phpBB Digest Modification Home Page

Installation instructions are in the digests_install.xml file in the archive. However the DIY instructions, which are performed after the files are copied, file changes are made and SQL is executed, are located here.

• Bug fixed: generates correct SQL for weekly digests by placing single quotes around DIGEST_WEEKLY_VALUE constant.
• Bug fixed: a number of exceptions which used break statements converted to exit statements.
• Bug fixed: unset statement used before bookmarks are read into an array.
• Bug fixed: table join added between forums and topics tables in mail_digests.php, reduces likelihood of duplicate posts appearing in digests.
• Bug fixed: $template->destroy() statement added at end of create_content function. Prevents duplicate posts from appearing in digests mailed after the first one for a given hours.
• Bug fixed: if digest version is incorrect, reports the current digest version in UCP (administrators see message only)
• Bug fixed: quotes added around DIGEST_NONE_VALUE in /includes/acp_board logic.
• Digest exception logic improved. Now puts an appropriate error message in the log when this occurs.
• User forum permissions logic works differently and is more reliable since on some boards many users have nulls in the user_permissions column. Now gathers forum permissions by calling acl_raw_data_single_user function.
• DEBUG support. If DEBUG is set to true in your config.php file, SQL statements used for each digest user will appear in the digest log.
• truncate_words function improved to use str_word_count PHP function. If words are stripped, embedded HTML will be removed from the post text so valid HTML can be rendered in the digest.
• getenv() goes back to using $_SERVER where appropriate. When a page name is needed, getenv is replaced with $user->page['page'].
• Explanation text in UCP for maximum size of words in post message.
• Version check logic simplified to use PHP version_compare function.

Installation instructions are in the digests_install.xml file in the archive. However the DIY instructions, which are performed after the files are copied, file changes are made and SQL is executed, are located here.

• User Control Panel for digests behaves a bit differently.
  • If a user has no subscription, fields are disabled. They can be reenabled by creating a subscription on the Digests Basics tab.
  • New "Show New Post Only" switch, which was missed from the phpBB 2 digests version
  • Warnings if no forums are selected
  • check_word_size Javascript function enhanced to do proper comparison of numbers
• New utility to move over user's digest settings from a phpBB 2 board with the phpBB 2 Digest Mod. Both databases must be local and MySQL. Warning: this program does not use phpBB libraries
• subsilver2 support. See contrib folder
• Expanded Administration Control Panel includes many but not all features in phpBB 2 version including
  • Autosubscribe to digests feature for new users
  • Custom stylesheet support
  • Supports key parameters with mail_digests.php, a security feature
  • Random hour can be used for subscribing new users by default or through automatic subscription
  • Log files settings. You set the location of the log file and select from an expanded end of line delimiters. Also, you can reset the log from the ACP.
  • Set the defaults for the Digests User Control Panel
• Some bug fixes
  • $_SERVER replaced with getenv
  • A number of PHP Notices have gone away
  • .php changed to $phpEx in language files
• Created a number of constants, which are in /includes/constants.php

Installation Instructions Page

• There are no additional file edits since 1.0.18
• If upgrading, run /install/digest_upgrade_db.php to update the version number
• Applied the bug fixes that had accumulated in the bug log since the last release
• Links to the Digests site home page have been fixed to change the domain from phpbb.potomactavern.org to phpbbservices.com
• Updated the install programs to update to version 1.0.19

Installation Instructions Page

Fixes minor bugs requested by the phpBB Mod team. Hopefully this version will be approved and posted on the phpBB site.

Summary of changes:

• All bugs reported in the bug log for version 1.0.17 are fixed in this archive.
• French translation is now is a translations folder
• digest_tables.php
  • phpbb_digest_settings table will show version 1.0.18
  • ENGINE, DEFAULT, CHARSET and AUTOINCREMENT verbs removed from SQL since these were not MySQL 3.23 compatible, and were tripping up some users.
• digest_upgrade_db.php
  • Handles upgrade from version 1.0.17 (increments version)
  • phpbb_digest_settings table will show version 1.0.18
  • ENGINE, DEFAULT, CHARSET and AUTOINCREMENT verbs removed from SQL since these were not MySQL 3.23 compatible, and were tripping up some users.
• lang_digests.php
  • Uses $phpEx instead of hardcoding .php
• mail_digests.php
  • Line 642 matches anonymous users by user_id instead of assuming the username is "Anonymous", since the latter is not language independent

