UBB.Developers Forums UBB.threads 6 V6 Modifications Forum Design Integration [6.4] Integrated Index Page (IIP) 5.4.5 Finished

Integrated Index Page (IIP) 5.4.5 Finished

Q: What is it?
A: It's an addon for UBB.threads 6.4 that will pull various information out of the forum for display as your main home page.

Q: What version of UBB.Threads does it work with?
A: This only works with UBB.Threads version 6.4. For a version of IIP to work with 6.3 or lower, use IIP 5.3 (located in a separate thread in this forum).

Q: What are the features?
A: The following information is displayed:

1. News Display - A configurable number of news/article posts and from different boards can be displayed down the center in the same fassion as the popular *nuke portals. Past news/articles can also be displayed along the right hand column (only).

2. Upcoming Events - This will display upcoming events from 6.4's Calendar. (Pal Box by JoshPet)

3. Birthdays - This will display today's birthdays, and optionally the birthday's for the month. (Pal Box by JoshPet)

4. Top Rated Posts - This will display a list of X number of top rated posts in the past 24 hours.

5. Current Threads - This will display a list of new threads posted in the past 24 hours.

6. Top Posters - This will display a list of the top X number of posters.

7. Last Seen - This will display a list of members who have visited the forum most recently. This is not completely accurate because depending on what they are doing at the site their 'laston' information isn't always recorded. You can optionally add a code snippet that is included to your ubbt.inc.php file to make tracking updates instantaneous.

8. Short Stats - This will display various statistical information such as Total Users, Total Posts and New Users in the last 24hrs, 7days, 31 days.
Short Stats will also display "max online" information including how many and when.

9. Profile Spotlight - This will display a random profile listing username, location, hobbies and bio with a link to the full profile. You can specify required fields to be filled in before the user's profile is displayed.
Username has replaced Name (real name) in previous versions.

10. Quick Search - This will display a seach box that will allow for a quick search of the forums using the standard search default values. (Updated by JoshPet to work with UBB.Threads 6.4)

11. Login/Status - This will display a login box or your current status including the number of private messages stored and links to edit your profile and display properties and email subscripitons. Unregistered or users not logged in will see the login box. Logged in users will see their status box.

12. Online - This box displays the number of registered and unregistered users online in the last XX minutes (as defined in your UBB.Threads config file). It will also list the usernames of the registered users. Usernames in bold italic text are invisible. (only admins see them)
You can set a maximum number of names to display and once that limit is reached a link to the "Who's Online" page will be included so users can view the full list.

13. Hot Topic - When a post reaches X number of replies it is displayed in this box with a flaming .gif

14. Menu - This box has various links to other features of IIP.

15. View Polls - This generates a list of X number of poll posts per page with links to the post and board.

16. File Attachments - This generates a list of X number of file attachments per page. There are also sorting options to display only the files specified such as .txt or .zip files.
An attachment specific search feature has been added allowing the search for specific words or from specific boards.

17. New Member - This will display a message welcoming the most recent member. This will only be displayed for X number of days.

18. Recommend Us - This will display a short form for visitors to fill out and recommend the site to their friends.
Mail sent includes an updated header to ensure acceptance by your host. This header includes using the sender's name and email in the "from" section. When the email is recieved by the recipient the sender's name appears in the "from" area and not their email address. (hope that made sense)

19. Call Us Home - IE specific, will not (or should not) display for browsers other than IE. This will allow visitors to set the site as their home page.

20. Add to Favorites - IE specific, will not (and again should not) display for browsers other than IE. This will allow visitors to add the site to their favorites folder. Netscape users will see the "Press CNTRL-D to Bookmark" notice.

21. Shout Box - This displays "shouts" (quick, small postings) from guests or members in the order they were made. Admins can easily delete shouts that are offensive. The shout box does use the .threads nickname/language filters also to suppress such postings. You can optionally set this to refresh for members only or for everyone.

22. Profile Index - This displays members profiles in a sorted list. The profiles are searchable. Boolean (AND, OR, NOT) and wildcard * searches are allowed. This makes finding specific members easier than ever.

23. Cache Table - Information can be automaticly stored and updated in intervals to increase page generation times. Depending on setup, this can cut the number of queries used to generate a page by as much as 50% and large sites will see a considerable speed increase with generation times.

24. Configure Panel - IIP settings can be controlled via browser and allow for easy setup and managment of the features listed above.

25. Standards Compliant - IIP is XHTML 1.0 Transitional compliant and should render well in standards compliant browsers. This basicly means that the display should look the same from one standards compliant browser to the next.

26. Custom pal boxes have been added. You can edit the boxes and include what ever content and code you want to display and then manage their placement and display from IIP's configure panel.


