User permissions & template questions

[t0ecutter]

I am changing the format of my board from an open forum to an interactive FAQ. To this end, this is what I want to be able to do:

1) Have the forums open for anyone to search and read (easily done).
2) If a user has a question, they would click on a link and go to a page where they can enter a question and a full description (basically, a thread title and post). At this point, the thread then goes the moderator queue to await an official answer from me.
3) Once the question (post) is answered (replied to), it would get moved to the appropriate section of the forum.

Here are the hurdles I am coming up against, how do I solve them?
a) I want the question submission process to be as seamless as possible, so that it doesn't appear very "forumlike". I'd like to have a link that says "Have a question? Click here" and the link would take them directly to the post new thread page. Another link would say "Search our FAQ database" and that would take them to the Search page, but with some of the links at the top (forum cp, rules, etc.) removed to make it more streamlined. I'd also need to remove the date and user search options, this is a bit more complicated.
b) After the question/thread is posted, I don't want the software to take the user to the questions forum, I'd like to take the user to an HTML page that thanks them for their question and asks them if they want to ask another question.
c) I don't want the questions forum to be viewable at all to the users. I want the various "answers" forums to be open to view and search, but not the questions forum. I've played around with the forum/user group/vB settings quite a lot and can't accomplish this. The reason for this is that I won't be answering every question that comes in - if it's already been answered there's no need to answer it again. Also, any comments, curses, whatever, will be ignored and just deleted.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Jake Bunce]

Re: User permissions & template questions

Originally posted by t0ecutter
a) I want the question submission process to be as seamless as possible, so that it doesn't appear very "forumlike". I'd like to have a link that says "Have a question? Click here" and the link would take them directly to the post new thread page. Another link would say "Search our FAQ database" and that would take them to the Search page, but with some of the links at the top (forum cp, rules, etc.) removed to make it more streamlined. I'd also need to remove the date and user search options, this is a bit more complicated.

you can remove some of the top buttons by editing the header template.

you can add links to new posting pages by adding a html link to the appropriate template. if you tell me exactly where you want this "Have a question?" link i can tell you what template to edit. here is the link you would use ( http://www.yoursite.com/forum/newthread.php?s=&action=newthread&forumid=29 ). change the forumid number to the appropriate forum.

Originally posted by t0ecutter
b) After the question/thread is posted, I don't want the software to take the user to the questions forum, I'd like to take the user to an HTML page that thanks them for their question and asks them if they want to ask another question.

i think that would require editing the files. for help with editing vBulletin files you should post on www.vbulletin.org

Originally posted by t0ecutter
c) I don't want the questions forum to be viewable at all to the users. I want the various "answers" forums to be open to view and search, but not the questions forum. I've played around with the forum/user group/vB settings quite a lot and can't accomplish this. The reason for this is that I won't be answering every question that comes in - if it's already been answered there's no need to answer it again. Also, any comments, curses, whatever, will be ignored and just deleted.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Admin CP -> Options -> vBulletin Options -> [Forums Home Page Options] -> Hide private forum -> Yes

Admin CP -> Forums & Moderators -> Permissions. edit the group permissions of your questions forum. if you set "Can view forum" to No then users in that group will not be able to see the forum. but if you leave "Can post new threads" on Yes then users should still be able to post by using your direct link to the posting page... that's the theory anyways. i haven't tried it yet.

[t0ecutter]

Thanks very much Jake!

I'm afraid I wasn't absolutely clear in (a) above. What I want to do is have a "Support" link on the site, which point to an HTML page that has these links: "Ask a question" and "Search our FAQ database". I think this is fairly straightforward, just to provide links to the Post New Thread page and Search page.

The hard part is that I'd prefer to have the Search page changed, removing "Search By User Name" and "Search For Posts From..." as well as renaming "Search Forum..." to something else (since we won't be calling it a Forum any more). Where do I edit these options out?

I'll have to contact vbulletin.org about (b) above, I don't know how to change that stuff around.

About (c) above, I have the "questions" forum set as a private forum, they are set to be hidden in the Options control panel; however under the user group permissions, if "Can view forum" is No and "Can post new threads" is Yes, even with a direct link to the Post New Thread page I get a message saying something like "you don't have permission to view this forum". If "Can view forum" is changed to Yes then I can post with a guest account.