Major New Functionality

• New Administrator Control Panel Interface
  • Add New Subscribers
    • One button press allows you to create digest subscriptions for all unsubscribed users (except administrators)
    • Selectively make groups of unsubscribed users receive digests
    • Add a single user to receive digests
  • Digest Configuration
    • Global Settings
      • Enable/disable ability to automatically send digests to new users
      • Use interface to set the automatic subscription type to daily or weekly
      • Use interface to set the day of the week to send weekly digests
      • Use interface to set custom stylesheet path
      • Use interface to set digest date format
      • Use interface to modify the reported encoding for HTML and text digests
      • Set the number of digest subscribers you want to see per page in the ACP
      • Use interface to set whether key parameter should be used with mail_digests.php, and to specify the key parameter
      • Use interface to set the summary date format for the digest
      • Use interface to set the absolute path for mail_digests.php to use, if the relative path does not work
    • Default Digest Settings
      • Use the interface to set the defaults that will be presented to new users in digests.php when they want to subscribe to a digest
      • Set the default time of day to receive digests to a random hour, to even your server processing load
    • Version Check. If you are not running the latest release of the mod, you will be given a message
  • Modify Subscribers
    • Sophisticated user interface allows ad-hoc groups on a page to be selected for global updates or deletes
    • Change individual digest subscription settings (except for forums subscribed)
    • Delete individual digest subscriptions
• New and unread private messages received since a user's last board visit can show in the digest. User can control in their digest settings whether they want to see private messages in the digest.
• New /install/digest_upgrade_db.php script makes intelligent changes to database if you are upgrading based on your previous version
• Ability to automatically enroll new users to receive digests

Minor New Functionality

• Screens have standard phpBB look and feel
• After screens are submitted, response screens have standard phpBB look and feel (message_die() is used rather than individual post templates)
• digests.php
  • Next to the forum name the forum will show any usage restrictions that apply, such as registered users only, user group members only, moderators only and administrators only
• lang_faq.php
  • New entries in the Digest FAQ covers automatic subscriptions, private messages in digest
• mail_digests.php
  • Shows ancillary text in the digest in the user's language, not in the board default language.
  • Digest header shows both the total number of posts in the digest and the total number of private messages in the digest
  • Digest footer shows the type of digest being sent: Enhanced HTML, Plain HTML or Text

Bugs Fixed

• SQL with columns or functions set with AS 'column name' syntax now uses AS 'column_name' syntax. This appears to be more portable across DBMSes.
• Fixed obscure bug where if the same forum name is used in different categories, only one of the forum names appeared in digest
• Fixed bug reported by user that did not properly close the HTML table if the text length for each post is less than the post text length
• Fixed bug that applies the postbody class to plain HTML digests
• Replaced Windows carriage return line feeds in the digests (\r\n) to Unix newlines (\n)

File Changes

• includes/digest_constants.php removed. The few remaining constants needed are now in includes/digest_functions.php. Most constants were rolled into the phpbb_mod_digest_settings table.
• install.txt becomes digests.mod. Detailed digest installation instructions will no longer be in this file, but on a web page for easier access.
• batch_scheduling.txt removed. Equivalent information will be placed on the digest installation web page
• templates/subSilver/digests.tpl becomes templates/subSilver/digests_body.tpl, which is the standard phpBB convention
• templates/subSilver/digests_posts.tpl removed.
• Several new files need to be edited. See digests.mod

Upgrade implications

• install/digest_upgrade_db.php eases changes needed to the database. Run this before removing the old installation.
• In general you need to remove the old installation before upgrading. A few files have not changed from 1.0.16, but many have. In addition the Digest FAQ has been updated.
  • Files to edit that are unchanged from 1.0.16 are:
    • templates/subSilver/overall_header.php
    • includes/page_header.php
  • Files to copy that are unchanged from 1.0.16 are:
    • includes/digest_emailer.php
• To uninstall, find the install.txt in the previous version of the digest and work in reverse.

Thank Yous

• My sincere thanks and gratefulness to Sylvain Bourdon, who created did an excellent job of beta testing this release. He found many bugs I would have never discovered. In addition, Sylvain provided an updated French translation for this release.