Notes:

Information displayed is based on group access. If the viewer doesn't have access to your "staff" board IIP will not pull information from that board to generate the display. Larger sites can use the option "force public" to make IIP display only public viewable information which allows for more of IIP's features to use cache to speed page generation times up.

The more features you use the longer it takes to generate the page. If you don't need or want a specific feature, turn it off.

Instructions:

Download the attached file and unzip to a location of your choice. Follow the instructions (SETUP.txt) located inside the "pals" folder that was contained in the zip file. Please see the IIP FAQ (second post in this thread) if you have any questions BEFORE posting/asking for help. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />


Note: IIP 5.4 now uses the table wrappers that came standard with .threads 6.2



[:"red"]What has been changed/updated?
JustDave is a bit tied up right now, and I know many of you, like myself, will need an updated IIP to work with UBB.Threads version 6.4.

IIP and Integrated Index Page remains the brain child and copyright Dave Lozier (JustDave) www.chattersonline.com. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bow.gif" alt="" /> I have simply done a bit of tweaking to make it compatible and created a few new pal boxes which I have included.

In no way can I take credit for this. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> Also, I updated this out of a need to do so for myself and/or my paying clients. I am posting it here as a courtesy to you. I can take no responsibility for it's use and can only provide support for it as I have time and for the parts that I understand (as I didn't write it all). I have fixed a few bugs. [/]

Here's what I fixed/changed:

• Fixed a bug with the display date of Sticky Posts in newspal.php
• Fixed a bug with displaying pointers for moved posts in newspal.php
• Online pal time period has been adjusted to use the time defined in the UBB.Threads config file (as the 10 minute period is not configurable).
• The PollPal box no longer works, and I do not have the time/energy to update it. So it has been removed from this version. Perhaps someone will create one.
• Changed the "View More Polls" link to "View Polls" which will display a list of all posts containing polls.
• Removed several references to Board=keyword in various pal boxes which are no longer needed in the current threads version.
• Updated the Search Pal box to function correctly with 6.4's Search feature.
• Added an admin option to determine if the user sees a preview of the body of the post with search results (as supported in 6.4 dosearch.php).
• Created an upcoming events pal box to display upcoming events from the calendar - fully configurable from the IIP interface.
• Created a birthday pal box to display today's birthdays, and optionally this months' birthdays, configurabel from the IIP interface.
  

[:"red"]Again, I can only offer limited supoort for all of this, and most likely can't take feature requests. I'm posting what I've done on this as a courtesy for those who needs it. [/]

I'm changing this from BETA status to Finished status - as I believe it's ready for prime time.

[:"blue"]Updated: 10/4/03 - Fixed a glitch in eventspal.php. If you previously installed this, simply upload a new copy of eventspal.php.[/]

[:"blue"]Updated: 11/1/03 - Will remove this from "beta" status.
Fixed the onlinepal.php to properly display the user's color.
Fixed some CSS Class issues when using a CSS with a border
Fixed a bug in the topposterspal.php related to the profile link.
Fixed a bug in the lastseenpal.php related to the profile link.

[:"blue"]Updated: 11/1/03 to version 5.4.1.
Fixed some missing language strings
Introduced language files for all languages that threads support
Made the index page display the language in the user's profile.
Included Sweedish Translation - thanks Gardener

[:"blue"]Updated 11/9/03 to version 5.4.2.
- Fixed a glitch with new language strings in newspal.php
- Fixed a glitch with wrapping of a long list of names in birthdaypal.php
- The pollpal.php script and poll functionaly has been restored - thanks to scroungr for updating the pollpal.php script
[/]

[:"blue"]Updated 11/13/03 to version 5.4.3.
- Included the calendar box pal (thanks scroungr) and the ability to position it with the admin interface. [/]

[:"blue"]Updated 1/4/04 to version 5.4.4.
- Added German Translation file (thanks [][email protected])[/]
- Made usernames in shout box clickable to view profile (thanks Allen for suggestion)
- Fixed a bug requiring the language files on some servers
- Fixed a bug with the Online Pal Box related to blocking invisible users from seeing names
- Updated the shortstats pal box to use the built in "max user" info
with user time offset and user time format
- Fixed some typos on the edit config page
- Updated the search box to work better with 6.4 updated search script
- Added a link to the "search tip" popup window in the search box
- Attempted to add the mod to prevent shoutbox stretching, but I don't think it works.
- Fixed a bug with anonymous postings usernames appearing in newspal as DONOTDELETE