Another question I have is that right now, to be able to post, someone has to log in with a generic guest account, at least the first time they want to ask a question. I have it set up to be user "guest", password "guest" to make it easy to log in at least. Is there a way to skip having to log in? The caveat is that I don't want a bunch of different names asking the questions - I just want "guest". (The reason is the worst-case scenario is that people will enter "you suck", etc., as their user names if no log-in is required.)

Thanks again!

[t0ecutter]

Auto login with a single user name for all users

This is in reference to my questions in this post: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...threadid=57218

This is the question: I want all posts from regular users to be under the "guest" user name. Is there a way to disable the need to login while keeping the "guest" user name connected to each post?

I have the password set to "guest" as well to make it easier to log in, but I think first-time visitors who are unsure about posting will be unwilling to enter their question.

I know I could just make it so that all visitors can post, but if they have to enter a user name they might enter something like "you suck", etc., and I want to avoid that.

[Jake Bunce]

Re: Thanks very much Jake!

Originally posted by t0ecutter
I'm afraid I wasn't absolutely clear in (a) above. What I want to do is have a "Support" link on the site, which point to an HTML page that has these links: "Ask a question" and "Search our FAQ database". I think this is fairly straightforward, just to provide links to the Post New Thread page and Search page.

just enter a html link in the templates that links to your html page.

Originally posted by t0ecutter
The hard part is that I'd prefer to have the Search page changed, removing "Search By User Name" and "Search For Posts From..." as well as renaming "Search Forum..." to something else (since we won't be calling it a Forum any more). Where do I edit these options out?

you can customize the search page by editing the search templates in your Admin CP. Admin CP -> Templates -> Modify -> [expand list] -> Search Templates.

if you are having trouble finding the right templates to edit you can use the template search function. Admin CP -> Templates -> Search

Originally posted by t0ecutter
About (c) above, I have the "questions" forum set as a private forum, they are set to be hidden in the Options control panel; however under the user group permissions, if "Can view forum" is No and "Can post new threads" is Yes, even with a direct link to the Post New Thread page I get a message saying something like "you don't have permission to view this forum". If "Can view forum" is changed to Yes then I can post with a guest account.

i guess that doesn't work then. i thought it did, or used to.

Originally posted by t0ecutter
Another question I have is that right now, to be able to post, someone has to log in with a generic guest account, at least the first time they want to ask a question. I have it set up to be user "guest", password "guest" to make it easy to log in at least. Is there a way to skip having to log in? The caveat is that I don't want a bunch of different names asking the questions - I just want "guest". (The reason is the worst-case scenario is that people will enter "you suck", etc., as their user names if no log-in is required.)

you want to setup a default user account that is automatically "logged in" if a user is not logged in? that would require hacking.

[Jake Bunce]

maybe i misunderstood your post in the other thread. did you create a user account called "guest"? or did you just want the username for all guests to be "guest"? you can change the default value of the guest username by editing your username_loggedout template.

*merged*

[t0ecutter]

Thanks, that did it! I changed the "value" to "guest" and took care of that. It's a workaround but at least when people come back it will be cookied on their computer.

I do have a further question about this login process though:

Wouldn't it be possible to remove the Username and Password text fields altogether and just have it auto-login using the variable fields? I've tried taking out the table tags around this section of code in error_nopermission_loggedout to make the page just load the "guest" user

<form action="member.php" method="post"><input type="hidden" name="s" value="$session[sessionhash]">

But I couldn't get it to work properly. Any suggestions?

[Jake Bunce]

there is no guest user.

when you edit the username_loggedout template you aren't making a cookie for the guest username, "guest". you are just changing the default value of that field for guests.

it is possible to remove the option to change the guest username by making the username input field type="hidden" in the username_loggedout template, but then logged out, registered users will not be able to login at the posting screen and several other login screens because the username field will not be editable.

[t0ecutter]

Thanks Jakeman, I think I've found a workaround that actually jives with what we're trying to do. I'll probably keep the old usernames in the Registered user group to let individuals post threads/questions (but not reply to threads), then I'll moderate each post. That way the old users won't be completely angry at losing their user names, post counts, etc.