• IMPORTANT: if your original installation was 1.0.12 or earlier, and your database is MySQL, please add 'PHTM' as an enumerated type in the format column of the phpbb_mod_subscriptions table, ex: enum('HTML', 'TEXT', 'PHTM')
• Much credit for this version goes to Sylvain Bourdon, who went through the code thoroughly and suggested numerous improvements
• User can select whether they want plain HTML or enhanced HTML in digests.php. Enhanced HTML is the default and includes clickable links, images, BBCode support and smilies in the digest. Note: this means this feature is no longer controlled in digest_constants.php, so that constant has been removed from the file. By default if a user has selected HTML digests they will get the enhanced version.
• Improved logic in unCheckAllForums so that if all individual forums are subscribed the All Subscribed Forums checkbox is checked automatically.
• Better French translation provided courtesy of Sylvain Bourdon.
• digests.php includes redirection for unregistered users and links that include the current session.
• Text digests have been improved to be consistent with HTML digests where possible.
• A link to the digests support page is now included on the digest subscription page (at the bottom of the page)
• Fixed bug in mail_digests.php which was not properly limiting text length of posts in fancy HTML digests.
• Fixed bug in mail_digests.php that was not showing smilies in the HTML enhanced version.
• Redid logic in mail_digests.php to output XHTML. Certain tags were not in the "right" places according to the W3C validator. These problems are now fixed. A </span> tag was added and a redundant </tr> tag was removed. However, your email client may make the HTML incorrect by adding and subtracting HTML in the email post.
• digests.php modified to show an explicit message whether you have a subscription or not. It was ambiguous.
• Improved posting logic for Anonymous/Guest users (courtesy of Sylvain Bourdon).
• batch_scheduling.txt improved to talk about curl and wget. curl is now my recommended default way to program cron jobs since it is widely supported by web hosts and is relatively simple to set up.

• Total post count appears near the top of the digest. (If upgrading, please install new .tpl files under
  /lang/lang_english/email.)
• If an Administrator is receiving digests, all forums are shown by digests.php. There is no need to have
  appropriate usergroup permissions.
• If a Moderator is receiving digests, all forums with moderator read permissions are shown by digests.php.
  There is no need to have appropriate usergroup permissions for moderator only forums.
• Fixed a bug in mail_digests.php that did not calculate the $offset variable correctly for the timezone logic
• Post times are now displayed in the digests in user's local time, based on timezone in their phpBB profile
• New feature: to keep unauthorized people from running the mail_digests.php program and possibly causing
  duplicate digests to be sent for the same hour, a "key" parameter can now be specified. It will only work if
  DIGEST_REQUIRE_SEND_KEY is set to true in digest_constants.php. You can set the value of the key in
  digest_constants.php by changing the value of DIGEST_SEND_KEY. Example with key enabled:
  http://www.myforum.com/phpBB2/mail_digests.php?key=qwertyuiop
  If you are upgrading and enable this feature, make sure you reprogram your cron or similar utility to pass
  the correct argument and value.
• New feature: test mode. If a parameter test=1 (the number) is present in the mail_digests.php URL, no digests
  are sent. However, you will still see summary information, providing DIGEST_SHOW_SUMMARY is set to true.
  Example usage:
  http://www.myforum.com/phpBB2/mail_digests.php?test=1
  This feature can be useful while troubleshooting so your subscribed users won't be pestered with additional
  digests.
• New feature: simulation mode. If a parameter simulate=1 (the number) is present in the mail_digests.php URL, then all digests for the current hour that would be sent to subscribers are instead redirected to the email
  address in the variable $lang['digest_from_email_address'] in lang_digests.php. (This is usually the board
  email address.) If used with test mode, the test mode will override. This feature may help debug certain
  problems. Example usage:
  http://www.myforum.com/phpBB2/mail_digests.php?simulate=1
• New feature: phpBB look and feel to posts in HTML digests. You should now see embedded URLs, images, and
  anything in BBcode. Note that text digests will continue to show plain text. If you prefer a simpler version
  of the posts (minus BBcode) set the new constant DIGEST_FANCY_HTML_STYLE to false.
• Removed all $db->sql_freeresult statements, since they caused runtime errors for a small number of users
  and are unnecessary anyhow.
• Email MIME charset encoding now works with the DIGEST_HTML_ENCODING and DIGEST_TEXT_ENCODING constants.
• lang_faq.php and new entries in lang_digests.php French translations by Rosalind A. Hamill.
• Default text length for posts in digests changed from 150 to 32,000 (full post).

