Welcome Thread Created on Members first post
 

Product Name:
Welcome Thread Created on Members first post

Product Description:
This Hack/Product creates a new "welcome post" when a member posts for the first time. You can choose to either create a new thread in a welcome forum or create the post in an existing thread. The user's original first post can also be modified, allowing you to link to their "welcome post".

I have only tested this package install on 3.5.4. Please post if you successfully (or unsuccessfully) install this under any other 3.5 versions.

This Hack was created as a generic way to post "welcome threads" for all types of registration situations: wide open, authentication, approval, etc. It also keeps the number of welcome threads down somewhat by never posting one for users that register and never post. Lurkers can still register and lurk.

This Hack was inspired by amykhar, PaulM, Andreas, and others and leans heavily on their previous work. This is my first attempt at a packaged, released hack so I hope they will help me out if I screwed anything up :)

Contents:
This package includes:
1 Plugin:
"Welcome Post and First post modify": Code to create the "welcome thread" and modify the user's original post via templates.

3 Templates:
welcome_thread: The text of the "welcome thread" created.
welcome_title: The title of the "welcome thread" created.
welcome_addon: The text to be added on to the members original first post.

3 Option/Setting:
welcomeforum: (group "Welcome New Users Options"): The forumid of the forum where the welcome threads will be created. A "0" passes control to the welcomethread option.

welcomethread: (group "Welcome New Users Options"): The threadid of the thread where the welcome posts will be created. This option is ignored if the welcomeforum option is set. Setting both welcomethread and welcomeforum options to "0" disables the creation of welcome posts entirely (though modification of the original post may still occur)

welcomeposter: (group "Welcome New Users Options"): The userid of the user that will post the welcome message. If this setting is "0", the welcome post will be poster as the new user.

Installation Instructions:
Step 1: Import the product .xml file (attached here)

Step 2: Change the "welcomeforum" option or the "welcomethread" option to the correct welcomeid or threadid where you wish the welcome messages to be created. "welcomeforum" takes precedence over "welcomethread". Set both to zero if you wish to disable the creation of welcome posts.

TIP: An easy way to get the forumid or threadid number is to put your cursor over the forum or thread you want to use and read the link information in the bar at the bottom of your browser. Look at the "t=xxx" for threads or "f=xxx" for forums.

Step 3: Set "welcomeposter" to the userid of the user you wish to post the welcome message. If this setting is set to "0", the welcome post will be posted as the new user. The default for this setting is "0".

Step 4: Modify the 3 templates to your taste. The sample templates show how to make both the welcome thread and the modified first post point back to each other.

Step 5: Enjoy.

Version History:
version 0.9 - Initial release

• Initial public release

version 0.91

• added welcomethread option and functionality
• code cleanup and template cleanup

version 0.92

• added welcomeposter option and functionality
• code cleanup and template cleanup

Here's hoping I posted this hack correctly :beard:

Ill try to support this as best I can, at least until we get all the bugs worked out of it. Please let me know if there are any bugs in the installation or in the code.

Cool hack
~Ziki clicks install~

Looks good! I didn't want one that would post the thread when the user joins due to the number of no-returners. Cheers!

Hmm I understand what this does but do you have a link where I can demo this personally. Please PM if you can/like.

Only have this installed on a private test forum right now. Will go live this weekend on customer sites this weekend. Ill PM you when its up and going there. And add screenshots then as well.

The templates for the welcome thread and the changes to the original post are VERY simple. I will try to add a better, more attractive template in the next version.

does this post as an automatic reply to the persons first post? just want to make sure i understand what it does

No, it creates a brand new thread in the forum you specify. I usually create a "Welcome Room" forum and have the welcome threads posted there. The title of that new thread created from template:"welcome_title" and the body of that new thread is created from template:"welcome_thread".

Also, the template:"welcome_addon" is added to the end of their original post. The sample template adds a link to the newly created welcome thread, but you can put whatever you want in there.

Hope this helps. Ill write up better install instructions tonight and modify the description above.

What user is chosen to "post" this "welcome thread?"

And, can it be modified to create a post in one pre-existing thread? I'd rather have all the welcomes in one thread, rather than lots and lots of individual threads.

The welcome thread is posted as the new member. This was a so that people can click to see their profile, send them PMs, give them reputation, etc. directly from the welcome thread.

As in the sample templates, you want to be sure that you clearly indicate that this is "Automatically Generated Message".

Yes, this can be done. We had problems with some new users being skipped over and not getting "acknowledged" with the single thread. But if there a need for an option to post to a single thread instead of making a new thread, Ill look into the cleanest way to add this to the product.

I see. Well, allow me to make a request, that we be able to choose for the post to be made by a moderator, or the new user's referrer, or perhaps a WelcomeBot. I've always felt it strange to see an automatically generated message posted by a new member. Seems counter-intuitive and somewhat unfriendly to me.


Thanks, that'd be great. On some small-ish forums, this is a cleaner way to handle things, and new members are infrequent enough that no one would get lost in the shuffle.

In case you hadn't seen this, flypaper modified amykhar's similar hack, and it posts to into a thread (instead of starting a whole new thread: )
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=195

Hope this helps.

