Disable the Body is required message.

smoigecom

Hi,

I want the body of the post to be optional. How can this be accomplished?

Thank you.

Mark

You may have to edit the core for this one. We never dreamed that anyone would want to be able to post blank messages. Care to give us some insight into why you need this?

smoigecom

A title is enough for what I need. Maybe a user can get his whole idea across with just a few words, and being forced to write a description isn't necessary.

garymardell

Maybe you could hook into the model and if the body is blank before validation then change the body to:   and the post will appear with just a space in it (pretty much blank).

This could also be done with some javascript by binding to the submit event and checking if the form is empty.

This is definitely a very hacky way round and editing the core to remove one line would probably be the way forward

smoigecom

Any code examples would be very helpful for me .. i m a little lost in Vanilla. Thank you.

garymardell

@smoigecom

In applications/vanilla/models/class.discussionmodel.php
go to line 516: $this->Validation->ApplyRule('Body', 'Required');

and comment it out:

// $this->Validation->ApplyRule('Body', 'Required');

smoigecom

thank you for your help. I am using the mobile theme (figured I should mention that)

// Add & apply any extra validation rules:
$this->Validation->ApplyRule('Body', 'Required');
$MaxCommentLength = Gdn::Config('Vanilla.Comment.MaxLength');
if (is_numeric($MaxCommentLength) && $MaxCommentLength > 0) {
$this->Validation->SetSchemaProperty('Body', 'Length', $MaxCommentLength);
$this->Validation->ApplyRule('Body', 'Length');
}

I found the code that you were talking about ... but commenting out the body required doesn't do anything. I still get the Body is required message. Any other thoughts?

garymardell

Would need to comment out the body length rule as well, but i will have a play later on. Didn't test it at all, just for discussions posts right? and not comments.

smoigecom

Yup ... when somebody wants to post something, I would just like the body to be optional. Thank you for your help. I just tried commenting out the body length ... but I get the same thing ... weird.

smoigecom

any help on this one ... anybody

garymardell

@smoigecom Okay i have a fix:
You still need to comment out the Body required thing above $this->Validation->ApplyRule('Body', 'Required'); (you dont need to comment out the length ones).

And then all you have to do now is:
Go to applications/vanilla/settings/structure.php Line 53:\
Change
->Column('Body', 'text', FALSE, 'fulltext')
To
->Column('Body', 'text', TRUE, 'fulltext')

Then just disable and re-enabled vanilla from the dashboard.

smoigecom

I m not sure what happened, but after I did what you said, I tried to disable vanilla and then this happened

Fatal error: Class 'CategoryModel' not found in /home/content/c/i/p/cip6791/html/_domains/smoige.com/plugins/Categories2Menu/class.categories2menu.plugin.php on line 80

I had problems with the File Upload plugin as well. It was giving me the same problem. After deleting plugin folders and uploading them back ... i got the forum to work in a way. I can do anything, but visit a post. I get the Bonk message. What should I do? Reinstall? I ll leave it the way it is for now, maybe you can help me figure out what is wrong. I would really want to keep everything I have and still use Vanilla.
Thank you.

garymardell

@smoigecom First things first, upgrade to the latest vanilla. This will remove any changes you made above anyways. Then once it is working again, try the edit above again. If you want you can private message me on here.

smoigecom

Ok ... so the whole thing got screwed up. It's my fault. Can I reinstall Vanilla and then point it to the old database?

garymardell

Make a backup if the database first and then yes. Make sure to run the upgrade script.

smoigecom

Oh so I should install the previous version and then make an upgrade? What if I just install the new version, and then just edit the conf settings? Won't that work?

garymardell

Yeah, that's what I meant use the new version. But you will have to run the utility/upgrade script on it.

davidnhutch

Hi,

I know this is an old thread but I'd like to do the same thing (make Body be optional) for the same reason -- but without modifying core files.

@garymandell mentioned you might be able to hook in to the form and substitute an empty body for a body with an empty space character. I tried that but no success yet. Here's the code:

public function DiscussionModel_BeforeSaveDiscussion_Handler($Sender) {
    if ($Sender->EventArguments['Discussion']->Body == '') {
        $Sender->EventArguments['Discussion']->Body = 'A programmatically substituted body';
    }
  }

But this doesn't work -- it still says "Body is required".

Any ideas?

Thanks,
David

R_J

When the event "BeforeSaveDiscussion" is fired, there is no such thing as a discussion, so it couldn't be (and isn't) passed in the EventArguments. Instead all you at this point in time are some form values. So your code should look like that:

public function DiscussionModel_BeforeSaveDiscussion_Handler($Sender) {
   if ($Sender->EventArguments['FormPostValues']['Body'] == '') {
      $Sender->EventArguments['FormPostValues']['Body'] = 'A programmatically substituted body';
   }
}

Do you mind sharing why an empty body is needed? Just curious...

hgtonight

@davidnhutch

Create a plugin that modifies the structure of the discussion and comment table to make the body column nullable. That will remove the requirement from the schema automatically:

public function Structure() {
    $Structure = Gdn::Structure();
    $Structure->Table('Discussion')
            ->Column('Body', 'text', TRUE, 'fulltext')
            ->Set();
    $Structure->Table('Comment')
            ->Column('Body', 'text', TRUE, 'fulltext')
            ->Set();
}

public function Setup() {
    $this->Structure();
}

When enabled, this plugin should remove the requirement.

R_J

@hgtonight: are you sure? DiscussionModel has that code:

   public function Save($FormPostValues) {
      $Session = Gdn::Session();

      // Define the primary key in this model's table.
      $this->DefineSchema();

      // Add & apply any extra validation rules:
      $this->Validation->ApplyRule('Body', 'Required');
...

So I'd say independently from the scheme, the "Required" validation will happen.