smeallum wrote:


Okay, that's what I'm trying to understand on the CB end (I have a lot more experience dealing with SMF).

That's the whole "understanding parameters" thing I was alluding to earlier. I'm going to have to buckle down and study parameter passing with plugins. There is probably a way to control each displayed field via using the plugin's backend (via Joomla administration). There are several plugins available here that use parameters to set controls. It's just something I'm still getting a handle on.

Does anyone know offhand where I can read up on plugin parameters? I'd really appreciate it.

Regards,
Brat.

did you dowload tha api?

This site - download area - RC2 downloads.

Now why didn't I think of that?

Thanks much!

Regards,
Brat.

Brat:

Concerning my last comments, i am just thinnking on how the actual Joomlaboard integration works. it would be awesome to be able to mimic those two items:

1) To display the karma, total number of posts and the group that user belongs to(based on the amount of posts...like in Joomlapolis: Fresh Joomlapolitan, etc...) in the first visible place of the profile. Wether it is also shown in the SMF profile details it doesn't matter

2) Right now in the Joomaboard Integration/plugin a user clicks on the Forums tab and sees a) his latests posts and b) the threads he is subscribed to(both inside the same tab)
If another user visits that user's profile, he'll see in the forums tab only that users latest posts, but not the threads he is subscribed to.

I am not sure if there is a way of hide/show a tab for the rest of users but the owner. But to show hide some content in the same tab depending of if you are the owner or a visitor it can be done. An example is the Joomlaboard plugin

Cheers,
NiCo

smeallum wrote:


Ah. See, these are things you can't see in a lab. That's why user feedback is needed.

So, in other words, only the actual content owner and the forum administrator should be able to see this information. That should be easy enough to do. I guess what I need is a list of what should be public information, and what should be private (i.e., only the member-owner and administrator). Admins should always be privy to whatever is going on with their forums; this is how SMF defaults, and the plugins will reflect SMF's current guidelines.



Regarding the actual tab show/hide, I have printed myself a copy of CB API, and am going to review it tonight. I do believe there is a way to hide a tab (except from administrators, of course). Once I have a better understanding of more complex plugin capabilities, I hopefully will find a solid answer.

In general, with respect to forum-related permissions, please keep in mind that SMF, overall, is far more robust than Joomlaboard, and has a more grandular permissions system. That's why plugin code is based directly upon SMF's code/API. The usual control "switches" for SMF appear to be [is_owner], [allowed_to_view] and [allowed_to_edit]. By using SMF's built-in permissions, you run much less risk of the plugins breaking down over time, especially as SMF codebase is tweaked. Having used the software since it was YABBSE, I can pretty much feel secure that the permissions system is stable.

So, to sum it up - CB plugin code can handle actual tab permissions, while SMF code will control what's seen in the tab. At least that's how I'm planning it.


Regards,
Brat.

After reading the CB API document, and doing research on these boards, I've come to a few conclusions:

1) The "Private tab" feature is one that appears to be requested by quite a few people. There is a related project in progress that I read about (and downloaded), but it is not ready for prime time yet (have enough debugging to do on the stuff I'm writing ). As this is currently a development issue on a CB-level, and because this involves CB coding skills that I simply do not have, I'm not going to deal with it for the purposes of my plugin(s).

2) Regarding the privacy of the information contained in the SMF tabs, again, SMF has a relatively fine level of control over what information is displayed. Therefore, at worst case, you may see a section of tab that says, "This profile is private" or whatever is appropriate. Ultimately, CB is really a means of displaying forum information - the forum itself controls the data, and that is how it should be.

3) Because the SMF plugins are needed for my current project, my primary focus is to get something functional that will work until someone with far better programming skills (and more time) than I have can actually develop it further. In other words, I'll do the best I can with the time I have.

So, to summarize the things I have left to do:

1) Rearrange the Karma, Forum Position and Total Posts in the main Profile section (as seen here to the right of the avatar)

2) Make sure that all language generated is from the SMF language files (which use variables to pass the data, enabling multilingual support). If any additional phrases are needed, I can code these up, but at this point I don't think it'll be necessary.

3) Verify that the code remains in sync with SMF's built-in privacy controls (meaning that the proper booleans/variables are used just as they are in the core code).

4) Final alpha testing and code clean-up.

Okay, that should do it. If I've overlooked anything major, please let me know. I'm really trying to get this wrapped up sometime this weekend. Thanks!

Regards,
Brat.

Post edited by: Brat, at: 2006/08/09 10:26