Help with basic approach to the system needed.

[bulbasnore]

I've been working with web sites since '96 and am an experienced system administrator (set up Linux, Solaris, Windows Server O/Ss) and compiled custom Apache, etc. However, I'm a brand new (like 3 months) vBulletin admin. Its a big system and as a part time volunteer, I'm just beginning to find my way around. I recently upgraded our forum to vB 3.0.3 (from 3.0.1, so NBD) and just installed vBadvanced CMPS.

Here's what I'm trying to accomplish:

Create a welcome/blog/front page to unify two web sites. One site is currently a set of unique content pages and the other a related and decent sized long established vBulletin forum. We want to have articles on the CMPS welcome/blog page and links to the two existings sites. All sites will be on the same domain after this is set up.

For each of the following, I have some questions. If someone could point me in the right direction, I'd be grateful.

Unifying the sites:

I really like what vBulletin.org has with the 3 tabs. I want one to go to the welcome/blog/portal, one to the forum and one to the content pages. That's easy for me on the latter site, the static pages. Its just code. On the CMPS & vB forums, I don't know where to PUT the code so that it shows on every page.

I'd also like the tab for the section the user is in to highlight in some manner... again, I can detect when they're looking at a frame of the static content pages, but how to DETECT WHERE THEY ARE (forum or cmps) and execute the highlight for the forums or cmps tab as appropriate is my question. I'm sure there is some facility for this in vBulletin/CMPS. I just don't know where/what it is.

I'd like to have links from a block on the CMPS to either special permanent articles inside the forum or articles inside the static content page part of the site. Is there a module for that in CMPS? Sorry if that last one is a dumb one.

Article system:

Here is the approach I'm thinking of... but if someone more experience can suggest something better that would be great. One forum has permissions such that the selected groups can post, but individuals can only see their own articles (mods/editors can see all) and can't reply. Its just a place to deposit and work on your article. When accepted the mods/editors will move it to the CMPS designated article forum, where it will become news on the welcome/blog/portal page. I have that working, but if there is a better way...

Now for my technical questions on the article system. Is there a way where some articles can offer and receive replies, but others neither show a reply button nor accept replies?

Also, it would be nice NOT to have reply buttons cluttering the welcome/blog/portal page. If the user gets to 'read more' and the article accepts replies, then I would like those buttons to show up. So, is there a way to deal with the reply buttons as above w/out rewriting the CMPS script? A little code/template changing is fine of course.

Well that's it for now. I sure hope those weren't just too obvious (b/c I'll really feel dull if the controls are right in front of me).

Thanks for any help and CMPS is a very nice extension of vB. I decided to use it rather than Geeklog, which I'm way more familiar with, because of the vB integration for 2700 users (that otherwise I'd have to write for Geeklog) and because the people who have been working with the site for years are used to vB methods for publishing content.

[gsk8]

Bump:

I need something similar as well. I tried VBPortal but was not comfortable with the final outlook and had it uninstalled immediately. I don't even think it was installed correctly the first time - although I paid for it.

Would like to hire someone to work with me getting VBAdvanced going. I want to integrate portions of my site with my VBulletin site. I'd like to use the module boxes on the left and right.

Bottomline is that I have over 800 pages in .sthml. I don't want to delete them and upset the search engines with a ton of redirects. Would be great to have the necessary links in the modules to call these up in the middle.

My problem is that while I'm good with XHTML, Dreamweaver, etc., I only have a basic working knowledge of VBulletin and absolutely nothing about VBadvanced. I just know what I want but now how to get there.

Again, ready to hire someone ASAP! Please feel free to email to discuss.

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[Brian]

I really like what vBulletin.org has with the 3 tabs. I want one to go to the welcome/blog/portal, one to the forum and one to the content pages. That's easy for me on the latter site, the static pages. Its just code. On the CMPS & vB forums, I don't know where to PUT the code so that it shows on every page.
Either the header template (which I'm sure is where vb.org has thiers) or the navbar template would be your best bet.

