[Beta 1.5.4] Hierarchical Categories v0.5

[Russell Howard]

Hierarchical Categories Mod[/u]

This mod adds the following features:

• Hierarchical Categories
  
  • It will allow you to create hierarchical categories. i.e. A category that is within another category.
    
  • It also includes collapsable categories influenced by the superb collapsable mod by snYpir ([email protected] available from http://www.yabbse.org/community/index.php?thread=12045 ). Although I have had to code it from scratch to get it to work with the hierarchical categories!
    
• Announcement Changes
  
  • The announcement functionality has been slightly modified so that only people who can actually see an announcement board will get notification emails.
    
  • The announcement board notification admin settings has also been made more general so that you can enable board notification for any board, not just announcement boards.
    
• Graphical Changes
  
  • Boards with notification enabled have a notification icon next to them in the main index.
    
  • Topics with notification enabled optionally have a notification icon next to them in the board index.
    
• Notification Changes
  
  • The ability for users to add board notifications on a board by board, or a category by category basis.
    
• Statistical Changes
  
  • The usage of separate boards by members can now be logged. This is very useful in an intranet type forum to see who is using what board and how much.
    
  • Added new stats pages to display the board usage stats as well as a board specific version of the main stats page (number of posts, replies etc.)
    
  • Added the ability for only admin/moderators or anyone (set in mod settings) to be able to view the board usage stats.
    
  • Added the ability for admin to remove board stats for specific months from the main stats page.
    
  • Spiced up all the stats pages with bar charts and a few extra categories such as the top 10 topic starters etc.
    
• Other Changes
  
  • If a board has no moderators then anyone who can see the board can modify posts by other people. (Still can't delete, merge etc. only modify).
    

I have only tried this mod on a clean install of 1.5.4, so do not know how mod friendly it is!

Notes

• I would highly recommend also installing the allow user mod by Daniel Volk ([email protected]) to allow more detailed control over who has access to which board. (Available from http://www.yabbse.org/community/index.php?thread=9202 )
  
• Seeing as this is my first mod, go easy on me!
  

Installation[/u]

• In all cases
  
  • Upload HierarchicalCategories_dbmod_v0.5.php to your root YaBB SE directory and run it in your browser (ie www.mysite.com\yabbse\HierarchicalCategories_dbmod_v0.5.php). This will add the neccessary fields to your database.
    
• If you are installing the mod for the first time
  
  • Upload the gif image files to your YaBBImages directory.
    
  • Use boardmod to install HierarchicalCategories_v0.5.mod, then upload the modified files to your server. (You can do this step by hand, if you are feeling brave! There are a lot of changes!)
    
• If you are upgrading from a previous release
  
  • Upload any new/changed gif image files to your YaBBImages directory. (I would recommend always copying over all the images, just in case!)
    
  • Use boardmod to install the appropriate upgrade mods to get you to the current version (e.g. if you have version 0.3 currently installed, use HierarchicalCategories_v0.3_upgrade.mod AND HierarchicalCategories_v0.4_upgrade.mod), then upload the modified files to your server.
    

Still Todo[/u]

• When setting up the hierarchical categories in the admin pages, it only checks a few levels deep for recursion. Need to add a new recursive function to check for category recursively up the hierarchy. (works fine if you only go to a level of 2 deep)
  
• Adding the ability for users to be members of more than one member group
  
• Modify the link at the top of the messages and board index to reflect the hierarchical categories (although I don't see this as all that important!)

Version History

• 0.5 (11th Aug 2003)
  • Added the facility to monitor the usage of separate boards over time. (see feature list above for more information!)
    
  • As I was changing the stats pages anyway, I spiced them up a bit to include graphs and added a few more categories!
    
  • Fixed an obscure error where the collapsed state of certain categories could not be expanded
    
  • Now clicking on the collapsable icon will collapse/expand categories as well as clicking on the title
    
  • Removed the Allow User Mod, but modified the code so that it can be installed seperately if required!
• 0.4 (24th July 2003)
  • Fixed some errors in the MOD file with the popup texts
• 0.3 (23rd July 2003)
  • Added some popup text boxes to new links
    
  • Added ability to show notifications on topics in the board index view
    
  • Clicking on a board notify enable/disable or collapsing/expanding a category on the main index now reloads the index centred on the category that was clicked!
    