[:"blue"]Updated: 3/7/04 to version 5.4.5.
Special Thanks to Scroungr - (www.couch-tomatoe.cc) for the great additions in this release!!!
- Removed the "Attachments" link from the index page if attachments are turned off
- Fixed a headers already sent error in the calendarpal box
- Fixed an error when searching for Registration IPs and wildcards/periods
- Fixed a bug with the spacing following the calendar box
- Fixed a bug where long strings caused left/right scrolling in the shoutbox - thanks Twisty
- Allow the window to be resizable, when you open the shoutbox in a new window.
- Added scroungr's new Eventpal script - which allows the display of events created
with posts, as well as the display of birthdays.
- Revised config editors Events options to support the new script.
- Added scroungr's new Pollpal script - which works properly with 6.4's multi-question polls.
- Revised config editors Poll options to support the new script.
- Removed the caching option for the current Poll, as current pollpal script currently does
not support this.
- Note all language files were updated with new pollpal strings. Update all IIP language files.
- Added scroungr's showdaypal which pops up when you click a day on the event list rather thank loading a whole new page.
- Fixed a bug which incorrectly made an Anonymous Shout User name clickable.

IIP FAQ -

Having trouble getting IIP instaled or configured?
Read these FAQ's first. If you question isn't answered, then post it to this thread.


OK - I got it running but it says "Index Closed - we are currently updating this page...". What have I done wrong?
It shows like that until you configure it. Scroll to the very bottom and click on the copyright IIP link (IIP 5.4 by David Lozier ©2003). That'll take you to the configure panel.




I click on the Copyright link and I go to ChattersOnline.
First, make sure you are logged in as Admin. Then, in your config file, make sure your cookies are set site wide. The cookie path should be "/".



There is no configpal.php in my zip!
The first time you run the IIP config panel, it will get created for you. If you are upgrading, your settings will be updated from your current configpal.php file. Make sure the permissions on the /pals directory allow you to write to it. Try 777 for best results.




When I edit my config for IIP, my changes don't get saved! OR I get "Warning: fopen blah blah blah Permission Denied"
Try looking at the permissions of the /pals/configpal.php. The file should be 666. If that doesn't work, try 777. You might also need to adjust the permissions of the 'pals' directory to 777 as well.




My Entrance link looks like this: ]http://www.mydomain.com//index.php?Cat=?[/b]
Check both the config panel in IIP and your config file in threads for a trailing slash. Remove it, and you should be all set.




[b]When configuring IIP, can you turn off specific components like the Shot Box and have that part not display?
Yes, you can configure and arrange all the pal boxes just as you wish from the IIP config panel. You can choose to not display any boxes you wish.




The index page doesn't seem to change or show the most current information.
If you are running with the "force public" option, you are caching (storing) some of the information used. This makes it faster and uses less queries. When you are caching information, the information only updates every so often, as configured in your IIP setup.
As an admin, you can click on the little green circular arrow in the menu pal, that will refresh the cache and update all the pal boxes.



My private forums are showing up on my front page!!!
Fear not...your private info is still secret. If you are not using the caching abilities (force public) then all access will be based on the user groups. You are seeing that info because you can see those forums normally. A regular user will see only the forums they are supposed to.



I don't want unregistered users to be able to post in the shoutbox.
You can set the option to members only under the shoutbox section of the configure panel.



How do I edit the custom boxes?
Inside your pals directory, edit the files custombox1pal.php, custombox2pal.php, etc.. As needed.



I edited my custom pal boxes and now I am getting a parse error!
If you are including HTML links inside the PHP files, you must be sure to comment out the quote marks (by placing a \ before them), or else they will break the string.

For example.... To insert a graphic in your pal box.... You would need to change this:
<img src="http://www.mydomain.com/image/picture.jpg" alt="Picture" border="0" />

To this:

<img src="http://www.mydomain.com/image/picture.jpg" alt="Picture" border="0" />

You need to insert the \ before each quote in the HTML you will insert. Don't add the \ to any quotes that are already in there.



Sometimes my News gets "cut off" or stops short.
Try turning off the "strip HTML" options for the newspal settings.



My Random Profile doesn't seem to be that random. It kind of just ends up displaying a few users.
When you setup the Random profile, you have the option to require certain fields. Don't check too many of those boxes. It's best to pick a field or two. If you are too strict and require too many fields to be complete, then there won't be that many profiles to choose from in the random rotation.




I have my Hot Topic cache set to 10 minutes and 5 replies. I have refreshed my cache, but it still will not show up as a hot topic.
If the main thread was posted more than 24 hours it will not show up no matter how many replies it gets. Hot Topic only looks at threads posted in the last 24 hours.