• Trimmed certain fields in digests.php that were a problem for SQL Server users
• Discussed site monitoring services in batch_scheduling.txt
• Fixed bug that might have showed duplicate forums in digest.php
• Fixed bug: now declaring all arrays all arrays in mail_digests.php; fixed runtime error for one user
• Fixed serious bugs that was showing forums that should not show; fixed in digests.php and mail_digests.php
• French language translation provided courtesy of kilikil.

• digest_tables.php will create appropriate tables for Postgres and MS SQL. In the past it would only create
  tables in MySQL. Column names that were ENUM have been changed to CHAR for portability. If upgrading from an earlier version, no changes are needed to your MySQL tables.
• digest_tables.php is now in an install folder, per request from the Mod team.
• copyright statements point to me rather than phpBB. Apparently this is allowed despite the GPL license.
• digests.tpl was modified to remove IE specific code. This is no longer a problem since IE 5+ supports DOM 2.
• 2 copies of digest_constants was accidentally included in 1.0.12.

• DIGEST_SITE_URL constant takes into account the phpBB port (thanks to drybones)
• Fixed bug in mail_digests.php that wasn't sending weekly digests on the correct day (thanks to drybones)

• Fixed bug in digest_tables.php. user_id should use mediumint data type for phpbb_mod_subscriptions table.
  This problem will manifest itself if the greatest_user_id in your database exceeds 32,767.
• Fixed bug in mail_digests.php. In some cases it may not work correctly when installed on a virgin board
  because init_userprefs was not called. Also added missing $board_timezone statement.
• Character encoding for HTML and text digests can be set in digest_constants.php. No longer limited to
  iso-8859-1 and us-ascii. This allows better support for internationalization.

• SQL should now be database independent. MySQL specific functions moved out of SQL and implemented with
  equivalent PHP code.
• If the user is not logged in, the digest link no longer appears. This should solve many problems with
  headers already being sent.
• Summary message at the end of mail_digests.php can be turned on and off with the DIGEST_SHOW_SUMMARY constant
• If the summaries are desired to be shown in mail_digests.php, the summary can be either in HTML or plain
  text. Switch with the constant DIGEST_SHOW_SUMMARY_TYPE.
• If a user is delete through the administrator control panel and the user has digest subscriptions, his
  subscriptions are removed.
• Formats for dates shown in digests can now be changed by changing constants such as DIGEST_DATE_FORMAT
• Fixed bug in Version 1.0.9d & 1.0.9e that did not show labels for text sizes 50, 100, 150, 300 and 600
• Version of digest software is shown in both digest pages and in the digests themselves. This will help
  in future portability and debugging.
• Replaced most variables used across modules with constants, including the big one, $siteURL which is now
  the constant DIGEST_SITE_URL.
• All constants start with the DIGEST_ literal for consistency.
• Now supports sites running https.

2006-04-28 - Version 1.0.9d

• Created a language file called lang_digests.php, removing language information from digest_constants.php
• This will allow language modularization and could allow multiple language support for digests on the same
  board. Also, this has been tested with phpBB 2.0.20.
• digest_emailer.php updated to include relevant changes found in emailer.php since 2.0.6.

2006-05-16 - Version 1.0.9e

• Updated this file to comply with latest phpBB mod standards, per request from phpBB mod team.

• Corrected $siteURL in digest_constants.php

• SQL commands are upper cased at the request of the mod team. Affects digests.php and mail_digests.php.
  Please note that the programs are functionally identical so if it works in 1.0.8 you really don't need
  to upgrade to 1.0.9.
• Installation instructions below modified to use IN LINE AFTER, ADD per request from mod team.
• Updated comments in each program to say it is designed to work with phpBB 2.0.8 (works for me). However
  it should work fine in versions 2.0.6 and 2.0.7 too since they were used otherwise unmodified in these
  environments.

