever online
• $recordtime – Displays the time on which most users were ever online
• $activeusers – Displays a list of currently active/online Users (i.e. logged in)
• $activemembers – Displays the number of members who are active in the forum
• $newusername – Displays the username of the newly registered user
• $birthdays – Displays list of users whose birthday is today
• $upcomingevents – Displays list of upcoming events

$BBuserinfo Array, this can show anything thats stored in the user table

• $bbuserinfo[username] – Username
• $bbuserinfo[userid] – User ID number
• $bbuserinfo[posts] – Users postcount
• $bbuserinfo[signature] – Users signature
• $bbuserinfo[email] – User Email Address
• $bbuserinfo[homepage] – Users homepage in profile
• $bbuserinfo[msn] – Users MSN address from profile
• $bbuserinfo[yahoo] – «  » Yahoo «  »
• $bbuserinfo[icq] – «  » ICQ «  »
• $bbuserinfo[usertitle] – Users custom usertitle

$VBoptions Array, these are the options stored in the settings table, i.e things that you configured from vbulletin AdminCP>>vbulletin Options.

• $vboptions[forumactive] – Status of whether forum is turned on/off
• $vboptions[bbclosedreason] – Reason why forum turned off
• $vboptions[bbtitle] – Forum title
• $vboptions[bburl] – Forum URL
• $vboptions[hometitle] – Site homepage Title
• $vboptions[homeurl] – Site homepage URL
• $vboptions[copyrighttext] – Site copyright text
• $vboptions[privacyurl] – URL to forum privacy statement
• $vboptions[webmasteremail] – Webmaster email address
• $vboptions[contactuslink] – contact us URL
• $vboptiions[enablehooks] – Status of plugin/hook system
• $vboptions[imagetype] – Determine if using GD or Imagemagick
• $vboptions[timeoffset] – forum time offset
• $vboptions[cookiepath] – forum cookie path
• $vboptions[legacypostbit] – Determine if using legacy (side) postbit or new horizontal postbit
• $vboptions[use_smtp] – If SMTP mail is enabled
• $vboptions[smtp_host] – SMTP hostname
• $vboptions[smtp_port] – SMTP port number
• $vboptions[allowregistrations] – Determine if new users can register
• $vboptions[welcomemail] – Determine if welcome mail is sent on registration
• $vboptions[avatarenabled] – Check if avatars are enabled
• $vboptions[reputationenable] – Check if reputation system is enabled

$stylevar Array, this contains all the paths to forum images and other style variables that are editable in the Styles and templates >> Stylevars

• $stylevar[titleimage] – Path/filename for top banner
• $stylevar[outertablewidth] – The width of your forum
• $stylevar[spacersize] – Spacing betwen main body and content
• $stylevar[cellspacing] – Inner border width
• $stylevar[cellpadding] Table cell padding
• $stylevar[formwidth] – Form width in pixels
• $stylevar[imgdir_buton] – Path for forum buttons
• $stylevar[imgdir_statusicon] – Path for status icons
• $stylevar[imgdir_attach] – Path for attachment icons

$css array, this is where all the CSS attributed can be located

• $css variables[body][background] – Body background colour
• $css[body] – Body text colour
• $css[body][LINK_N] – Body normal links
• $css[body][LINK_V] – Body visited links
• $css[body][LINK_M] – Body link hover colour
• $css[.page][background] – Page background colour
• $css[.page] – Page text colour
• $css[.tborder][background] – Table border background colour
• $css[.tborder] – Table border font colour
• $css[.tcat][background] – Category strip background/colour
• $css[.tcat] – Category strip font colour
• $css[.thead][background] – Table header background gradient/colour
• $css[.thead] – Table header background colour
• $css[.tfoot][background] – Table footer background colour/gradient
• $css[.tfoot] – Table footer text colour

Ad Location Template variables:-

• $ad_location[ad_footer_end] – Displays content of ad_footer_end template
• $ad_location[ad_footer_start] – Displays content of ad_footer_start template
• $ad_location[ad_forumdisplay_afterthreads] – Displays content of ad_forumdisplay_afterthreads template
• $ad_location[ad_forumdisplay_afterforums] – Displays content of ad_forumdisplay_afterforums template
• $ad_location[ad_header_logo] – Displays content of ad_header_logo template
• $ad_location[ad_header_end] – Displays content of ad_header_end template
• $ad_location[ad_navbar_below] – Displays content of ad_navbar_below template
• $ad_location[ad_showthread_beforeqr] – Displays content of ad_showthread_beforeqr template
• $ad_location[ad_showthread_firstpost] – Displays content of ad_showthread_firstpost template

Miscellenous:-

• $notices – Used to display notices (for 3.7 onwards)
• $notifications_total – Used to display total number of unread notifications (for 3.7 onwards)

Originally Posted @ vBulletin.Org

A simple list of banners you put in the directory of your choice. ref-id is sticked to the url when user is logged.

