Author Box (Credit Box) Challanges

[shlomot]

Hello,

Author box is a must-have feature by today's standards of ethics regarding article syndication. You can view an example of an author acknowledgement at the bottom of the article here (http://www.topsynergy.com/relationships_articles/0019.asp).

Author Box should be defined once per author (in our case - a vB member) and should be very similar in behavior to this of vB's built-in signature field.

1. It should become an inseparable part of the article and show at the bottom of it, both in article view and RSS feed.

2. HTML or BBCode in it should parse because links to the author's website are their paramount motivation to syndicate their articles.

3. It should have basic design customization capabilities (frame, background, font, etc.).

It makes no sense to use Dynamics' Custom Field for this purpose because of the one member to many articles relations and the need to edit author's box in one central location - member's information.

I added vB's member's custom field to a new Author Box module (which I copied from the About Me module), which I placed in the Show Entry module's layout, but then it isn't a part of the RSS feed and HTML and/or BBCode link tags do not parse at all.

Also, this module shows below the Quick Reply block and not as an integral part of the document.

Please advise me how to proceed. Once my Dynamics becomes accessible again, you can view an article here (http://www.topsynergy.net/dyna-library/showentry.php?e=2&catid=2).

Thank you:)

[shlomot]

Dear Brian, please respond to this topic now that the articles are accessible.

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[Brian]

I think about the closest thing you're going to get to that is using the signature features in vB and allowing signatures to be shown in entries.

[shlomot]

That's what I ended up doing now. I hope that you'll figure some better solution in future upgrades since it's such a must feature in the syndication field.

One problem's left: the signature field isn't included in the RRS. That's again a big NO NO in article distribution. Anything you can help me with on this one?

I think about the closest thing you're going to get to that is using the signature features in vB and allowing signatures to be shown in entries.

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[Brian]

Looks like you could do that easily enough with 2 plugins.

Hook Location: vba_dyna_external_query
$queryfields = str_replace('hasimages', 'entryparsed.hasimages', $queryfields);

$queryfields .= ', usertextfield.signature, signatureparsed, sigparsed.hasimages AS sighasimages, sigpic.userid AS sigpic, sigpic.dateline AS sigpicdateline, sigpic.width AS sigpicwidth, sigpic.height AS sigpicheight';

$queryjoin .= 'LEFT JOIN ' . TABLE_PREFIX . 'usertextfield AS usertextfield ON (usertextfield.userid = entries.userid)
LEFT JOIN ' . TABLE_PREFIX . 'sigparsed AS sigparsed ON (sigparsed.userid = entries.userid AND sigparsed.styleid = ' . intval(STYLEID) . ' AND sigparsed.languageid = ' . intval(LANGUAGEID) . ')
LEFT JOIN ' . TABLE_PREFIX . 'sigpic AS sigpic ON (sigpic.userid = entries.userid)';


Hook Location: vba_dyna_external_entryloop
$entry['signature'] = $bbcode_parser->parse($entry['signature'], 'signature');
$entry['pagetext'] .= $entry['signature'];


You may also need to run this query after making the change to clear the RSS cache.
TRUNCATE TABLE adv_dyna_extcache

[shlomot]

Thanks, Brian. Two questions, though.


I cannot find Dynamics under the products list when defining a new plugin. Should I place it in the vBulletin product repository?
Does the value in field "Execution Order" matter at all, and if yes - what should they be?

Thanks again for your ongoing support.

[Brian]

1). That's fine, though there should be a vBa Dynamics product there...

2). That does not matter or come into play unless you have multiple plugins in the same hook location and need to adjust the order that the plugin code is executed in... So no.