Confirmation Leading to Possible Project

[simplerole]

Hello!

First and foremost I want to thank you for taking the time to look into this flimsy-looking title of a thread. I'm just tentative to start a little coding project since I'm brand new. That means that if I invest myself into achieving one specific goal for my forum it will take an enormous amount of time to complete!

To the point:

Is it possible to have red text saying "Absent Note" appear on a user's Profile if they've posted in absence?

What I plan on doing with this is to have my members post on absence so that when the inactive-member wipe comes around, the ones that reported their absences are safe. Absence notes would last for 2 months, so I'd be aiming to have that text for "Absence Note" to stay on a Profile for 2 months only.

- They also won't be able to post anywhere except for the Absence thread.

- After they've post in the Absence thread that they have returned, then a Staffer will manually be able to turn off/take away the "Absent Note" text from the user's profile.

I'm worried it might not work because that correlates with some features in Plug-ins...

Is it doable? Or, better yet, is there a plug-in for this already?

[Kami]

No, there isn't a plugin for this currently.

One issue I can foresee is that using plugins to determine security and posting permissions is that it's not foolproof. If, for instance, the user has javascript disabled in their browser (or alternatively loads the mobile version of the forum before v6 is released), then the plugin will be disregarded and they'd be able to post wherever they'd like.

Another issue is that I don't particularly think a plugin can do this. I can't think of any instance where a plugin currently in existence works off of the user's most recent post to affect anything they do on the forum regardless of what that task is. That said, admirredly I'm not well versed in plugin creation so I'll tag my betters to weigh in: Chris or Peter

Since staff will already be manually removing people from this designation, why not just make it a manual process? It's a bit more work but using member groups and actual permissions as designated by the software would eliminate the possibility of circumvention and exploitation of any plugin or script. If you put that thread in its own board, then create a member group with the name you describe above, then you can exclude that member group from any board's posting permissions except the one where the absence thread is located. This will neatly solve the issues of declaring they are absent in their mini profile, posting restrictions until they are cleared by a staff member, and any attempts at circumvention.

One caveat only: if they belong to another member group with posting privileges on other boards, you will have to remove them from their group when assigning them to the "absence" group, then switch back when they return.

[Peter]

Plugin is possible, and actually pretty straight forward and requires no manual actions from staff. There are issues that Kami has already addressed in her second paragraph relating to mobile devices, and disabling JavaScript.

Here is a break down of how this plugin would work:

- If user posts in the absent board saying they will be absent, capture a timestamp of when they made the post to a key.
- If user posts again in the absent board, check to see if there is already a timestamp stored in the key. If there is, clear it out.
- If user returns and doesn't post in the absent board saying they are back, then any action to do with posting will be disabled and a message gets displayed.
- On user profiles, check for timestamp in the key and see if the time since they made the post is greater than 2 months, if so, disable message.

[Kami]

May 14, 2017 6:54:39 GMT -8 Peter said:

Plugin is possible, and actually pretty straight forward and requires no manual actions from staff. There are issues that Kami has already addressed in her second paragraph relating to mobile devices, and disabling JavaScript.

Here is a break down of how this plugin would work:

- If user posts in the absent board saying they will be absent, capture a timestamp of when they made the post to a key.
- If user posts again in the absent board, check to see if there is already a timestamp stored in the key. If there is, clear it out.
- If user returns and doesn't post in the absent board saying they are back, then any action to do with posting will be disabled and a message gets displayed.
- On user profiles, check for timestamp in the key and see if the time since they made the post is greater than 2 months, if so, disable message.

Peter, I believe the OP specifies the absence thread (having a board was my suggestion). Would that be possible still, or does a new board need to be created?

[Peter]

Kami,

Yes, still possible. If it's a specific thread, it would be the same process. Only difference would be to check if the thread the user is posting in is the absence thread.

[Kami]

May 14, 2017 10:23:36 GMT -8 Peter said:

Kami,

Yes, still possible. If it's a specific thread, it would be the same process. Only difference would be to check if the thread the user is posting in is the absence thread.

Thanks for clearing that up! I'll keep it in mind for the future (:

[simplerole]

Thank you for the quick replies and valuable input! Highly appreciate this and will definitely take both points into account!

After a bit of experimenting, the process will become much, much easier! I'll take the manual version into my active forum now as a temporary buffer as well. Alternatively, I'll hope to wrap things up in a testing forum for the plug-in type. Wish me luck!

Ready to become invested in this project, at last.
Once again, thanks!

[Peter]

If you go the plugin route, then keep us updated on how you get on. If you need further help, just ask.

I wrote a book that may be of use if you are new to the plugin side of things (see signature).

Good luck

[Kalo]

May 15, 2017 2:55:31 GMT -8 Peter said:

If you go the plugin route, then keep us updated on how you get on. If you need further help, just ask.

I wrote a book that may be of use if you are new to the plugin side of things (see signature).

Good luck

Hey pete, is there a way that proboards forums would recognize a manual if than statement from multiple languages within the same header/footer note? I know that often time in prior versions I had to choose between Javascript or C++ because it just created to much of a conflict in the end product even though it was technically permitted it didn't seem compatible at the time. If that conflict got resolved than it would be more than easy to have an if than statement placed in the specific board or however they wished to place it for the individual have a notation auto-generated for their absense note. And it could also be generated to remove that note and replace it with an inactive note to signify to forum staff that the individual member will not be returning or has not returned in the desired time frame. 

I'd dev something up for you all but I have so little time to dedicate to creating plugs and new codes because of my daughter that it'd take years for me to really get it done and tested to effectiveness. I hope my input kind of helps put another perspective on this question as well.

[Lynx]

Just curious - how did you get C++ to run on a PB forum when that's a compiled language, not interpreted? The only 3 languages I know for any webpage is typically HTML, CSS and JavaScript. And, as far as I know, out of the 3, JS is the only one that can handle if statements.

[Kalo]

You can have the code compile itself kind of like an amoeba to work in sites that do not support compilation, it causes the page to load slightly slower however it can be quite useful if you're in a pinch. You can do the same with Visual Basic as well if you want to use that nauseating code haha. Any language can essentially use if/than statements it's just differently coded than the simple variant we see in javascript and CSS code.