  • A few potential problems fixed (extra safe programming!)
• 0.2 (17th July 2003)
  • Fixed new line bug in the topic reply (didn't see CR correctly in Outlook!)
    
  • Added a new option to the mod settings page to disable/enable the feature to allow users to modify any post in an unmoderataed board.
    
  • Changed display of categories to show the hierarchy better.  
• 0.1 (16th July 2003)
  • First public release!

Download

You can download the mod file from: http://russhome.webhop.net/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=1

Screenshots

Available from - http://www.geocities.com/russellhoward  
Click on the ScreenShots link to get some screenshots and descriptions.


Notes

I have only written a Boardmod version of the mod, and only implemented the changes to english.lng as I don't speak any other languages! Sorry if this is a problem.

[BiErLeEuW]

can you show me with a demo or picture what it does

[Russell Howard]

Yep... just grabbing them now....  

Adding links to first post.....

[[Unknown]]

Not bad, a lot of changes here - many of them quite good.

I think the last change would be the most unpopular... perhaps you could, in a future revision, make this a mod setting?  Maybe even per board setting?

Interestingly enough (for me), the upcoming versions has... somethign like... practically all these changes.  Well, okay, VERY different, but still.  Board level notifications, collapsable categories, child boards, permissions... you could even make it so everyone could edit anyone else's posts...

But, that announcements only to allowed people is a good point.  It has been brought up before, but it slipped my mind... anyhow, thanks for reminding me, YaBB SE now only allows those who can see the board to get the announcement.... probably in a very different way from this mod, though... considering the difference in the permissions system.

Anyway, good show.  Nice to see new people coming in, especially with such good mods.  Feel free to keep up the good work, we always love more mods .

-[Unknown]

[Russell Howard]

Thanks for the praise Unknown  

I did realise that a lot of these changes will be present in the next release, but unfortunately I need the features very soon !     So I coded it up over the weekend and polished it off over the last few evenings.     I was very surprised at how easy the original code was to modify, good testament to the original coders!  

I was wondering whether to include the last feature or not, as I thought it might not be what other people would want it to do. However I assumed that most people would have an administrator setup for their boards, even if it is just the admin account. So I left it in. I'll add in an optional setting to disable it in the next release.  

The other thing I was going to add, but didn't get time    was to allow people to belong to more than one member group. Thus allowing much easier access control for larger forums.    Maybe I'll get time to add it to the next release    I had a quick look and it looks like quite a few changes again....  

How are you showing the categories graphically Unknown? As I'm not entirely happy with how it looks in this mod once you go deeper than just having a parent with a few children? I think it gets a bit confusing and doesn't show the hierarchy very clearly...  

[[Unknown]]

I handle it completely differently.  Child boards instead of child categories.  And, the message index shows the children.

As far as multiple groups per user... it's not very hard at all, actually.... I'd say there are a few ways to do it:

1. Store the groups in a seperate table.  (ID_MEMBER, ID_GROUP)

2. Store everything in a comma delimited list in members.

3. Store it as a field in the members table, and a table for extra groups.

4. Store it as a list in members, but with the first one as the "main" one.

I like 4 best, but the development team can't seem to agree on the best method, so it's been dropped for now.  I'll look forward to seeing what you do...

-[Unknown]

[1979Z28]

What about a possible fix for the all users being able to modify posts thing? I've got all global mods on my boards, and it'd be a little spammy to have a mod listed for all of them

Sweet mod though. I'm installing it tomorrow

[Russell Howard]

New version 0.2 release...  

See first post for changes etc....  

[Russell Howard]

I did originally start coding the mod with hierarchical boards rather than categories. But, I stopped and thought about it, and decided that having the categories hierarchical made more sense for what I was trying to do. Also, it follows the standard branches and leaves model (i.e. where a branch can contain other branches or leaves, folders can contain other folders or files, etc. etc.)
Also, categories could already have a number of boards within them, so all I had to do was allow them to also contain other categories.  

