Post Anonymously In Topic

[dougiefresh]

Link to Mod

POST ANONYMOUSLY IN TOPICS v2.11
By Dougiefresh -> Link to Mod

Introduction
This mod adds functionality to allow users to post anonymously within boards on the forum, and (depending on the settings) whether they can see who posted anonymously.

Admin Settings
There are new settings under Admin -> Configuration -> Modification Settings -> PAIT:
1) Which boards the users are allowed to post anonymously in.
2) Hide users posting anonymously
3) Who Can See Anonymous Poster setting controls what can be seen:
  > No One.  Also disables recording Member ID - No one will ever know who made the post!  Ninja mode!
  > No One - The member who posted anonymously is recorded, but no one will ever know!
  > Only poster can see their anonymous post - Only the member posting anonymously can see his/her anonymous posts.
  > Everyone with "See Who Posted Anonymously" permission - OP plus membergroups with Who Can See Anonymous Poster permission can see anonymous posts.
4) See Who Posted Anonymously membergroups.
5) Topic Starter can see who posted anonymously? allows topic starters to see all anonymous posters in THEIR topic.
6) Topic Starter See Who Posted membergroups.

Admins and membergroups with the appropriate permission granted can also view who posted what anonymously, assuming that the posting setting is set to "See Who Posted Anonymously" permission permitted....  Admin who don't want this feature active can disable it by going into the Post Settings page and change the Who Can See Anonymous Poster setting.

Related Discussion Thread
o Option to post Anonymously on topics
o Topic Starters Can See Who Posted Anonymously

Compatibility Notes
This mod was tested on SMF 2.0.12 and SMF 2.1 RC2, but should work on SMF 2.0 and up.  SMF 2.1 Beta 2 and SMF 1.x is not and will not be supported.

Board color and icons mod should be installed AFTER this mod, otherwise you will have a minor (but easily manually fixable) conflict.

Translators
o Spanish Latin: Rock Lee

Changelog
The changelog can be viewed at XPtsp.com.

Compatibility With Likes Pro mod
If operation # 1 in the Sources/Profile-View.php reads Test Failed and operation # 2 is Test Successful, then it is safe to proceed with installation.  Operation # 2 addresses a weird change that the pro version Likes mod makes that I can't overcome any other way....

License
Copyright (c) 2015 - 2019, Douglas Orend
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

[dougiefresh]

Uploaded v1.2 - March 25th, 2016
o Added support for SMF 2.1 Beta 2.

[James Gryphon]

I installed this mod a while back because the forum members wanted to do a "Masquerade" with fake identities. It worked pretty well, so I recently re-installed it for our Forum Games section, so that people could play games with hidden identities more effectively.

For the most part, it works great. There's one bit of a problem and also one bug that needs to be fixed sometime, though.

The problem we have right now is that members can still see, in "Who's Online", when somebody is posting somewhere. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out, when the list says that so-and-so is posting in a thread and an anonymous post shows up there not long after, who most likely made it. This might not be a problem for huge boards where nobody could possibly keep track of everything everybody's doing, but in a smaller community like ours it's a factor to consider.

Of course, there is one obvious solution...let people "Hide" their activity on the forum. The trouble is that it's way too much trouble to go back and forth changing that setting every time they want to play the game. And I don't want them to be hidden from each other all the time, like they would be if that feature was enabled, because if they are the forum'll look like a ghost town.

Any suggestions or ideas on how to resolve this would be appreciated.

Now for the bug: the Anonymity sometimes glitches out on the "Recent Posts" list. It doesn't seem to happen 100% of the time, but when it does, people see the poster's name next to the ghost icon. I've had a whole bunch of people complain about this to me, and I've even seen it a couple of times myself, although not with any regularity. This is with "Every group that has the permission set" visibility on. The member usergroup has that permission turned off, so they shouldn't be able to view it. I've changed the visibility to "Only original poster" for now, in the hopes that that'll patch things up.

