Limit Plugin to Certain Categories and Discussion Types

VanillaNoob

I love this plugin: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/extradiscussiondata-plugin

It is a plug that allows you to add extra discussion data.

However, I cannot limit it to a certain category in my forum. If I enable it, all the extra discussion data pops up on every new post made by every user. I only want this to occur in one specific category.

Additionally, I want it it to only operate when a user selects "Ask a Question" discussion option in a specific forum category. How do I set the permissions for this or modify the code to check for this logic: If category = A && user activates QnA plugin, then activate extra discussion data plugin.

Also , I would like for this data to auto populate based on previous entries. If my extra field is an entry for 'Fruit' and there are five entries for Apple, I want it to have an autocomplete option when the user types in the letter 'A'.

Lastly, when I use this plugin, it doesn't have a line break between the extra data. How do I add a line break?

Sorry if this is asking too much. I am just trying to incorporate some information I found on this board in order to essentially combined this plugin with the Q&A plugin.

Thanks!

R_J

How good are your programming skills? It would require mostly Javascript knowledge.

You would have to add a JavaScript which hooks to the category-dropdown change event. I once did this for a plugin and this is the script I've used.

You would have to additionally control the change event for the ask a question/new discussion button to allow this only for questions.

For the autocomplete part you might use jquery.tokeninput.js which comes with Vanilla.

VanillaNoob

I have programming skills but not web dev skills.

I feel there must be a simpler way to achieve this. I am looking at the code in 'extradiscussiondata-plugin' and there is an element that checks for

($RequestMethod == 'discussion')

Surely there must be a way to simply get if the discussion type is QnA or Discussion and if it is Discussion 'extradiscussiondata-plugin' is allowed to run.

I've tried inserting this around the entire contents of the plugin:

if ($Sender->Data('Discussion.Type') == 'QnA')
// plugin contents pertaining to post controller
}

But that does not work.

VanillaNoob

I just posted a comment and now it's gone? Hmm

VanillaNoob

Anyways, I've tried a lot of thins and nothing seems to work.

I tried writing an if statement saying :

if ($RequestMethod != 'discussion') {

But that does not work. I feel this should be really simple. Don't understand why it requires a js hook. This is a php plugin that is dependent on a button press (either QnA or Discussion) which is interpreted as a RequestMethod of some sort.

What am I missing?

whu606

Your comment got caught in the spam filter. It's back now.

VanillaNoob

@hgtonight , not sure if you've revisited this plugin since January 2017, but I'd like to work together to increase the functionality of this plugin.

R_J

@R_J said:
You would have to additionally control the change event for the ask a question/new discussion button to allow this only for questions.

@VanillaNoob said:
Don't understand why it requires a js hook. This is a php plugin that is dependent on a button press (either QnA or Discussion) which is interpreted as a RequestMethod of some sort.

What am I missing?

You are correct, sorry for leading you in the wrong way. This is taken from the QnA plugin:

    public function postController_beforeDiscussionRender_handler($sender) {
        // Override if we are looking at the question url.
        if ($sender->RequestMethod == 'question') {
            $sender->Form->addHidden('Type', 'Question');
            $sender->title(t('Ask a Question'));
            $sender->setData('Breadcrumbs', [['Name' => $sender->data('Title'), 'Url' => '/post/question']]);
        }
    }

As you can see, you would have to check the PostControllers property RequestMethod.

---

@R_J said:
You would have to add a JavaScript which hooks to the category-dropdown change event. I once did this for a plugin and this is the script I've used.

But this remains true. If you click the New Discussion/Ask a Question button from the homepage, you will see a Category dropdown. If you want to add a functionality only for some categories, it is good UX to disable those additional form controls for the category where they are useless/not allowed.

---

@VanillaNoob said:
What am I missing?

If you show us some of your code, we might be able to asist.

VanillaNoob

@R_J , I deleted my code. I got really frustrated.

I'll try again tomorrow and post what I end up with.

