Discussbot version 4.1 final (released 11-28-05)

[jorgen]

Chadness,

I love your enhanced discussbot. It has done wonders for my web-page. But do you want some suggestions for the next version?

1) When defining an "Custom text for link to forum with no posts", the "(0)" is often redundant, because the meaning might be implemented in the text. Could we make the post-count optional for that special case?

2) To make it easy for a user to start a discussion, I'd like to see the quick reply box in an article even if there is no comments yet. If a user enters a comment in the quick reply box, it would be appropriate to transfer the reply to the forum and show a preview of the reply. This will allow the user to edit the quote from the article before posting.

[chadness]

OK, my best guess is that the problem with only a "0" showing up on the initial post is a Mambo 4.5.3 problem.  I'll have to install it myself to test.

[chadness]

Chadness,

I love your enhanced discussbot. It has done wonders for my web-page. But do you want some suggestions for the next version?

1) When defining an "Custom text for link to forum with no posts", the "(0)" is often redundant, because the meaning might be implemented in the text. Could we make the post-count optional for that special case?

2) To make it easy for a user to start a discussion, I'd like to see the quick reply box in an article even if there is no comments yet. If a user enters a comment in the quick reply box, it would be appropriate to transfer the reply to the forum and show a preview of the reply. This will allow the user to edit the quote from the article before posting.

Great ideas!  As far as #1 goes, I was also thinking about making the parentheses around the number of posts optional, in case someone would prefer -4- or <===4===> or just plain 4.

For #2, if the option for taking someone to a reply instead of the forum thread is set to "no", I could probably have it make the initial post, and then a seperate 2nd post.  Hmmmm....intriguing.

I have another project I want to work on for a bit, but these are good ideas for a 4.2.

[chanh]

I just took out the from "Default custom text for link to forum from an article:" and put it in "Custom text for link back to article from forum
" and now I got just (0) instead of like before that I got the whole line of text: "(0) Discuss this article on the forums."

What am I missing?

[chadness]

"Default custom text for link to forum from an article:" is where you want that text.  That is what shows up after the (0).

"Custom text for link back to article from forum" is where you would put text that will be posted in the SMF thread that is created that will link back to the Mambo content article.  However, for you, it is currently unimportant, since that information isn't making it over to SMF.

[chanh]

Ok, I got it now!

Thanks

[jorgen]

Chadness: It seems that when replying with the quick reply-box, the bot will not prefix RE: (should be customizable because of language).
Or am I missing something?  This should not happen in the first post, but in all subsequent posts.

[chadness]

I hadn't noticed that.  I'm not at my regular computer with a version I can look at, but I suspect that would be right.  I'll have to fix that - easy enough.  I was actually thinking about putting in a subject option in the quick reply that defaults to the regular subject.

[chadness]

OK, my best guess is that the problem with only a "0" showing up on the initial post is a Mambo 4.5.3 problem.  I'll have to install it myself to test.

I haven't tested this, but I'm guessing this would fix that problem:
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=59205.msg411146#msg411146

[torkil]

Hohoi! Found a bug!

I have been testing the bot and I'm ready to launch pretty soon, so I have deleted all the old testing discussions I made. Well: In SMF I have enabled the recycle bin, so the threads end up in the recycle bin forum. BUT: The discussbot is still showing that recycled discussion underneath my article!!

So: The DB query that locates the proper forum thread must take into account that the thread is not put in the recycle bin I think you first need to find out what board_id the recycle bin has, and the exclude that board from the select statement. Just a guess though.

Not a major bug though, I'll just clean out my recycle bin

[chadness]

Thanks, torkil, I'll have to check that out!

[digiSal]

Two questions:

1. When does the Quick Reply Box supposed to show up? It showed up a few times because i posted about it before and shortly after i posted before the box showed up.

2. I was under the impression that if i have the default discussion set to Forum1 and then when I wrote and article and put {mos_smf_discuss:Forum2} it would post that article in Forum2 and not the default Forum1?

nonlive site is at

www.digisal.com/jl/

test/testing

[chadness]

Two questions:

1. When does the Quick Reply Box supposed to show up? It showed up a few times because i posted about it before and shortly after i posted before the box showed up.

It shows up only if there is at least one post besides the initial post (if the initial post is nothing but the quote and link back - if you have any comments below that initial bit, then it should show up).  This will be changed in the next version, so you can have it show up anyways.  It also won't show up if you are a guest and guests aren't allowed to post.

2. I was under the impression that if i have the default discussion set to Forum1 and then when I wrote and article and put {mos_smf_discuss:Forum2} it would post that article in Forum2 and not the default Forum1?

That is correct, that's how it should work.

One thing I noticed was that it seems like you have caching enabled at your site, which could account for the reply box taking a few tries to show up for you.

[digiSal]

Quote
2. I was under the impression that if i have the default discussion set to Forum1 and then when I wrote and article and put {mos_smf_discuss:Forum2} it would post that article in Forum2 and not the default Forum1?

That is correct, that's how it should work.

One thing I noticed was that it seems like you have caching enabled at your site, which could account for the reply box taking a few tries to show up for you.

Ok, this does work. but i thought it worked different. If i put {mos_smf_discuss:Forum1} in the Main Text it wont change the link in the front page but its correct when you click Read More. On the front page it still takes you to the default forum BUT if i put the {mos_smf_discuss:Forum1} in the Intro Text it will change the link on the Front page but when you click Read More it puts the link in the middle of the article instead of at the end. I hope that makes sense.

as a workaround i put a no_discuss in intro and put the {mos_smf_discuss:Forum1} in the main, but would like for it to change both links since i would like to see how many replies are in there by looking at the front page without clicking read more.

still a great bot!

[yellow1912]

Just 1 suggestion:
I always wanted to put newest post(s) of every room on the frontpage. It'd be great if the bot can do such thing automatically ^^.

We're gonna be free from updating the frontpage every now and then.

[torkil]

This bot is for discussions. You're looking for a "latest posts" kind of module I think.

[cylonite]

After some searching without answers, the only thing that did really solve my errors (was getting some nasty fatals while logged in both in the front end and as admin as well) was deinstalling the discussbot.

I'll be trying to find a solution tho as I really would like to use this bot!

I could try the other bridge but still....this one works right now, so why change it?

same problem with me too.... i have joomla 1.0.3 smf 1.1rc1 and the MOS_SMF_bridge3.19a. i tried this discussbot and others but when i install them joomla gives an error which is solved only by deleting the bot. funny thing is that the bot does not even have to be published but still causes error

[Orstio]

Something I noticed, Chadness, is that you call SSI.php from the bot.  If SSI.php is called from a bot, it can cause problems, ranging from strange layout issues to SQL errors, depending largely on the template and modules used.   

[chadness]

Ugh, that's depressing to hear.  You must have missed my reply about that being the way I accomplished the parseing on beta 6.   Any ideas as to what causes the problems?

I may have to either go to the old way I tried to do this, which was copying the functions (which is VERY difficult to do for the smileys), or maybe integrate the bot in with a component, which can maybe take care of some of that on the back end.

[Orstio]

I've been toying with the idea of using Joomla's new onStart or onAfterStart mambot events to include SSI in a bot rather than in the template.

Then it could simply do a quick check for if ($option !='com_smf'){ and then write in the code included in the Joomla template.

Unfortunately, this is a feature added to Joomla, and not to Mambo, so it would work only for Joomla.

This should technically allow you to use the functions from SMF pretty much anywhere in Mambo.