new plugin system allow modifications to the code to be made without

[bellamy]

We need something like this as VB 3.5. it's very painful to upgrade IPB with many mods.

Hooks and Plugins

It has long been a problem that while a major draw towards vBulletin has been the huge number of hacks and modifications available for the software, for the most part applying hacks to your vBulletin installation would invalidate your right to support.

The new plugin system is designed to allow modifications to the code to be made without editing the PHP files, meaning that not only can you still receive support, but upgrading vBulletin to a new version will leave your modifications intact, so you won't need to re-apply them every time.

At this time there are over four hundred locations where plugin code can run and we expect to add more in response to hack authors during the beta period, with the goal that all major hacks will migrate to the new plugin format.

[slipy]

I agree with this it looks like vb & ipb are getting neck to neck.

[thedevilman]

this would be huge. i think that many areaz of IPB have surpassed vB. the one thing that vB still taskes it on tho would be the new 'plugin' feature. with modz and hacks being much, much more common now, for IPB to have something like that may make it the clear leader. i kn0 i would switch. ;) or maybe it's already on the way, did i miss it on the feature list?

[NTGforum]

I agree !

[wbear]

How does something developed by a competing product show them as being "neck to neck"? I don't see the same thing in IPB...

[Antony]

I think some people don't understand the problems with this.

Lets say for a minute that I am modifying the way the memberlist works in IPB. The code for getting the information from the DB might be somthing like this:

$DB->query("SELECT id, name, email, group, postcount FROM ibf_members");

$DB->simple_exec();

while ($member = $DB->fetch_row)

{

$memberslist[ $member['id']  ] = $member; 

}


$memberlist = ksort($memberlist);


foreach ($memberlist as $k => $v)

{

$this->output = $this->html->render_mlist_row($v);

}

Okay, lets say I wanted to add a new colunm to the memberlist. Having a plug-in point isn't going to help me. Unless, of course, I can add in another query before my foreach(). But that would be so demanding on the server for a big board, that it just wouldn't be worth it, especially when I can edit the query. Okay, lets say I wanted to add somthing to count the number of members at the top of my memberlist. I would need to place this before my foreach().

$count = count($memberlist);

$this->output = $this->html->counter_box($v);

This would work assuming thier was a hook here, and it was only being used for this.

At the end of the day, 400 hooks is nowhere near enough to let us live in an edit-free world. Anyway, there are hooks in IPB. ipb_member_sync.php is an example of one.

Anyway, how do these hooks work? If they work like ipb_member_sync, then you have to edit a file anyway. If they involve anything like getting code from the DB and eval'ing it, then its too resource intensive for most of us to bother with.

[CheetahShrk]

The hooks are basically calls to an class which checks if the db has any code to be ran,.
Doesn't matter if IPB had a plugin system like vb, it all depends if modders want to use it and I can tell you, most of them won't.

[xcom923]

I'm actually working on something like that for IPB its called Xmod. I'm using it for a few modifications but it adds pages to IPB and changes the main layout based on what's installed. the best thing is all I have to do is install Xmod and all my modificatios that I made for them are there. It also uses a lot of common functions build-in. the hope is that I can eventually make it to be used cross-platform (if working across different forums would be called "cross-platform")

[America's Reject]

I am bumping this, think it would be excellent for IPB

[CheetahShrk]

I am bumping this, think it would be excellent for IPB

Still like I said, would modders really use it? Probably not because modders want the freedom to show off their skills and knowledge and make their own installers and other systems.

[America's Reject]

It makes it so much better for upgrading and such though.

[.SiLlY.]

I think to make things less complicated.. what if you had a mod "tracker"? You would make all your file edits and DB queries through this "component" in admin cp and it would track and record all the edits you made. This way you could uninstall and have a definate record of whats modded. Maybe add some automation to uninstalling and etc.. Dunno, just an idea.

[Guest]

We need something like this as VB 3.5. it's very painful to upgrade IPB with many mods.

IPB already has two of them: the components system (for large-scale modification and add-ons, like ICB and Gallery and such), and the module system (for everyday modifications).

Though the programming and installation of modifications is somewhat different, it is very similar plugin system.