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:

ss-2014-01-09_15-31-59.webp


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:

ss-2014-01-09_15-39-22.webp


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

ss-2014-01-09_15-40-50.webp


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).

ss-2014-01-09_15-41-10.webp


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...
 
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.

Well, the "Have you seen's" tend to come out right before a release which doesn't give you much time as an administrator or even a developer to adapt to the changes. Furthermore, if you peruse the "Announcements" forum, all there is are posts about the latest version being released. Not much, if anything at all, tells what the long-term plans or goals are or anything like that.

I'm happy with the progress as well, but I also look at the long-term when I work on stuff. I know what I am doing six months to a year down the road already, and knowing how software will effect what I am doing would help immensely.

And it's not a complaint, it's merely a recommendation.
 
Even something as simple as adding a "Considering" tag for the suggestion forum would help. At least we would know that it's something that might be on the table. :rolleyes:
 
It´s nice to see this is now a Core Feature but guiltar´s addon has also done a good services for a long time.
 
Regarding social media authentication: the more options available to the end users, the better the chance of getting just that one more registration and possible active user. If you don't want to use that method, simply disable it. If you don't want the code to exist in your software at all, you can delete that too. That's the beauty of open source. I'm sure an add-on is capable of allowing LinkedIn authentication, it just clearly wasn't prioritised in this instance.

It's great to see the additions to the censor options making it more flexible and less of a nuisance when using phrases that contain a censored word.

As for user upgrade transaction logs, well, they always come in handy :)
 
Nice work :) and yes while addon devs spend a lot of time creating addons of this kind of nature they really are best done by the devs of XF. Thank you and Congrats :)
 
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:

View attachment 64533

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:

View attachment 64534

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

View attachment 64535

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).

View attachment 64536

Censor Improvement

Finally today, XenForo 1.3 has tweaked the censoring system to give you more control. Primarily, this is designed to workaround the "S****horpe 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...
Is there a log now I would hope of people who login via these social media links? Slowing my page load with all of these links and not knowing if people even use them would be very useful.
 
Please don´t forget to put in a captcha question for new member registration over this feature.
This will reduced spam with social media fake accounts.
 
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