VanillaNoob

This is what I have in

class.discussionextender.plugin.php

public function PostController_BeforeFormInputs_Handler($Sender) {
$RequestMethod = strtolower($Sender->RequestMethod);
if ($RequestMethod == 'editdiscussion') {
$this->AddExistingDiscussionFieldData($Sender->Form, $Sender->Data('Discussion'));
$this->RenderDiscussionFieldInputs($Sender->Form, 'cat');
}
else if ($RequestMethod == 'question') {
$this->RenderDiscussionFieldInputs($Sender->Form, 'cat');
}
}

All I did was change this line:

else if ($RequestMethod == 'discussion') {

to this:

else if ($RequestMethod == question') {

I also tried:

else if ($RequestMethod != 'discussion') {

None of these work.

Cannot get the js hook method to work, like I said, I deleted that code and will try again tonight.

VanillaNoob

What is frustrating is that if I insert this bit of code in class.discussionextender.plugin.php:

echo $Sender->RequestMethod;

I get either 'question' or 'discussion' as the response depending if I click on 'Ask a Question' or 'New Discussion'.

However, if I do an if statement to allow the extra discussion data by checking the 'RequestMethod', it doesn't work. Yet I can write this if satement and have it perform as expected. What is going on?

`$TheType =$Sender->RequestMethod;`
`$Condition = 1;`
`if ($TheType == 'discussion') {`
`   $Condition = 3;`
`}`

`   echo $Condition;`

}

R_J

I might have taken a look at the plugin before answering you. I just downloaded it in order to be able to support. This plugin takes a config file and I guess you are trying the code above in the part below, correct?

    $Config['ShowFormWhen'] = function($Sender) {
        // Some logic based on $Sender->Discussion here
        return true;
    };

Your problem doesn't lie here, though...

The Q&A plugin works by replacing the post view and this is a good example why this should be done...
If you look at the original view (\applications\vanilla\views\post\discussion.php) from line 50 to 65 you see that there are "DiscussionOptions".

But looking at the Q&A plugins view (\plugins\QnA\views\post.php) somewhere between $this->FireEvent('BeforeBodyInput'); and $this->FireEvent('AfterDiscussionFormOptions'); you will see that those discussion options aren't printed out for questions.

The plugin ExtraDiscussionData extends the discussion options which are not available on a question.

I would consider it being a bug that the Q&A plugin doesn't implement that part of the post view. So if you want to get your program up and running you would have to change one of both plugins. I think changing the Q&A plugin makes more sense and you should make a PR on GitHub to implement that change.

Search the line $this->FireEvent('AfterDiscussionFormOptions'); \plugins\QnA\views\post.php

and make it look like that:

    $Options = '';
    // If the user has any of the following permissions (regardless of junction), show the options.
    if (Gdn::session()->checkPermission('Vanilla.Discussions.Announce')) {
        $Options .= '<li>'.checkOrRadio('Announce', 'Announce', $this->data('_AnnounceOptions')).'</li>';
    }

    $this->EventArguments['Options'] = &$Options;
    $this->fireEvent('DiscussionFormOptions');

    if ($Options != '') {
        echo '<div class="P">';
        echo '<ul class="List Inline PostOptions">'.$Options.'</ul>';
        echo '</div>';
    }
    $this->fireEvent('AfterDiscussionFormOptions');

Afterwards you should be able to use

        if ($Sender->RequestMethod == 'discussion') {
            return false;
        }

in the config of the ExtraDiscussionData plugin.

---

By the way: I guess you have confused the plugin author. It is @JasonBarnabe and not hgtonight you wanted to ask for cooperation...

VanillaNoob

I am not using the "ExtraDiscussionData" plugin.

I am using the "DiscussionExtender" plugin.

@R_J , thanks for all the help so far. Sort of seeing the relationship between Gdn and functions. Don't quite understand $Sender and $This, yet.

VanillaNoob

Just realized I made that mistake on my original post.