A question for Predator

[shiftsrl]

Since you've developed the bridge I assume that you're into VB so I try to ask you the following question:

How it's possible to show the VB mini calendar in Joomla? I'm using Joomla and VB and actually i don't need bridging the two but I would like to show the minicalendar in my site. If you check my page here http://www.kog.it/sito2 you'll see the mini calendar on the right bottom but actually this is a fake, is an image of the mini calendar so when you click on it you'll go on the VB calendar page.

What I would like to do is put the live mini calendar at the place of the fake one. I think this could be an interesting addition for your bridge, don't you? 

[hanzo]

It's not really a bridge thing- it's publishing something external as a joomla module. How about downloading vbadvanced and having a look at the code? It publishes the minicalendar as a front page module. 

[shiftsrl]

unfortunately I'm not able to code using php so I think it's too complicated to look at VBadvanced. I've tried to look at the calendar.php file to try to isolate the portion of code that display the mini calendar but with no results 

[Markowitch]

Hi shiftsrl

I'm currently working on a new site that will use Joomla and vBulletin and I think your idea with a calendar module is very good.

I have written a module that will place the mini-calender for the current month on the frontpage or where ever a module can be shown. It's in the attatchments and is my first module ever - and it's version 0.1. In other words it might not work perfectly.

Remember to set the parameter that provides the module with the url to your vbulletin forum (I have tried vb 3.5).

Like you, I have also taken a look at calendar.php and found it quite difficult to read. That's why I in the vbridge_calendar module am using xml to open the yearly calender page, parse the context and display the calender. The module uses vBulletin's css styling and there is a picture of it "in action" in the attatchments.

Btw. I don't know if Im allowed to call the module vbridge_calendar? Since it's not (yet) part of vBridge...  :P

[rsuplido]

Markowitch,

Since you have started doing this module already, I'll just help you then, than create another version.

Here's a good vBAdvanced Calendar module:
http://www.vbadvanced.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13312

The module code is on the thread. It just needs to be converted to Joomla.

I have attached a sample screenshot of the module.

Here's a live site using the module: http://www.bonsaitalk.com/

Let me know if you need help.

Reggie

[Predator]

Hi shiftsrl

I'm currently working on a new site that will use Joomla and vBulletin and I think your idea with a calendar module is very good.

I have written a module that will place the mini-calender for the current month on the frontpage or where ever a module can be shown. It's in the attatchments and is my first module ever - and it's version 0.1. In other words it might not work perfectly.

Remember to set the parameter that provides the module with the url to your vbulletin forum (I have tried vb 3.5).

Like you, I have also taken a look at calendar.php and found it quite difficult to read. That's why I in the vbridge_calendar module am using xml to open the yearly calender page, parse the context and display the calender. The module uses vBulletin's css styling and there is a picture of it "in action" in the attatchments.

Btw. I don't know if Im allowed to call the module vbridge_calendar? Since it's not (yet) part of vBridge...  :P

Sure why not every contributions is welcome  :P

[Markowitch]

I have overlooked the localization issues with vBulletin! 

The module is searching for a tag called title="Today" but in e.g. Italian this is called title="Oggi" or something like it...
I have made a change to the module

From

Code: Select all

$nodes = $ctx->xpath_eval("//td[@title='Today']");

To

Code: Select all

$nodes = $ctx->xpath_eval("//td[@class and @style and @title]");

Now the module will also work with non-english vb boards. I've attateched the new module...

[Markowitch]

To rsuplido

Thanks for the feedback. The vbAdvanced calendar module looks great  - I'll take a look at it. However, I noticed some discussions about sharing vBulletin code. Am I allowed to use my own calls to vBulletin and the vBulletin API? Or does the license of VB just prevent me of sharing their core files?

The current solution just suck's info from a webpage, so there's really no call to any vBulletin api, except a vBulletin page...

To Predator
Thank's for beeing open-minded 

[rsuplido]

However, I noticed some discussions about sharing vBulletin code. Am I allowed to use my own calls to vBulletin and the vBulletin API? Or does the license of VB just prevent me of sharing their core files?