I hate to leave you with such a vague report. That's really all I know about it right now, though. Perhaps you'll immediately have some idea what's wrong with that; if not, then I'll change the permissions back on my forum so I can look for patterns in the glitches.

Thanks for the great mod(s) you've made and your support!

[dougiefresh]

The problem we have right now is that members can still see, in "Who's Online", when somebody is posting somewhere. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out, when the list says that so-and-so is posting in a thread and an anonymous post shows up there not long after, who most likely made it. This might not be a problem for huge boards where nobody could possibly keep track of everything everybody's doing, but in a smaller community like ours it's a factor to consider.

What I can is add more links to automatically make the post anonymous, and change the backstage BS (if I can find it) so that it hides the fact someone is posting....  It'll take some work to do, as it's a bit complicated 

Of course, there is one obvious solution...let people "Hide" their activity on the forum. The trouble is that it's way too much trouble to go back and forth changing that setting every time they want to play the game. And I don't want them to be hidden from each other all the time, like they would be if that feature was enabled, because if they are the forum'll look like a ghost town.

Honestly, I don't like that idea, mostly because it doesn't "fit" within the declared scope of the mod....

Now for the bug: the Anonymity sometimes glitches out on the "Recent Posts" list. It doesn't seem to happen 100% of the time, but when it does, people see the poster's name next to the ghost icon. I've had a whole bunch of people complain about this to me, and I've even seen it a couple of times myself, although not with any regularity. This is with "Every group that has the permission set" visibility on. The member usergroup has that permission turned off, so they shouldn't be able to view it. I've changed the visibility to "Only original poster" for now, in the hopes that that'll patch things up.

Let me look into it.  Personally, I find this bug report is disturbing....  Can you provide me with a link to the area where you're seeing the bug, just so that I can make sure I'm looking in the right place?  Thanks!

[James Gryphon]

What I can is add more links to automatically make the post anonymous, and change the backstage BS (if I can find it) so that it hides the fact someone is posting....  It'll take some work to do, as it's a bit complicated 

That sounds pretty good. I can make a new board for games that require anonymity so as to make sure this isn't ever an inconvenience.

Honestly, I don't like that idea, mostly because it doesn't "fit" within the declared scope of the mod....

Well, in this case I was referring to (what I think is) an existing feature in SMF. Users can already hide their forum activity, if it's activated.

Let me look into it.  Personally, I find this bug report is disturbing....  Can you provide me with a link to the area where you're seeing the bug, just so that I can make sure I'm looking in the right place?  Thanks!

Sure. Here's the link on our forum:
http://www.soopergrape.com/RAF/index.php?action=recent

[dougiefresh]

What I can is add more links to automatically make the post anonymous, and change the backstage BS (if I can find it) so that it hides the fact someone is posting....  It'll take some work to do, as it's a bit complicated 

That sounds pretty good. I can make a new board for games that require anonymity so as to make sure this isn't ever an inconvenience.

I did some investigating and found that there are other "details" involved with chaning the backstage BS, such as post validation and such....  That will obviously get in the way of doing this particular little trick.  I'm going to have to think on this one a bit more.....

Honestly, I don't like that idea, mostly because it doesn't "fit" within the declared scope of the mod....

Well, in this case I was referring to (what I think is) an existing feature in SMF. Users can already hide their forum activity, if it's activated.

I haven't tried it with that particular option set.  I'll see what happens....

Let me look into it.  Personally, I find this bug report is disturbing....  Can you provide me with a link to the area where you're seeing the bug, just so that I can make sure I'm looking in the right place?  Thanks!

Sure. Here's the link on our forum:
http://www.soopergrape.com/RAF/index.php?action=recent

Good to know we are on the same page!  Thanks!

[-Rock Lee-]

Interestingly enough I'll use insurance for some things I have contrived here I leave translations to the Latin Spanish although I'm not so oiling to the .xml tell me if this right


Regards!

[dougiefresh]

Uploaded v1.3 - April 7th, 2016
o Added Spanish Latin translation by Rock Lee [BC].