Why do certain user's names show up bold and italic under last seen?
Because they are invisible users. You are seeing them because you are an Admin.



My Shout box has trouble conforming to the width of the column. Sometimes I have to scroll left and right.
Usually this is because a user has entered a very long shout without any spaces and it doesn't wrap, thus stretches things out. Just simply delete the shout by clicking the little "X" next to it, and it should go back to normal.




The news pal doesn't seem to list the posts in the order that they are in my forum.
The display is based on the main post of the thread, not replies. If you have dateslip on in your forums, then they will be ordered by the date of the most recent post. This setting does not affect IIP.




How can I add links to the menu on IIP?
To add stuff to the Menu box, you need to edit /pals/menupal.php.

Look for the last line:
echo "$tableEnd</td></tr>$tbclose<br />";

Just ABOVE it.... you can add stuff like this:
echo "$rowStart<a href="http:www.whatever.com/mypage.html">My Page</a>$rowEnd2";

You can add as many lines like this as you wish, to add them to the menu box.

It is important to ensure that for each " (quote mark) which occurs inside of 'echo " "; has a \ in front of it, so it doesn't break the string.


Not all the Events appear in the Events Pal Box!
At this time the events pal box pulls events from the calendar in UBB.Threads 6.4. It does not grab posts that are tied to the calendar. So only events entered directly into the calendar will appear in the events pal box.

Updated the main post in this thread with a new zip file containing IIP 5.4.5.

[]
[:"blue"]Updated: 3/7/04 to version 5.4.5.
Special Thanks to Scroungr - (www.couch-tomatoe.cc) for the great additions in this release!!!
- Removed the "Attachments" link from the index page if attachments are turned off
- Fixed a headers already sent error in the calendarpal box
- Fixed an error when searching for Registration IPs and wildcards/periods
- Fixed a bug with the spacing following the calendar box
- Fixed a bug where long strings caused left/right scrolling in the shoutbox - thanks Twisty
- Allow the window to be resizable, when you open the shoutbox in a new window.
- Added scroungr's new Eventpal script - which allows the display of events created
with posts, as well as the display of birthdays.
- Revised config editors Events options to support the new script.
- Added scroungr's new Pollpal script - which works properly with 6.4's multi-question polls.
- Revised config editors Poll options to support the new script.
- Removed the caching option for the current Poll, as current pollpal script currently does
not support this.
- Note all language files were updated with new pollpal strings. Update all IIP language files.
- Added scroungr's showdaypal which pops up when you click a day on the event list rather thank loading a whole new page.
- Fixed a bug which incorrectly made an Anonymous Shout User name clickable. [/]

Fellow Threadafficianados,

Just a friendly suggestion for the new upgrade. It is cool that "Upcoming Events" now includes dates generated from posts. It would be even cooler if the links to the post were clickable in the pop up window.

For example, if I click on an upcoming event that is generated from a post a pop up window will list the event, but the link to the event is not clickable. I have to click on the "Show events for date XX/XX", then click on the date on the calendar to finally get a clickable link to the post.

Hope this makes sense

Later

have a link to your forum so I can test?

Yep,

autotech-elearning.com/forum

The site looks a little sparse, hoping to go public in a week...

EDIT: This is too wierd, I just looked at the site and the topic link is clickable as soon as the window opens...all is well??? Maybe Josh has been lurking

OK - I just fixed this - I added a link in showday to open the topic in a new window.

Grant - I fixed your site.

I'm going to update the zip in the first post with this.

Hmm I think I see? onder: you wanted showdaypal.php to open up and give you the option to click on it.. yeah I took that out of showdaypal.php but I could add that back although I think what Josh did was good I took it out cause while I wanted to give anonymous ability to see events I didn't wanna give em ability to get to calendar.. I could have added a anonymous detector I guess but I left that up to the individual admin

thanks for the updates

I upgraded from IIP 5.4.4

I run the modify my database and I get this;

IIP 5.3 modifications already exists. Nothing more to be done here...

I ran set the settings and it didnt created a configpal.php for me, I still get this:

Warning:/home/proguide/public_html/forum/pals/configpal.php is not writeable.
You will not be able to use this tool until the permissions are changed.

I tried all I can think of and it says I am stil running IIP 5.4.4 Configure Panel and wont change my options or give me the cofig file.

ok sounds like you have some files non-writeable.. all files should be set to at least 664 and all directories at least 775 if you don't have them set right then you won't copy all files over correctly. make sure all files are copied over correctly and this mod will work.

