IP.Board Rules APP

Jimmy · Mar 3, 2018

Rules is an add-on for IPB and has changed my life running a forum.

Basic Rules Principles - How A Rule Works
Rules operates based on a model of events, conditions, and actions (ECA'a). First an event happens, then conditions are checked, and finally, designated actions are taken. You get to decide which event a rule is triggered by, what conditions (if any) will be checked, and ultimately what actions should be taken as a result. You can create as many individual rules as needed to achieve the behaviors you want.

Rules are designed to solve most any "when... if... then..." needs on your site.

Rule Events
When you create rules, they will be attached to a specific event that will cause them to be evaluated. There are many different core events that ship with the Rules application which work with any content driven applications installed on the site; but additional events can also be added by 3rd party applications to give you specific control over features that may not be a standard suite function.

For example, if you install an app on your site that allows you to create a new content type called "Questions" which features it's own "best answer" function, then Rules will automatically make events available on the content for when it is created, edited, deleted, pinned, featured, etc. But it will not add an event for when a best answer is set for that "Question", because that is a proprietary function added by the app. Therefore the app developer would need to include a Rules extension to make that event configurable through rules.

See: Rules ECA Extension Guide

Rule Conditions
Conditions allow rules to be applied only in specific circumstances. Any rule can have zero or more conditions associated with it which will determine if the actions in the rule should be taken. Conditions can be structured into "AND" & "OR" groups if needed to set up more complex criteria.

Rules includes a lot of standard conditional checks that can be used with any app or content installed on your site. But just like with events, 3rd party applications should add their own custom conditional checks into Rules for proprietary features (such as checking if a "Question" has a best answer set).

Rule Actions
Actions are what rules "do". Any number of actions can be added to a rule, and when the rule's conditions are met, all of the actions on the rule will be taken. A lot of standard actions are built into Rules such as pinning/featuring content, changing a member's groups, creating new content, or sending an email.

As with events, 3rd parties should also add their own custom actions into Rules for site owners to use (such as setting the best answer for a "Question").
Click to expand...

IMO the most powerful feature (and there are a lot of powerful features) is the Custom Data Fields.

Creating And Using Custom Data Fields
Rules allows you to attach your own custom data fields to any content, content containers, or members in the system. Custom data fields can be set up for internal use only, or be configured to be edited by users via form input.

An added benefit of using custom data fields is that it allows you to create additional rules which are triggered when your custom data fields get updated (either through rules, through form input, or through custom code). Since custom data fields can be updated via rules, and rules can also be created in reaction to that data being updated, this brings in to play all new powerful capabilities such as relational or chained data updates.

Permissions
Data fields also have member group permission associations which allow you to restrict who can see and edit the data. In addition to permissions, you can also restrict custom data fields to specific content containers (forums, categories, etc).

Access Modes
Data fields can be configured for three different access modes:

Internal
When a data field is configured for internal use, it will not be presented for editing on any form, regardless of the 'edit' permission set on the data field. It can only be updated via rules or custom php code, but is still fully available for rules conditions.

Public
When a data field is configured for public use, it will be presented on the editing form for any member with the 'edit' permission on the data field and the item that it is attached to.

Administrative
When a data field is configured for administrative use, it will only be presented for editing by members who have the 'edit' permission on the data field and also have moderator permissions to edit the object which it is attached to.

Data Access Methods
Rules provides multiple ways to access custom data associated with objects. There are three API methods to get and save rules data, as well as two shorthand ways to access rules data via object properties.

API Methods (for php):
The getRulesData() method can be used to retrieve data which has been saved to an object. This method will retrieve data regardless of the permissions of the logged in user.

PHP:

$data = $object->getRulesData( 'data_key' );

The getRulesDataWithPermission() method can be used to retrieve data saved to an object according to permissions. If the logged in user does not have permission to 'view' the data, then no data will be returned by this method.

PHP:

$data = $object->getRulesDataWithPermission( 'data_key' );

The setRulesData() method can be used to update the data which is associated with an object.
Note: The data must be the same data type that has been defined in the custom data field configuration, otherwise an \InvalidArgumentException will be thrown.