@Rock Lee [BC]: Thank you for the translation!

[Sir Osis of Liver]

There may be a bug in this mod -

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=546333.0

[dougiefresh]

There may be a bug in this mod -

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=546333.0

Interesting bug report....  Let me look into it!

[dougiefresh]

Uploaded v1.4 - June 12th, 2016
o Fixed issue in MessageIndex.php where wrong user was returned as last poster.



@Sir Osis of Liver:  Thank you for the bug report!  It's been fixed!

[foxesdancingonsnow]

Fantastic!  Thank you very much.    I have reinstalled it on our site, and things appear normal as far as I can tell.

[dougiefresh]

Good to hear!  Thank you!

[uamsameter]

Hi there,
thanks for this mod.
I got an error in post.php while installing this mod so I had to go make the changes manually.

After that, I set the permission and boards to post anonymously and all that.
The issue is that I cant find the place to set post anonymously permission for membergroups. I even created a new membergroup but there was no place to set that permission.

The result is that admin can post anonymously but other regular members cant.

Please guide me on how to do this.

[dougiefresh]

I got an error in post.php while installing this mod so I had to go make the changes manually.

Um......  Which operation failed in Post.php?  Maybe I can revise the mod to make installation easier....

After that, I set the permission and boards to post anonymously and all that.
The issue is that I cant find the place to set post anonymously permission for membergroups. I even created a new membergroup but there was no place to set that permission.

The result is that admin can post anonymously but other regular members cant.

Please guide me on how to do this.

Bug confirmed for Simple view.  If you change to Classic, it is available to change.  I'll fix this bug....

[dougiefresh]

Uploaded v1.5 - September 14th, 2016
o Fixed visible permissions issue when viewing permissions in Simple mode.

[uamsameter]

this is the failed operation in subs.php is replacement of

Code Select Expand

// Editing a message...
elseif (isset($_REQUEST['msg']) && !empty($topic))
{
$_REQUEST['msg'] = (int) $_REQUEST['msg'];

// Get the existing message.
$request = $smcFunc['db_query']('', '
SELECT
m.id_member, m.modified_time, m.smileys_enabled, m.body,
m.poster_name, m.poster_email, m.subject, m.icon, m.approved,
IFNULL(a.size, -1) AS filesize, a.filename, a.id_attach,
a.approved AS attachment_approved, t.id_member_started AS id_member_poster,
m.poster_time
FROM {db_prefix}messages AS m
INNER JOIN {db_prefix}topics AS t ON (t.id_topic = {int:current_topic})
LEFT JOIN {db_prefix}attachments AS a ON (a.id_msg = m.id_msg AND a.attachment_type = {int:attachment_type})
WHERE m.id_msg = {int:id_msg}
AND m.id_topic = {int:current_topic}
ORDER BY a.id_attach',
array(

[dougiefresh]

Gonna try to be nice, but....  First, correct information would be helpful, as the failed operation is in Post.php, not Subs.php.  Second, did you look to see what was different?  Sometimes, just looking at the code, like searching for first line until something looks familiar, helps to make the problem stand out.  Third, you gave me the text to replace from the XML file.  How does that help me figure out what your problem is?  Am I supposed to guess?!  Geez....

Attach your Sources/Post.php file so I can see what is different, because obviously your Sources/Post.php is different than expected.  Otherwise, I can't help you.

[Kindred]

uamsameter,

You don't seem to realize that your failure is due to your system and the mods that you have installed prior to this one... Not due to an error in this mod.

Read the FAQ, in the wiki link at the top left, regarding a what to do when a mod fails the auto install test

[uamsameter]

dougiefresh,
accept my apologies for the misleading information. I was practically sleep-typing when I posted that reply. kindred can confirm that (I even posted the reply on a wrong topic that day).
the failed operation is in post.php

good news: I sort the issues out since dougiefresh told informed me of the bug in the simple view that day.

Apologies guys.