Applicant's "Why do you want to Join?" applications - Can we save them?

Sicnus

So my community is trying to figure out a way we can switch to VF. The problem is that we really need to save a few things:

1. The actual Applicant's reason for wanting to join.
2. Who actually approved the Applicant.

If we can get these two bits saved then I think we're ready to make the switch. Another niceity would be if we could even add an extra question or two to the registration.

Any suggestions? I'm pretty stoked about VF and hope we can get these issues worked out.

R_J

"tv field" was a typo - my tablet corrected me.

I've seen that this would be no easy task and so I felt challenged. Right now I'm writing a plugin !ApplicantAcceptor" (the name is cough not elegant, I know). It will save the ID of the user who takes away the role "Applicant" of any user.
The settings screen will be ugly and right now I have some problems adding the info to the user table (@fellow developers: any help with FireEvent UserCell?)

But after I have managed that, I guess it will be just what you need.

R_J

Ah - forgot to mention one needed change you have to make to Vanilla core files! See here: https://github.com/vanilla/vanilla/pull/2409/files#diff-0

You have to edit /applications/dashboard/views/user/users.php. Most easiest thing is to do a search and replace - search for "EventArgs" and replace it with "EventArguments".

R_J

I've added some words concerning that change to the addon section.

I've already send a pull request on GitHub so that this typo gets fixed with the next version. And I was very happy to see that this PR was accepted nearly immediately. But sadly: yes - everyone who is using Vanilla version <= 2.1.8 has to do that (very small) adjustment.

And yes - if you do not already have 2.1.8 you'll have to edit the above mentioned file again.

slickforum

What software are you using now?

Sicnus

We're using MyBB and we've migrated from PHPBB. We are really dissatisfied with traditional forum software. Vanilla has some really nice flow to discussions.

R_J

There has been a similar question before: http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/comment/203820#Comment_203820.
The name of tv field you need there is DiscoveryText.
You have to use that code in a custom plugin. There you will also have to create some logic that saves the approver so that you can also display the approver. You should search in the UserModel for something like BeforeSave to find the next event that you have to hook. Maybe there is also an event that is fired after an applicant has been accepted. I would search for that in the entrycontrolcontroller/model

Sicnus

I didn't understand what you linked me, or even said at all.

I'm assuming that "tv field" was meant to be the field. That was the easiest bit to decipher. Beyond that it would seem one would need to code to be able to accomplish the rest of what you've laid out?

I guess the majority of folks who use Vanilla Forums don't need to track who approved an applicant(user/member) or need to recall what their registration answers were.

R_J

"tv field" was a typo - my tablet corrected me.

I've seen that this would be no easy task and so I felt challenged. Right now I'm writing a plugin !ApplicantAcceptor" (the name is cough not elegant, I know). It will save the ID of the user who takes away the role "Applicant" of any user.
The settings screen will be ugly and right now I have some problems adding the info to the user table (@fellow developers: any help with FireEvent UserCell?)

But after I have managed that, I guess it will be just what you need.

Sicnus

Hah! Wow... that was a quick and helpful response. Quick question though and this is a clincher. It would need to be able to retain the "Why do you want to join" response too.

So those really are the only two "features"

1. Retain the name of the Approver of the Applicant
2. Retain the "Why do you want to join?" response in conjunction with the item #1.

Thanks, I look forward to testing the plugin for you.

R_J

I will make the display of the Join question optional

Sicnus

Sounds great man. I'll keep checking back here periodically. I appreciate the help! I think this will actually become a fairly widely adopted plugin for folks and if I had my suspicions, it might even make it's way into the main core? Maybe not, but...

It just seems like a feature that a team of a larger community might want to know about. A place where you have a significant hierarchy and need to know who did what and when and why did they do it. In our example: Who approved and What was the compelling "Why do you want to join?" response.

R_J

@Sicnus: have fun! http://vanillaforums.org/addon/applicantaccepter-plugin

Sicnus

Trying it now!

Sicnus

Good news and Bad news.

Good news is, wow, it works exactly as I had hoped!

The bad news is... the fields aren't populating with the right information.

So Person A, Person B, Person C.... all of their stuff is mixed up:

Person A has Person C's "Reason for joining"

Person D has Person A's "Reason for joining"

If you want, I can get you access to our site to see it in action, however, the responses are... "quite adult". We have a gaming community and people were putting in some fairly cheesy / funny responses while testing.

Thanks man, other than that you are 100% on the right track!

Sicnus

More info that might help:

[Applicant Accepter Reason for Joining ]

These were propagated into the field as "Reasons for joining" That could be causing the off-set info.

--
Edit: Also, the fields don't really seem to be associated with a user per se. If you sort by : Username or Last Visited the fields seem to stay where they are and don't swap out and stay tagged with the associated user that created it.

R_J

Ah - forgot to mention one needed change you have to make to Vanilla core files! See here: https://github.com/vanilla/vanilla/pull/2409/files#diff-0

You have to edit /applications/dashboard/views/user/users.php. Most easiest thing is to do a search and replace - search for "EventArgs" and replace it with "EventArguments".

Sicnus

... annnnnd that worked.

Here's the thing though... will other people using this plugin have to do that too? If I upgrade my Vanilla Forums software will that be overwritten? Or did you fix it so other's won't need to do that too?

Thanks nonetheless. You were kind, helpful and amazing!

R_J

I've added some words concerning that change to the addon section.

I've already send a pull request on GitHub so that this typo gets fixed with the next version. And I was very happy to see that this PR was accepted nearly immediately. But sadly: yes - everyone who is using Vanilla version <= 2.1.8 has to do that (very small) adjustment.

And yes - if you do not already have 2.1.8 you'll have to edit the above mentioned file again.

Sicnus

RJ 4 Pres!