Hmm...OK, if this is a simple change, Ill add the option in the next day or two. Thinking outloud, Ill prolly just create an option that is defaulted to "0", meaning "post as the new member", or can be set to a userid to have the welcome posted as that userid.

I may have to go change the method for posting the note to make this work, but Ill look at it tonight.

Yeah, this is a simple coding change, but not sure how to do the configuration side. Also will look at this tonight.

I just uploaded v0.91 of this modification.

Per request, this change adds the ability to post the welcome message to a thread by setting the Welcome Forum to "0" and setting the Welcome Thread to the correct threadid. The Welcome Forum takes precedence over the Welcome Thread settings.

Cleaned up some minor coding issues and mis-spellings while I was in there.

Sweet, thanks!

sinaluna has anyone else installed this yet or any way for me to see a demo yet?

I will have it installed on a public forum this weekend. Ill post the link then. If someone else has it installed where others can see it, please feel free to post that here.

Also, I would love to see some template examples people end up using. If I see something cool in them, Ill add it to the product!

I just uploaded v0.92 of this modification.

Per request, this change adds the ability to have the welcome message posted as any existing user. By default, the userid is set to "0", which posts the welcome message as the new user.

Thanks to Tralala for the suggestions...

Awesome, sinaluna, thanks so much for the update.

The other "Welcome Thread" hack posted too early (pre-authorization, pre-mod approval...) so this one should fit the bill nicely.

No problem Tralala...Let me know how it works for you.

Id be interested in seeing the templates you end up using. I really didnt work too hard on making presentable templates. They basically just were built to demonstrate how to link the welcome message and the add on message to each other.

Okay, yeah, I'm working on the wording and workflow to see what makes most sense.

Question: if we don't want any "add on text" to the new user's first post, should we just delete the text in the "welcome_addon" template? It would be nice, I think, if this was another option that could be turned off in AdminCP.

Also, we should be editing the text in the templates of all of our styles? Why not make these as phrases instead?

You can leave the template, but just make it blank. I think Id rather not add another option for it when the blank addon does the same thing logically.

You can just edit them in the default style if you want. The really dont work as phrases, considering all the things that you might want to put in a template. You can add graphics, links, and reference just about any variable in a template. Phrases are VERY limited. You have to define exactly what variables you can that are available before hand and they are hard coded in the plugin then. You would lose any flexibility.

You could create your own welcome phrases and include them in your welcome template if you were worried about language issues, but this is too limiting for this product.

BTW, if you are testing templates you can change the line in the plugin:

to something like:
This will temporarily make any post for a user under 9999 posts create a welcome post. This would not work well on an open, public forum. But in a test forum, or if you have closed the forum for maintanance, this lets you easily test the templates.

This seems to be working okay, for the most part... but I am noticing one issue... it makes new posts in the pre-existing thread, yes... but it doesn't bump that thread and change it's date. So the new posts get lost in the shuffle. Ideally I'd like for these "welcome posts" to act just like any other, effectively being marked as new and bumping the thread.

And one suggestion while I'm at it, it would be nice if we could incorporate the name of the new member's referrer, if they have one, into the Welcome post.

Something like "Thanks to Tralala, we have a new member aboard. Pamela's first post is here. Let's give our new member a hearty welcome!"

Might also be nice to include their avatar. :)

Would either of these be possible?

Ill take a look this week and see how to get the referer info to the template.

great! I look forward to update of this before install! :)

Tralala great suggestions and same update/bump to the thread the intro posted in would be great ,...

eitherway .. staff member of ours stressed for this and im glad we installed it..

great!

Lenny :)

Thanks this works great...

this doesnt work for me....nothing is created

Sorry for the delay but had something come up and it ate up last week entirely. I will get to it this week (I hope)

Just to clarify... can i use this mod to create an auto welcome reply to a members first post? - this would be perfect for me... cheers

-b6

This mod has two parts.

The first part creates a welcome post either as a new thread in a welcome forum or new post in a welcome thread. The second part tacks on some text onto the users first post, based on a template named "welcome_addon". You can turn off either part in the options.

Is this what you need? If not, can you describe exactly what you want?

Hi.. well exactly would be this : Person joins and makes his/hers first post on my forums.... i would like to welcome them automatically in the form of a reply to their first post... i could use a pre-determined template with information for new users etc... y'know what i mean?

-b6

Can it be modified when a user reaches a certain postcount to welcome him in a new section automatically? For example, someone reaches 50 posts and is upgraded to usergroup X. Usergroup X has it's own forum for welcome messages.

Eventually I'd like to add filters like a registration time of x days and a thread amount of x.

I think it's an awesome addition for forums using a hierarchical scheme of ranks.

The thread that this hack posts to never gets bumped and new posts aren't marked as "new."

Is there any way to fix that?

^so does this work as it is like that or it changes?

Any updates to make this work with 3.6?

Looking at it right now...Might be a problem with posting new threads. Ill update here when I get it figured out

Thanks! I'll be watching for it!

The problem was in the posting of the welcome note. There was a small change to the way the libraries created new posts involving the post flooding settings. I have a fix and it is installed on my test forum. As soon as I know its solid, I will post an update here.