[wmtech] Double Post Merge - New Permission Settings Manual

How to set the permissions for [WMTech] Double Post Merge

Starting with version 1.3.0 of our add-on we completely redesigned the permision system.

This was done because prior to version 1.3.0 the permissions only worked if you eiter used one single set of permissions for all user groups or created several secondary user groups for the differend permissions of this add-on only and assigned those user groups to the users you wanted to give those permissions. This was complicated and resulted in many boards not using the full powers of this add-on.

There are 2 different permissions for this add-on. Each of them can be assigned to any user group or even single users at your XenForo board.

• Merge Time Limit (Minutes)
  If a post of a user is made directly after another post of the same user in a thread, the posts will be merged by this add-on IF the time difference between the posts is less than this time period.
  
• Thread Bump Limit (Minutes)
  If a post is merged (= conditions of the other permission is met), the thread, this merged post is in, will be marked as unread and thread watch alerts be sent out, IF the time differene between the merged posts is less than this time period. Since a thread will always be bumped if no post merge occurs, it only makes sense to set this limit smaller than the Merge Time Limit.

Prior to version 1.3.0 of this add-on you could simply set the minutes of this add-on like this:



As you see in those settings, you want 2 consecutive posts of the same user to merge, if the second post was made less than 15 minutes after the first post.

The problem with the old permission handling was, that if you set this limit to your Registered user group to 15 minutes, but to your Administrator group to just 5 minutes, it didn't work as expected. because admins in XenForo are also registered users and the 15 minutes of that group trumped the 5 minutes of the administrators group. Resulting in your administrators having posts also merged for 15 minutes. Which is not what you intended.

This is solved with the new permissions:

• Merge Time Limit (1500 - minutes)
• Thread Bump Limit (1500 - minutes)

So the same permissions like in the example above look like this starting with version 1.3.0:



As you see, you now have to make a little calculation before you write the value into the permission settings. You need to subtract the minutes you like to set from the so called "Permissions Reference Value" which is "1500" by default. The result will be that your permissions are activated correctly for each of your user groups. In our example above, regular users will get merged for 15 minutes, but admins only for 5 minutes.

Some examples for valid settings:

You like to set 15 minutes as the Merge Time or Thread Bump Limit:

• Subtracting 15 from 1500 results in 1485.
  Insert 1485 as the value for the limit.

You like to set 6 hours (= 360 minutes) as the Merge Time or Thread Bump Limit:

• Subtracting 360 from 1500 results in 1140.
  Insert 1140 as the value for the limit.

You like to set 24 hours (= 1440 minutes) as the Merge Time or Thread Bump Limit:

• Subtracting 1440 from 1500 results in 60.
  Insert 60 as the value for the limit.

Both permissions per default cannot be set to more than 1 day.

We hope this is not too complicated.

Please note:
A permission value of "0" means "Always Merge" for the first or "Always Bump" for the second permission.
A permission value of "unlimited" or greater than 1500 means "No Merge" for the first or "No Bump" for the second permission.

Changing the Permissions Reference Value (Experts ONLY!):

If you want to set the permissions for Merge Time or Bump Thread Limits to a value more than 1 day you need to change the Permission Reference Value which is "1500" (app. 1 day) by default.

This can be done at this add-ons options page which can be found in the ACP > Home > Options > [WMTech] Double Post Merge. This option is at the very end of that page.



If you really change the Permissions Reference Value, you need to immediately also recalculate and change ALL permissions for this add-on for ALL your user groups and ALL users you may have set up individually. Because in the moment you change this option, ALL permissions for this add-on will get invalid and change to a much higher time period were posts will be merged.

For the recalculation of the permissions you need to calculate from the Permissions Reference Value you set and no longer from "1500". For example: If you set this option to 10000 you need to subtract your minutes from 10000!

Please note:
Even after changing the Permissions Reference Value the labels of the permissions in your user group settings will still read "1500" even if you set it to another value. But in fact you need to calculate from your individual Permissions Reference Value!

For each further upgrade after version 1.3.0 neither your Permissions Reference Value nor any of your user group settings will get changed. They will survive any further upgrades.