I have all files and folders set at 777. I double checked them all with WS_FTP. From the control panel there is also a link to check permitions.
It says
"Directory results
Testing '/home/proguide/public_html/forum/pals'
Directory exists and is writeable
Test passed"

Still cant get a config file.

hrmmm it doesn't give you a new config file the file should already be there if updating. what it does is change options in the original one let me run it and upload it.

actually do this for me go to the pals directory and see if there is a configpal.php there and if so delete it.

No config file there.

I just removed pals off my test box and downloaded Josh's new zip and installed it no problems. I sent ya a PM.

It turns out my database has a new address. I was ftping the old addresss. I got it licked now.
Thanks for your help.

hehe, I hate when that happens

I just noticed a possible bug with the pollpal that i dont know if it has been mentioned. ALthough this bug could have been random and had actually nothing to do with with the pollpal. anyways i just noticed that after voting on a newly made poll, that i can go into the actual forums and vote on the poll again. Is this supposed to do this, or was this just a random occurance?

must have been random occurence cause I have tried. YOur admin right? can you go into your DB and see if it actually recorded two votes for you?

Yes I am admin. I havent checked the database yet but i know it did record the vote itself on the poll (i was the only one on and there was a total of two votes) I am not that worried about it just thought i would point it out to see if anyone else has mentioned it.

Hmm yeah seems strange let me know.

ahh... just got around to this, and i'm already loving it.

question, tho: is there any reason why the page seems to load so slowly? are there specific options i should turn off, cuz they're known for draining speed?

turn on the queries option in the admin panel of IIP and look at the page load time mine is

Generated in 1.046 seconds in which 0.531 seconds were spent on a total of 43 queries. Zlib compression disabled.

and I have alot of the IIP panels opened

hmm... what am i turnin on here? i don't see a basic querry option (??)

...

also (perhaps related), when i click on, say, "view polls" in the "menu" box, i get the following errror:

sorry, here's a link:

http://www.robkamphausen.com/ubbthreads/index.php?

ok, so, i tried redoing everything from scratch again. page is up, but still crawling (forums home page loads in full in about 1 second. entrance page loads in 6 or 7).

still getting the "view polls" error, too.

i noticed i couldn't CHMOD my configpal.php this time around. i get an error saying "550 Could not change perms on configpal.php: Bad file descriptor" when i try."

is that attributing to my mess?

loaded prety quick for me. you have anything under custombox 5? it was an empty area. and yeah configpal.php should be writieable make it 664 or 666

also polllistpal.php isn't needed for IIP 5.4.5 so is not included. sounds like your config is still calling it though.

right now, all of the settings are left alone, so every box showing is what it starts you off with. i've tried removing some and/or adding some, but haven't noticed a difference with the speed

as for the configpal.php, for whatever reason, i cant chmod it.

the whole pals folder is 777, and every file within it is 777, except for configpal.php. when i try to change it, i get the follwoing error:

whats its present owner and group? and chmod?

its currently at 644 -- everyone can read, only owner can write.

can't seem to change it to anything else.

who is the file listed as for owner

okay I deleted your configpal.php it had a weird group to it and yeah since it was only 550 I couldn't do jack to it so I deleted it and uplaoded mine. So try and work with the IIP.

yer extra help and effort is much appreciated, scroungr!!!

the board's entrance is at least workin now. though its still crawling along. gonna try to adjust a few settings.

right now, everything is still either default or how you left it, so it appears all options are cached.

hmm... i think i found the culprit!

the "poll" option was really draining the site. once i removed it from the entrance page, the load times dropped from 8 seconds to about 2. much better

I noticed it was slower too when enabling the poll feature, but for my site it's a hit and the polls have never been more active, so I guess the trade off is worth it. Maybe IIP 5.4.x will address this issue, unless of course the speed is purely dependent on the server.

6.4 IIP -- all rob, all the time!

question -- i'm really diggin the news aspect, where you can have a post from a forum displayed on the entrance page.

right now, it picks the first post of the latest thread in a specific forum.

i was wondering if there was an easy way to get it to show the latest post of the latest thread in a specific forum. (?)

also, is it possible to add the entrace page as a third option in the edit display page? like, where it says "When you login do you want to go to your My Home or the main index?"

[]drkknght said:
6.4 IIP -- all rob, all the time!

question -- i'm really diggin the news aspect, where you can have a post from a forum displayed on the entrance page.

right now, it picks the first post of the latest thread in a specific forum.

i was wondering if there was an easy way to get it to show the latest post of the latest thread in a specific forum. (?) [/]

not without some rewritting of the newspal.php

[]drkknght said:
also, is it possible to add the entrace page as a third option in the edit display page? like, where it says "When you login do you want to go to your My Home or the main index?" [/]

you may mean this mod

https://www.ubbdev.com/forum/showflat...rev=#Post108776