I'd also like the tab for the section the user is in to highlight in some manner... again, I can detect when they're looking at a frame of the static content pages, but how to DETECT WHERE THEY ARE (forum or cmps) and execute the highlight for the forums or cmps tab as appropriate is my question. I'm sure there is some facility for this in vBulletin/CMPS. I just don't know where/what it is.
This will tell you if they're on the CMPS pages:
<if condition="THIS_SCRIPT == 'adv_index'">


I'd like to have links from a block on the CMPS to either special permanent articles inside the forum or articles inside the static content page part of the site. Is there a module for that in CMPS? Sorry if that last one is a dumb one.
Your best bet would probably be to add a static module with the links, or use the latest threads or news modules to create this.

Here is the approach I'm thinking of... but if someone more experience can suggest something better that would be great. One forum has permissions such that the selected groups can post, but individuals can only see their own articles (mods/editors can see all) and can't reply. Its just a place to deposit and work on your article. When accepted the mods/editors will move it to the CMPS designated article forum, where it will become news on the welcome/blog/portal page. I have that working, but if there is a better way...
Don't see any reason why that would be a problem if it's working well for you.

[qutote]Now for my technical questions on the article system. Is there a way where some articles can offer and receive replies, but others neither show a reply button nor accept replies?

Also, it would be nice NOT to have reply buttons cluttering the welcome/blog/portal page. If the user gets to 'read more' and the article accepts replies, then I would like those buttons to show up. So, is there a way to deal with the reply buttons as above w/out rewriting the CMPS script? A little code/template changing is fine of course.[/quote]
There's not an article system with the CMPS... If you're trying to use the news module or something like that to display the articles though there is an option to turn off the reply buttons, but that affects all news posts.

[bulbasnore]

Thanks very much for the very helpful reply.

There's not an article system with the CMPS... If you're trying to use the news module or something like that to display the articles though there is an option to turn off the reply buttons, but that affects all news posts.

Are there CMPS modules that do 'articles'? Or, if not a suggested 'article system'? I suppose we could turn off reply buttons (on all) but put links to topics where we want to have people reply to a specific article.

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[bulbasnore]

This will tell you if they're on the CMPS pages:
<if condition="THIS_SCRIPT == 'adv_index'">

Here is what I tried in the header template:

<td align="left"> &nbsp &nbsp
if (condition="THIS_SCRIPT == 'adv_index'")
{
<a href="http://our.site.com/"><img src="images/wpog/TCs_pokegym_purepdex.jpg"></a>
}
else
{
<a href="$vboptions[forumhome].php?$session[sessionurl]"><img src="$stylevar[titleimage]" border="0" alt="$vboptions[bbtitle]" /></a>
}
</td>

Needless to say, that display's both logos and the code. I'm not getting a clue here on how to prompt the template interpreter to interpret (rather than print) the code. I've tried other variations including enclosing in < > to no avail.

Can someone show me what I'm doing wrong?

[bulbasnore]

OK, got it:

<td align="left"> &nbsp &nbsp
<if condition="THIS_SCRIPT == 'adv_index'">
<a href="http://test-board.pokegym.net/"><img src="images/wpog/TCs_pokegym_purepdex.jpg"></a>
<else />
<a href="$vboptions[forumhome].php?$session[sessionurl]"><img src="$stylevar[titleimage]" border="0" alt="$vboptions[bbtitle]" /></a>
</if>
</td>

For my final piece, I'm needing to change the title based on the page name. That is, within CMPS we have a section for our third content area, and it needs a separate title logo. So, I'd like to say, if the script is adv_index and the page is not the default then display this logo. Alternatively I could search for a prefix on the page name and say if you see this, display the logo.

I think I can work either of those out if I know how to detect the page name. This would be easy in PHP for me, but I'm a clueless news in vB templates. Again, I appreciate a pointer or tip that someone could give.

[Brian]

<if condition="THIS_SCRIPT == 'adv_index'">
Index Header Code
<else />
Normal Header Code
</if>