• batch_scheduling.txt instructions changed to correct $phpbb_root_path for the URL-less approach
• digest_constants.php corrects problem many are experiencing with $siteURL, to add a / after the site
  name if it is not there. This should reduce many installation problems.
• digest_tables.php modified to fix a tab problem in source code
• digests.php. Fixed some serious problems noted by the MOD team. POST variables are now wrapped with
  function to eliminate potential SQL injection hacks. In addition incorporated their suggestions for
  using variables to set $user_timezone, changed all occurrences of $userdata['session_user_id'] to
  $userdata['$user_id'], and fixed some tab problems in the source code
• digests.tpl now has <span> tags to fix the "big print" problem many were complaining about
• mail_digests.php has time zone logic in it that was missing from the last release and fixed some tab
  problems in the source code
• suggested_faq_text.txt file removed from archive since it is now included in these installation
  instructions below

• digests.tpl modified to apply styles (work done by zocalo, thanks!) so interface presents
  better. I also added a cell spacing of five pixels to make it easier to read.
• digest_constants.php changed to add digest explanation variable so it will be XHMTL
  compatible with modified digests.tpl. Removed digest_not_logged_in message.
• digests.php redirects users not logged in to login in page. Thanks to zocalo again for this
  suggestion. There was a redundant call to use the template digests.tpl. The first call was
  removed.
• Slight changes in wording to suggested_faq_text.txt.
• These instructions to make changes to page_header.php have been changed. Now includes a
  line of code referencing digest_constants.php and uses a label variable I neglected to
  include in the last version

• Responding to MOD Team requests:
  • digests.php uses append_sid for the form URL
  • digests.tpl form action template variable name changed to {S_POST_ACTION}
  • These instructions changed to use a template variable for the digests URL in overall_header.tpl
    and to indicate how page_header.php needs to be modified to pass the digests.php URL to
    overall_header.tpl
  • Cleaned up a few minor coding problems at variance with the coding standards
• Modified digest_constants.php to have two disclaimer messages, one for HTML formatted email and
  one for text formatted email. This will keep the URLs from appearing in the disclaimer by
  default for text digests. Also fixed bug that was not displaying page title by adding the
  language variable.
• Modified mail_digests.php to show toggle the disclaimer message depending on whether the digest
  is html or text.
• Modified mail_digests_html.tpl so digest options and disclaimer show inside <p> tags, so styles
  are applied.
• Added suggested_faq_text.txt file. Copy and paste into your lang_faq.php file if you want to
  provide answers to basic questions about the digest. Location in the FAQ is up to you depending
  on how important you think it is.

Time zone logic improved to use actual server time zone instead of board time zone, since
board time zone may be set to a time different than the server time zone. This logic affects
digests.php. Also added helpful information to mail_digests.php that shows who received digests
for a given hour and how many digests were sent. This will only be seen if run manually such
as by URL, but if run from command line or batch output can be captured to a file in Unix or
Linux systems by piping.

Now handles time zones correctly. User asks for digests to arrive based on their local time
(assumed to be the time zone set in their profile). If this is different from the server
time zone, the server takes this into account. Note that the subscriptions table will
store the time zone based on server time. So 7 PM PST (hour 19) is stored as 22 if the
server is hosted in EST. Changed: digests.php and two lines of code in digest_constants.php.
Note: if user changes their time zone in their profile, the hour to send the digest does NOT
change. To correct this would involve a hack to profile.php, that I considered unwise.

Minor changes to mail_digests.php to improve presentation of post text. BBcode is
removed and in the HTML version any \n is converted to a <br /> tag. No other changes.

Should now meet phpBB coding guidelines. No logic changes.

• Cleaned up bug in mail_digests.php that incorrectly reported last access time if user
  wants to filter out posts since they last touched the board.
• Added code provided by M Longland that allows users to set the maximum size of each post
  to be included in the digest. WAS the value set in digest_constants.php. Now the user can
  select 50, 100, 150, 300, 600 or Maximum (32,000) characters.
• Enhanced message in digests.php so if someone is not logged in and wants a digest they are
  reminded they have to register with the board first before they can enroll to receive
  a digest.
• batch_scheduling.txt provides good guidance for running scheduled tasks on a Windows 2000/XP
  server.
• digest_tables.php adds a new column, text_length int(11) NOT NULL default '0' to the
  subscriptions table. If using a previous version you will need to manually add this
  column to the subscriptions table. In addition you should update all rows in your
  subscriptions table so that existing users have a text_length value of 150, so as not
  to confuse them. Assuming the table is named phpbb_mod_subscriptions this SQL should work:
  update phpbb_mod_subscriptions set text_length=150

Initial Release