[BETA] Sub-Accounts / Aliases / Multiple Personas

[FireDitto]

Will that be a one-time fee?

[SlammedDime]

I haven't quite hammered out the licensing yet, however it will not be a raw deal.

[Caltan]

I have no problems paying a reasonable licensing fee, because as aforementioned it's an indispensable functionality that my board can't live without, and I am more than happy to support your work. 

Does it becoming a pay mod also mean it will be getting increased support and attention?

[jkrlvgn]

I'd have to say that I'd also support it being a paid modification.  Depending on how the licensing works out, I'm sure we'll all be expecting different things.

If it's a one time payment, then I'd expect it to have as much support and attention as it already gets, or maybe a little more.  This function is one that a LOT of people would love, no matter the forum content.  I know that I'd want it, and I don't have an active forum anymore/yet.

If it's a recurring payment, I'd hope that it'd be available for multiple sites and (at least) a year per payment...

Anyway...suspense is killing me, so....can't wait to see the mod working for me...!

[SlammedDime]

I'm still in the process of working out the details.... but the basic idea is that it will be a one time license fee for the version of SMF the mod is made for for one board... so if you buy a license for the mod on SMF 2.0, you will receive free upgrades and support until the next version of SMF (2.1 or higher, etc) is released.  If you want to run the mod on multiple boards, you will need one license for each board.  The cost of the licensing will be minimal at most.  I have no desire or need to rip anyone off.

Support for my paid mods will be given at my personal website where there will be boards for each paid mod so users may post the appropriate questions.  I tend to pay attention to as many details as possible when creating a mod that may be used by a large number of people as to decrease the support requests and make it a bullet proof mod.  As with all software, there are bound to be bugs, however I will try my hardest to provide as fast support as possible and hopefully the support needed will be minimal.  I'd much rather see questions on improving my mod's functionality rather than solving bugs all the time, as that just causes headaches for people when there is buggy software around.

As for this mod, Eliana can vouch for me that I am making excellent progress on the rewrite of this mod for RC1-1 which will hopefully reduce the changes I need to make for future 2.0 releases.  Many bugs that I reported that I found in Beta 3.1 when I originally made this mod have since been fixed and I don't need to work around them anymore.  I've also removed a bit of functionality from the mod, but IMO, it's for the better.  Everything in the first post of this topic, featurewise, still remains in the rewrite of this mod.  Some of the stuff removed includes allowing a user to do anything that their aliases can do... after really thinking about the code and the purpose of the mod, it's real purpose is to allow a user to have multiple accounts that can easily be managed from a parent account... I had a lot of extra code in many many files through SMF that really wasn't needed and was not in the true spirit of the mod.

There have also been a few template changes to purty things up a bit and make it look nicer, and in future versions, there will be more bells and whistles that make the mod stand out, but don't detriment functionality (Just as a clue: I like AJAX stuff....).  I'll also probably add some blocks for various portals that are available for SMF to integrate some things into the blocks/portal as well.  I'll post two screen shots of the updated template for now...

New Manage Alias interface (I've made a few minor changes since this screenshot, but overall this is what it looks like):


Dropdown to switch aliases on the fly:

[SlammedDime]

Yea.... I need to work all of that out still... no, it won't be required to have two licenses... i'm still working on how the whole licensing thing will work out.

[Eliana Tamerin]

I seemed to have been mentioned, so I'll post here to say that what SlammedDime is saying is true regarding his progress.

[Altair]

When you say, "you will receive free upgrades and support until the next version of SMF (2.1 or higher, etc) is released.", does this mean we will have to pay the license fee each time SMF makes a 2.x update?

If so, that is quite a bit of money on my part. I can manage it, but it will cut into my budget, that's for sure.

[SlammedDime]

The jump from SMF 1.0 to 1.1 took quite a while... and from 1.1 to 2.0 also took a couple years... and I'm sure it will be at minimum, a year until 2.1 is released, not to mention we still have a couple of RC releases to go before it goes gold...

[Altair]

....Forgot about minor changes. My Bad. xD

[FireDitto]

I just wanted clarification of this:

Even though child accounts are assigned to a Parent, they are all separate accounts as far as Member groups and permissions are concerned, correct?

Thank you, and my apologies if I missed you saying that somewhere.

[SlammedDime]

Correct, they have all of the same options that a normal member would have, including permissions, membergroups, theme settings, look and layout settings, etc.

[Altair]

Would it be possible to make this work with passwords? I would like the members to be able to link their own persona accounts. They could prove it's their account if it requires them to login to it to be linked.

Is it also possible to turn off the ability to show the persona names on their main account?

[Eliana Tamerin]

The mod can link current accounts as sub-accounts. You are not restricted to creating new accounts.

[SlammedDime]

and to answer your second question, I've built in that option as well, for the admin to choose whether or not sub-accounts show in the profile and on the memberlist.

[Altair]

So, the members could like their account together instead of having Moderators and such do it? We have had to do this in the past. Don't want some member linking into an admin account.

[Eliana Tamerin]

It requires the username and password of the account to be created or linked. If you're creating, you can put down anything that's not taken (it acts like the registration page and informs you if you've chosen a username that's already taken) and input any password. If you're linking, you use the username and password you want to link. Simple and easy with no mods/admins required.

[Ncen]

If a member asked, could I (as the admin of the site) link two accounts for the member, or does it have to be done by the member herself?

[SlammedDime]

Admins have full rights to link, unllink, merge, and delete any users accounts... as well as anyone you give permissions to (there are create_any/own, merge_any/own, delete_any/own and split_any/own permissions that can be assigned on a usergroup basis.

[Ncen]

Thank you for the answer, this sounds great! ^^

I also wonder about PM's. what if I link two accounts together? what happens if someone sends user/account 2 a PM while i'm logged in to user/account 1, and the other way around? Can i see that my other user/account has got a new PM?

Edit: I mean, i've read the first message of this thread, and it's on the first list, and then strikethrough on the second list, does this mean the feature has disappeared?

And if the messages goes to parent-account, what happens when you reply? i would like to be able to answer with sub/child-account.