Hi I need a little help,

normaly I am verry good at just looking at a page of code and re-creating it. but this is difrent.

I downloaded the vanilla 1 forum, and LOVE how the system works for addons, just drop them in the folder and check/uncheck the box to install/un-install. I would love to re-create something like this for my site, would anyone out there be willing to help me figure out how?

thanks

Ok, here's how I would do it:

When visiting the plugin management page, scan the plugin directory. Add all new plugins to the database with an 'installed' field' marked as 'not installed' (can be a bool or something). Also check that all plugins in the database are real plugins, so that you can just delete the plugin, without disturbing the script.

Then make it possible for the user to change the installed status of a plugin by checking the checkbox.

good ideas, but how dose vinilla know where to put the add ons?
like to create an icon in the coment, verses a link for an rss feed on the sidebar?
I dont think a basic php include could do that, could it?

The install file probably has a bunch of instructions in it then the forum uses str_replace() to make the appropriate changes to the files.

If stOx is right, a basic include should do the job.

a database simplifies it.

Imagine the navigation calls an include for each item it finds in a table of the database. This way any plugin you install or unistall or have yet to create will be relected in the navigation.

I thought aboyt using a sql database, but I am trying to stay away from sql for 2 reasons, 1- i dont know how to create a sql database table. and 2- my project requires that the files in my project can upload to a server ande it just work. IF not for my second reason I would just learn sql realy quick, because it would seam the best answer.

Unless you know a way to let a php script auto creat a database table? that would be great!

Auto create table:

PHP Code:

mysql_query(
  "CREATE TABLE plugins (
     id INT(3) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
     PluginPath VARCHAR(255),
     PluginName VARCHAR(100),
     Description TEXT,
     PRIMARY KEY  (id)
   )"
) 


Adapt the fields to your needs of course. I don't see why you'd need to create separate tables for your plugins however.

thank you sooooooo much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i would add in

`active` ENUM('0','1') NOT NULL DEFAULT '0'

This way you can turn on and off installed plug ins

how would I go about adding deleting info from the database? like i said before I dont relay know sql. I think I know how to add info to a table. but how do you delete?

If you want to delete a row:

DELETE FROM table WHERE field = value

If you just want to delete certain fields:

UPDATE table SET field = NULL WHERE field = value