PHP:

$object->setRulesData( 'data_key', $data );

Shorthand Methods (for php or template tags)
The shorthand methods for accessing rules data are very useful for a couple of different reasons. Firstly, it's shorter. But more importantly, it can be used safely to check for rules data even if rules is not installed on the site or has been disabled. This means when you use the shorthand data access method in template tags or php code, no errors will be produced if the rules application goes offline.

Data Key (with permissions)

Rules data can be accessed for an object simply by using the data_key for the data as an object property. This method of accessing the rules data will also respect permissions set on the data, so if the logged in user does not have permission to 'view' the data, then the property will be empty.

PHP:

$data = $object->data_key;  {{if $object->data_key}} <strong>Data:</strong> {$object->data_key} {{endif}} Data Key (without permissions)

Data can be accessed for an object without a permission check by prefixing the data_key with "r_". Therefore, any custom data saved to the object will be available regardless of the permissions of the logged in user.

PHP:

$data = $object->r_data_key;  {{if $object->r_data_key}} <strong>Data:</strong> {$object->r_data_key} {{endif}}

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Information
Automation Rules

Concepts
Documentation - IPS Guru

Cookbook
Documentation - IPS Guru

Rules has so much power they even made a game out of rules. LOL!

Jimmy · Mar 3, 2018

Some Screenshots

Jimmy · Mar 3, 2018

Lastly, each rule created can be exported as an xml file.

This is REALLY handy if you have multiple sites, want to share rules with others, or want to backup all your rules and not have all your rules locked inside the application.

Jimmy · Mar 4, 2018

This is hilarious.

Setup a Rule that when someone posts a particular spam referral link, they get redirected to Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up after they make the post.

Setup a Rule for a contest. Took me 5 minutes.

Person enters a particular word in the content of the post.

Rule matches the needle word in the haystack.

Notification is sent that they won from the Admin.

Email is send to admin stating who won.

Money credit is applied to their account.

Main page announcement is updated to include the current winner.

Best part. I didn't even have to use any PHP code to make it happen. There is a whole condition for searching strings / matching string A to B, B to A, etc.

eva2000 · Mar 4, 2018

interesting feature... @Revenge and @pamamolf have you tried this feature ?

Jimmy · Mar 4, 2018

I don't use the other forum software(s) out there. But I've never seen anything like this in all the scripts I've used. I can control just about everything on the site with this plugin. I've so far wasted about a day playing with this plugin.

eva2000 · Mar 4, 2018

Yeah i can see how useful this might be for forum admins to bring some more interactivity

Jimmy · Mar 4, 2018

Yea. Right now I'm working on a section of my site where I have promotional posts. I created an extra inline message for the people so they can have a message pop-up when someone visits their promotional post.

What's nice is I can set conditions for when it's available. Like the user has to have more than 100 posts or made X amount of purchases on the site.

This plugin is really dangerous. Dangerous as it's sucking all my time up playing with it.

Revenge · Mar 4, 2018

eva2000 said: ↑

interesting feature... @Revenge and @pamamolf have you tried this feature ?
Click to expand...

Nop, never bought it. It costs 35$ and then 25$ per year. Not that expensive for what it does thought.

Jimmy said: ↑

I don't use the other forum software(s) out there. But I've never seen anything like this in all the scripts I've used. I can control just about everything on the site with this plugin. I've so far wasted about a day playing with this plugin.
Click to expand...

I don't want to look like a fan or something, but IPS is currently the best bulletin software by far.

Jimmy · Mar 4, 2018

The killer is the commerce add-on... $55... ouch.

I own the app for almost a year before I actually did anything. I should've done it sooner.

pamamolf · Mar 4, 2018

Looks very good but a bit expensive for a simple forum with no good income

For larger forums it looks like a must ...

Didn't know about that add on...... Thanks Jimmy for the info

Jimmy · Mar 4, 2018

@paramolf you can always use the LITE version which is free - there are two versions of the app.

Jimmy · Mar 8, 2018

Counting people's posts per specific thread... oh this is going to be useful. The power of Rules.

Custom Data Field in Condition

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