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Originally posted by Davio

We have been working on a Snitz Project for the past couple of months.

About the Project
The project is mainly to provide a documentation for users who are intrested in creating mods for thier forum. It will provide detailed information about every subroutine and function used in the forum code. Also detailed information about every database table and field used by the forum. Information on how to install mods and the security concerns a user should know about.

We believe mods shouldn't be created by just the admins or dev team members or the advanced snitz users. We believe all users should be able to mod thier forum to the way they want it. And give something back to the community.

What's Required?
I'm glad you asked. A lot of persons think you got to be a asp guru to write a document like this, but that's not really true. A basic knowledge of the VBScript language is enough. Here's a few other requirements:

• Basic understanding of the Snitz Forums code
• Have installed a mod and also created a mod of your own
• Have a willingness to help
• A little free time

Just a few hours during the week is enough. We don't have a deadline (just hoping to get it done before the year ends). So you can take your time.

What's in it for me?
You mean you wouldn't just do this for fun?
Your name and/or username will be included as being part of the Snitz Development team when the document is published. Right along side the rest of the other developers. How cool is that?

If you're insterested just post here or you can email me via this forum.

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Originally posted by Raavin

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...But each time the instructions are different based on the mods they have already added...

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You are so right. I'm developing a mod at the moment on the vanilla snitz forum but the version I have installed for someone else is the Serverhacker version. I created the mod myself and I am finding it difficult to migrate it over. That said, You have to have something as a base to work from ie the vanilla flavoured version.

Before I started playing with Snitz I didn't really know much about coding HTML, never mind VBScript, Javascript, SQL etc. I have used Snitz as a practical platform to learn the ropes. If it was a bit more clearly documented it would have made things easier.

The FAQ I was thinking about was taking concepts that were used over and over and describing them in more detail, going into a bit of a discussion about uses then providing links to occurrences. Ideally these would go both ways.

eg.

Retrieving Data from the Database
Single values into a variable

The ASP below outputs SQL which is used to retrieve a value from the REPLY_ID column(field) in the FORUM_REPLY table and places the value in as the Variable NewReplyID. Let's dissect the script.

            strSql = "SELECT Max(REPLY_ID) as NewReplyID "
            strSql = strSql & " FROM " & strActivePrefix & "REPLY "
            strSql = strSql & " WHERE FORUM_ID = " & Forum_ID
            strSql = strSql & "   and R_AUTHOR = " & rs("MEMBER_ID")
            set rs9 = my_Conn.Execute (strSql)
            NewReplyID = rs9("NewReplyID")
            rs9.close
            set rs9 = nothing

The 'Max'(refer to SQL reference for more info) keyword retrieves the highest number in the REPLY_ID column (depending on the conditions), while the 'as' keyword stores this value temporarily as the alias NewReplyID

            strSql = "SELECT Max(REPLY_ID) as NewReplyID "

Here we allocate which table we want to draw the data from. In Snitz, 'strActivePrefix' will insert the prefix for the name, in this case 'FORUM_', and the ampersand will concatenate the strings together giving 'FROM FORUM_REPLY'. To choose another table, replace reply with the table you are after or replace everything after the ampersand with an explicit string like "FROM FORUM_TOPIC"

            strSql = strSql & " FROM " & strActivePrefix & "REPLY "

This is the conditions part. WHERE allows you to refine the search to rows which contain certain criteria. In this case we only want the data from the row WHERE the data in the FORUM_ID column equals the value stored in Forum_ID AND the data in the R_AUTHOR matches the data currntly in the MEMBER_ID column. Both Forum_ID and rs("MEMBER_ID") can be replaced with other variables or explicit values like numbers or strings.

            strSql = strSql & " WHERE FORUM_ID = " & Forum_ID
            strSql = strSql & "   and R_AUTHOR = " & rs("MEMBER_ID")

There is a deeper explanation here (see constants reference) but suffice it t say that my_Conn.Execute (strSql) takes the SQL you generated above and...well executes it, opening a connection to the database called rs9.

            set rs9 = my_Conn.Execute (strSql)

This bit stores the value of NewReplyID (remember the alias above) and puts the value into a 'proper' variable which can be used as normal.

            NewReplyID = rs9("NewReplyID")

This bit cleans things up by closing the connection to the database then setting the value of rs9 back to zero

            rs9.close
            set rs9 = nothing

While the above is only my understanding of what's going on from experimentation, so is not entirely accurate, it's the sort of thing I'm talking about.


Thoughts-

In my own case of adding a field (it was a bit more complicated than that) there was a whole list of things to think about so I'd like to put together something which outlined a plan of attack like what files you need to look at, How Snitz locates certain data related to Categories, Forums, Topics and Replies and whether or not you will have to initialise variables on certain pages, the process flow for normal posting and expanding on this to acount for more advanced updating.

At the moment, I'm looking into seeing if I can get something that will export the code with coloured highlighting etc. to HTML. Then I'll see about adding links and popups. Some content to start with would be nice though.

Regards,
Raavin

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