From what I understand, what you cannot do is hack (or make changes) to vB files and distribute the modified files with your module.

[shiftsrl]

Markowitch you are absolutely fantastic!!! 

I've installed the 011 version and inserted the url of my forum (BTW are you meaning the URL or the path? I've inserted the url like http://www.... and not the unix path). The problem is that when I publish the module I get this error

Code: Select all

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: domxml_open_mem() in /home/kog/public_html/sito2/modules/mod_vbridge_calendar.php on line 34

Do I need to have installed VBridge to make this work? The component, the module or both? Please note that I'm not interested in any VB-Joomla integration so I don't really need VBridge but if this is requested to make your module works, this could be a problem since I don't even had installed Joomla and VB in the same database.

let me know thanks 

[Markowitch]

Hi shiftsrl

I've been googling your problem and it seems like some libraries have moved around from php4 to php5...  For reference see:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... did=308498

But I need some more information like what version of php you are using?

Regarding the path, then it should be something like
http://www.mysite.com/forum
or
http://www.mysite.com

There must not be a trailing slash '/'. The module does not use the core vBridge distribution and should/will work if installed alone 

[shiftsrl]

Here my data

Database Version: 4.1.14
PHP Version: 4.4.0
Web Server: Apache/2.0.54
WebServer to PHP interface: apache2handler
Joomla! Version: Joomla! 1.0.5 Stable [ Sunspot ] 24-Dec-2005 10:00 UTC

And yes, the url is ok like http://www.mysite.com/forum

[Markowitch]

Hi shiftsrl

I have recreated your error on my own server  .

Code: Select all

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: domxml_open_mem() in D:\Documents and Settings\Ejer\Dokumenter\My Website\joomlaVBulletin2\Joomla\modules\mod_vbridge_calendar.php on line 34

The error was recreated by not loading the php_domxml.dll extension. Obviously php need this dll to do any kind of dom xml handling.

Steps to install domxml

Go into you php.ini file and find the line:

Code: Select all

;extension=php_domxml.dll

And remove the ";" so that the domxml extension gets loaded. Follow this link to get an introduction on how to locate your php.ini file and remember to restart your server for the changes to take effect.

Or else write your webhotel and ask them to enable php_domxml...
I hope this helped...  Do not hesitate to write again

[shiftsrl]

Hi, I've removed the ";" but the behaviur is the same. The error is

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: domxml_open_mem() in /home/kog/public_html/sito2/modules/mod_vbridge_calendar.php on line 34

BTW I've to tell you that the server I'm running my site is Linux and not Windows.I forgot to tell you in the previous post.

Let me know
Thanks

[leonsio]

*rofl*

Code: Select all

;extension=php_domxml.dll

it works only on windows

on linux @shiftsrl you have linux installed ( /home/kog/public_html  is a linux path )

you must download and install domxml extension for php, then it will works

[shiftsrl]

Oh men I hope this is not over my possibilities. Where can I download it and how can I install this thing?

Thanks

[Markowitch]

@shiftsrl

Since you got Linux, maybe you can write

Code: Select all

extension=php_domxml.so

In your php.ini file.

I presume that php_domxml came with your php installation since you use php 4.4.0. If not then you have to get the php_domxml.so shared lib and place it in /usr/local/lib/php/extensions or something similar. See or look in your php.ini file for the extension_dir on your machine.

If php_domxml.so is not on your machine you need to download it or get it here. Better still, you could find an RPM packet with the precompiled binaries...

[shiftsrl]

Thanks! We're in the process of changing the server so, as soon as the new server is up, I'll try this so finally I'll have my VB calendar on the Joomla site 

Thank you very much for your support. I'll let you know asap...

[Markowitch]

This is more a note to myself. But others might be interested as well...

I had some correspondence in this thread with shiftsrl who had problems installing the calendar module because of a missing php extension called domxml. There is some controversy in my mind about using domxml - becauset it seems like it's deprecated and will not be used in php5. That alone should be reason enough not using it 

However, the Joomla framework is very rich and must come with some support for xml-parsing. Without such support, it would be impossible to install any kind of module or component, since both uses configuration files written in xml!!