I haven't had a chance to think about the multiple member group solution yet.... keep an eye out for future releases... I wasn't so worried about the database structure, more about how many times the board checks that you are allowed access to things, which looked like quite a few to me at first glance!    

Its really good to hear that people are willing to try my mod out. I wasn't sure if people would, or just wait for the next official release of YaBBSE.  

[1979Z28]

Mods generally come in a lot faster than the official releases do

[Daniel D.]

I don't see the reason why every user should be able to modify the posts if no mod is present ...

[Russell Howard]

Well, I have to admit, I did argue this one a bit with someone else, as I didn't think it was a very elegant solution to what they wanted to do. But, they managed to convince me.  

Basically, they wanted to create a board kind of like a database of resources, where people could add into the board a post for a certain resource type (e.g. they might have a post for books, one for software, etc.). Then other people could add to the post a list of resources that they have.

I did suggest that using the standard method of just replying to the post would be a more standard way of getting the same functionality. They argued however, that if at some time in the future, they did a search for a cerain resource, that it would come up multiple times in the results, as the owner of that resource changed, and could become confusing...

I thought about for a bit and decided that what they were suggesting wasn't so strange. In most cases people would have setup moderators for a board, where they can control posts in that board. If you don't set a moderator for that board, then you are saying that there is no one person in control, so anyone who can see the board can have read/write access to any post in that board.

Again, this is only the case if there are no board moderators set, and the mod is enabled in the mod settings screen (defaults to off).

[Valconeye]

Wow, this mod is VERY user friendly, i have over 20 mods installed, and only 1 error, 34, just a couple of spaces misplaced. This is a mod i have been waiting for for a long time!!

[Russell Howard]

I'm surprised that this mod is that friendly with other mods! There are a lot of changes, although the big ones are mostly in the BoardIndex file.    So, it may well be ok with mods that don't affect the displaying of the categories and boards.    I'm not sure why step 34 should have spaces mismatched?  I tested with a completely fresh install of 1.5.4 and it worked fine. Maybe one of your installed mods changed the spaces for some reason?

I'm currently working on the next version, which will have a few extra small features. I am tempted to add in an option to show the threads in a board that the user has notify on in the same way as the boards with notify on... i.e. with the ! next to the thread name. Will anyone else find that a useful addition?  

After the next release (version 0.3) I'll be adding a new admin feature that I had an idea about...    Then I'll have a go at adding the multiple member group functionality.  

Thanks for all the positive comments so far!!  

[shinRaiden]

I've got the mod mostly installed, but I still have a bit of a problem in Subs.php, in the bottom part of the AU_HasUserAccessToBoard function. All I get is a parse error on index.php pointing at the closing "?>"
====================================
.
.
.
     else if ($row_AUO[0] == '5')
      {
        $AU_PassCookie = 'Board'.$row_AUO[1].'_password';
        global $$AU_PassCookie;
        if (!isset($$AU_PassCookie) || ($$AU_PassCookie != $row_AUO[2]))
        {            if ($row_AUO[2] == crypt($AU_pass, substr($AU_pass, 0, 2)))
           {
              setcookie($AU_PassCookie, crypt($AU_pass, substr($AU_pass, 0, 2)), 0);               return 0;
           }
           else
           {
              template_header();
              if ($AU_Pass_Submit == '1') print $txt['AU_A_6'];
                print <<<EOT
  <form action="$cgi" method="post">
  <input type="hidden" name="AU_Pass_Submit" value="1">
  $txt[AU_A_4] <input type="password" name="AU_pass" value="" size="20" maxlength="50">
   <input type="submit" name="submit1" value="$txt[AU_A_5]">
  </form>EOT;
              footer();
              obExit();
           }
         }
        else
        {  
            return 0;  
        }
     }
  }   return 0;
}
==================

If I comment this out, pages start to come up fine, but when you click on a catagory or board, it bombs back with an unknown function error, which is to be expected.

The code above seems to be right in regards to IF...ELSE clauses and braces, I'm thinking it may be an issue with returned values?

If anyone could share some advice I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.