XF 1.3 Google+/Twitter Registration, User Upgrade Logs, Censor Improvement

Let's look at a few more features coming in XenForo 1.3.

Google+ and Twitter Registration/Login

Like the Facebook registration/login that we've had, XenForo 1.3 will now support registering via Google+ or Twitter:

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The first time a user clicks one of those buttons, they'll be taken to the correct service to validate the request. They will then be redirected back to the forum. If they have already registered, they will be logged in automatically; otherwise, they will have the option to complete the registration or associate with an existing account.

Like with the existing Facebook integration, to use Twitter and Google+ registration, you will need to create the necessary "app" with their services and enter the public and private keys into your XenForo installation.

The Facebook Integration page has now been replaced with a generic External Accounts page that allows the user to manage their associations with external accounts. Add-on developers can now add their association controls to this page instead of creating a new page for each account.

Further, from a technical standpoint, the xf_user_profile table now has an external_auth field that maps provider keys to the provider ID. Inserting an external auth record will automatically update this. This field means that a dedicated column does not need to be added for each external authentication system.

User Upgrade Transaction Logs

To aid in debugging user upgrade problems, the transaction logs are now viewable from the control panel. Each time the payment processor (by default, only PayPal) makes a call to your server, this will be logged in the transaction log. If you are having problems with an upgrade not being triggered, the transaction log should tell you why.

First, you'll see an overview of the transactions:

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And you can dive into all the details for each call:

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If you're looking for a particular entry, you can use the search form to do this. Note that the transaction and subscriber IDs are values from PayPal, so they can often be used to relate a particular call to a log entry you're seeing in PayPal (or vice versa).

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Censor Improvement

Finally today, XenForo 1.3 has tweaked the censoring system to give you more control. Primarily, this is designed to workaround the "Scunthorpe problem"--you should see the issue right here until we roll out 1.3.

Previously, censoring was either an exact match or a match that occurred anywhere in the word. Now, you control whether the match is exact, at the beginning, at the end, or anywhere. This is done by placing * wildcard characters at the beginning or end as needed:
  • dog - matches exactly dog
  • dog* - matches any word starting with dog (dog, dogs, dogma, etc)
  • *dog - matches any word ending with dog (dog, hotdog, etc)
  • *dog* - matches any occurrence of dog (dog, dogs, hotdog... some word that has "dog" in the middle :))
This will make actual swear-based censoring more accurate as, in many cases, you would only want to put the wildcard at the end.



Stay tuned for more...
 
For the word censor, we always had a problematic company name, since we discuss audio and video hardware: Matsushita. Because of that, I had to find every clever way I could to cloak usage of the word "sheet". :D

I also used to be able to get around the word censors using BBCode (at least on *ahem* another forum system we converted over from). Let's say [x] is a BBCode and "ping" is the word that is censored. I used to be able to do something like this: [x]pi[/x][x]ng[/x] ...and have the word show up in all its glory. I did that once in a private area just to amuse the staff; luckily none of our members ever figured that out! Lately though, we have to watch for stuff like "dvck" that substitutes "duck", for instance. Or one can always use extended characters to type dück instead.

As for the additional service logins: much appreciated! Although I would tend to go with the more generic Google logo rather than tie it specifically to G+, so people do not think that they need a G+ account to log in.
 
The same applies here - using bb code will stop the censor from working.

Of course the simplest way is to use the plain tags.
 
Again, Sign in with Google official button:

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Usually the usage terms of these services require you to adhere to their brand guidelines.
 
Personally, if I as an administrator decide I don't want the content on my site, I personally don't want members to be able to revert that decision and see content I've specifically disallowed.

I won't go into our whole "family friendly" policy here, but one policy change we are cracking down on in our forums is content that is not family-friendly (tightening things up, in other words). It is not so much for our members' sake, but with some corporations and web filters using posted content as a means of determining what is posted on the site, our members posting "skin" pictures or lots of profanity could have us flagged as being an "adult" site, and getting us blocked. So it is more than what we want to inflict on our members--it is keeping our forum open to as many visitors as we possibly can, and staying clean with the web filters out there helps us in the long run as well.
 
Gah... I was hoping that he was going to say the active user upgrades had been exposed as a tab in the edit user pages. Maybe next time. :D
 
I'm glad that Twitter and Google integration has finally come to XenForo's core, it's looking like XF 1.3 will include a mixture of different features (still won't keep everybody happy though :ROFLMAO:).

Keep it up KAM (y).
 
Looking good KAM! Can't wait for the release of 1.3 for an upcoming project of mine. Twitter registrations will be very handy.

Eagerly awaiting more updates. :)
 
Another reason why I don't like to use addons if I don't need to. If said addon becomes a core feature, then you're stuck telling your users that they have to (possibly) change things around in their account.

Perhaps XF should come out with a list of "Long Term Plans", kind of like IPS did here and here. They don't have to give away the farm, but a general idea of what is planned would help site administrators as well as developers plan their sites, addons and - if needed - potential migrations from addons to core functions.
 
Very happy about the social integrations! Social media drives sooooo much traffic, ease of use is now increased with signing up!
 
great tool to get more users into using Forums.

I would also love to see Linkedin, as my target user-group does not use FB, Twitter nor Google+


Thanks!
 
Word on the street is that is coming up in version 1.4

One thing I'm curious about though, is if there is now a user upgrade log with filters, will there be a system error/system admin log filter/search?
 
These "Have You Seen's" have proven one thing....

You could give $100 to each person who purchases an XF license, and there would still be complaints.

I don't think there are complaints. I am happy with the progress. Nothing wrong with highlighting possible improvements that people see that aren't included though.
 
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