The answer is that of course there is an XML parser bundled with Joomla. It's called DOMIT and is not an extension and is written in php and should work in any php4 environment. The calendar module should - if possible - rely on DOMIT since the rest of the Joomla ecosystem does, and further it's nice to know that if Joomla can run on the target, then the calendar module also will per design.

DOMIT is placed in joomla\include\domit

Just my 2 cents...

[shiftsrl]

Your considerations are right. Unfortunately I'm not a programmer so my knowledge of PHP and MySQL are very basic. We've changed server but I've to wait for someone that will'install this extension for me since I'm not able to do that.

Just a question. Would be a problem for you rewriting the module using that DOMIT instead of the library you've used?

[Markowitch]

I have now removed all dependencies on the php extension domxml and the module is now using DOMIT which is not an extension and should work in any php4 environment.

In this preliminary version the data is not cached. And I have fixed the CSS to be the same as bundled with a standard vBulletin board.

[shiftsrl]

A strange thing happened. I've installed and published the module and tried to access the site. Firefox tries to download the index.php page instead of showing the site and Safari gives an error. unpublished the module and everything worked fine. These are my data from Joomla

Code: Select all

PHP built On:   	 Linux 2.6.12-mm2 #39 Thu Jan 12 10:02:41 CET 2006 i686
Database Version: 	4.1.16
PHP Version: 	4.4.0
Web Server: 	Apache/2.0.54
WebServer to PHP interface: 	apache2handler
Joomla! Version: 	Joomla! 1.0.5 Stable [ Sunspot ] 24-Dec-2005 10:00 UTC
User Agent: 	Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; it; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051111 Firefox/1.5
Relevant PHP Settings: 	
Safe Mode: 	OFF
Open basedir: 	none
Display Errors: 	OFF
Short Open Tags: 	ON
File Uploads: 	ON
Magic Quotes: 	OFF
Register Globals: 	ON
Output Buffering: 	OFF
Session save path: 	/tmp
Session auto start: 	0
XML enabled: 	Yes
Zlib enabled: 	Yes
Disabled Functions: 	none
WYSIWYG Editor: 	No WYSIWYG Editor

Any idea about this problem?

[Markowitch]

Hi shiftsrl

Thanks for trying the new module. I've had fun learning to use DOMIT which certainly will become handy for me in the future. 

The current implementation relies on the module to open a page to vBulletin - just as if a visitor clicked to view the calendar. The module then takes the html file and treats it as an XML document and starts searcing the xml for the current month calendar. When it's found, it strips away everything else so that only html from the current month calendar remains. It then add som standard vBulletin CSS styling so that the calendar will look as it did in vBulletin.

Both versions of the module worked for me - but broke on other systems - this just shows how tough an issue deployment really is. But besides deployment, the approach taken has been a quick one. Im just taking output generated from vBulletin and presenting it in Joomla nice and easy. Besides DOMIT beeing CPU intensive, the xml parser also is somewhat conservative of what data it will parse. This is no problem when using vBulletin raw without any custom styling - but users can make the module break if they style vBulletin in the wrong way for instance forgetting a closed bracket in their html.

That is why I feel that I shouldn't go any further down the xml path with this module, but instead use the vBulletin API to generate the calendar. Just as they do in vbAdvanced  calendar module as rsuplido suggested.

[shiftsrl]

I'd wish to be helpful for you but unfortunately my knowledge of php is very very limited. I understand that your thought about the use of VB API is the right direction to take to further develop this useful module.

I don't undestand why no one has developed this in the past since I don't think I'm the only one using Joomla and VB 

By now my hack using the mini calendar image works. I'll wait for you 

Thanks anyway

[leonsio]

a little bit later
i will include the calendar support in the VB_SOAP server....

so that the server can use VB api to provider the result of the calendar entries as result-array

[shiftsrl]

Any news about the mini calendar? Any new release or experiment?