You can have a look by visiting « Our Banners » in the navbar, or with this screenshot:

This feature is a permission that will put in the moderation queue all threads where polls are posted in. You can set this per forum.

screenshot shows what you see when you edit/add a forum. the setting work in the background. When a poster add a poll to any thread, or create a thread with a poll, the thread is put into moderation… moderators override this setting.

i hate encryption… it is a direct invitation to piracy.

if the core is minimal and the encryption does not require any addition to PHP, no problem… but if you open the door to cracking an encrypted code, you will see hackers coming and play with it, and in 10 minutes you will see an uncrypted version on the dark market…

what would be the formula?

Lifespan:

i would prefer a lifetime license, for some reasons:

1- less tracking of expired licenses
2- less obligations from buyers
3- we will never be opened for 50 years anyway
…

Restrictions:

one single site?… if our script is multi-site management, sure it have to be… but if we have a one-site version, it have to be restricted someway?
you want to track all these installations ?!… i do not want to play the police on the internet, i hate being tracked also… callback is a stupid logic. so i would tend to let this restriction go.

i would prefer having the CORE completely free, or a minimal fee, and do like all millionaire coders… they code custom and exclusive works for their clients, having a better income.

if from the start we have a free available core that can be installed anywhere at any range, AND offer a wide range of paid modules and addons to satisfy all the needs, the clients will come and grab only the addons they want. if we restrict the engine to be narrowed to restrictions, we will close our market only to a specific client range.

having a free CORE also open the door for outsiders… coders who are interested to share their work but also have their own clients and control their own market… so we would have dev keys ?

Free Identification:

the only restriction i can think of is very simple… if you download the CORE from our site, you can receive support/modules.

an encoded ID for the site you want to add the core to is provided in the download, so we can easily identify that your version of the core was downloaded from our site. no need to trackback or callback …

that give us the flexibility to let other coders give the CORE to their clients and provide themselve the support their clients deserve… elsewhere!

elsewhere?!:

with the idea inserted above, we can provide some coders with a developper key and the script that let them generate their own support ID… compare this with Jelsoft.. they do not share their user table, and refuse to let other companies have support forums with the word vbulletin in it… you have hard time finding an officially supported vb site…

so if we provide this system, other developpers can become official key developpers to the project, at a cost, and can resell our existing addons with a % of profit… they can have their own site for support, or part of our site for their own work. we can also link their clients to our database if they quit…

we do not have to support the clients of these developpers until these developpers abandon these clients. but these clients can buy our products and be supported by these developpers… giving the developpers a wider range of clients, as the clients can choose who will be their support staff or so.. 🙂

This tool is at its startup, but may grow with the clients needs.

The main goal of this feature is to identify the new forums date of birth and the old forum’s first post date.

When you first install this product, it will create a new entry in the forum table, and will check for each existing forum’s first post date to be entered in the database. By then, each time you create a new forum, a timestamp will be added. (we can not track the original date of creation of the existing forums, so we use the oldest post/thread created in them to tag these forums)

So with this first version, what you can do is verify the date of creation/birth of each of your forums. This is very useful when you have tons of forums and they are created in different moments.

So if you want to know when forum X was created compared to forum Y, you simply have to hover on its title, like here:

This is a first stage of development for this tool, so maybe the only thing you can do with it is to verify if a forum worth to be kept after X months… but i plan adding some features to it, like global stats to compare the activity of all the forums, but they would not require more database edits than required…

This product is self installed, there is no template edit, and you can deactivate it or uninstall it without breaking anything on your forum.

The collection of all known modifications to make your site striped in all situations.

—

Alternating the who’s online bits and giving them a certain look instead of the bloat version provided within vBulletin was for me a little pleasure…

i like styles in things… it now alternate the rows instead of the columns. making it easier to read, easier to locate each member…

so here is the default version:

and my new version, with alternate bits and colors for specific usages… you can see the legend of these colors below the list, and you can change these colors per style, at your will.

as a note, this product is active without any file or template edit… a single product upload and tada…

To enhance the visitors’ experience, you can add some quick tools to your forum display. You can see these icons here on nexialys.net, and here is a clear screenshot of what they look like:

As you see the 4 icons, and here what they are: (the title appear when you hover on them)

– create new thread in that forum
– list new posts/threads in that forum
– subscribe to that forum
– RSS Feed for that forum

… they are all permission based, so if you have no permission to post, the icon New Thread will not show… same for the search and subscribe.

As usual, that modification is without any code or template edits.

The icons are copyrighted, but you can change them when you want… you can also edit the template « forumhome_forumbit_toolicons » to make it look the way you want… like adding a border, or making them vertical instead of horizontal…

If you have Cyb Subforums Manager, you will have to edit the forumbit templates to your taste…

This tweak is better used if you drop the Threads/Posts columns in your forumbits templates.