[wirewolf]

Michael, great tutorial. I've added the "Annoucements" and the "My Links". Both are working. I added one other conditional for those interested. I have a few members whose email keeps bouncing. So I created a new usergroup (Bounced Email), and added these members to it. Then created a new annoucement (announcement_bouncedmail) and added it to the array of annoucements in phpinclude_start. See below (XX is the number of this new group):

else if (is_member_of($bbuserinfo, XX)) // Bounced Mail
{
eval('$announcement = "' . fetch_template('announcement_bouncedmail') . '";');
}

How do I know if it works? I have a couple of "test" users accounts invisible to the other members. One has an email address that I know will bounce. After logging myself off and clearing cookies, I logged on as this test user, and there was the "Bounced Email" message. Part of this message is for these users to correct (update) their email address(s). I changed the permissions for this group so they can't post until they fix their email problem. If they fail to visit the forum after awhile, and after repeated attempts to contact them, I'll just delete the users' accounts.

BTW, these messages have had the desired effect. Especially for the "noposts" and the "noposts14days". Quite a few of my users that have not posted or not posted in awhile, and have visited the forum, have gotten the message and made a post. In part of my nopost and nopost14days messages I put in a link to my "Indroduction" forum as a suggestion, and it's worked!

I also created new phrases for insertion into the different announcement templates. Makes it easier to make message changes later on.

One question. I have two new required profile fields on registration (forces new registrants, but not old members). Part of the messages for members (all old exsisting members) that I have now is for them to check these new fields in the UserCP, but it does not force them to fill these out. I guess I could create another usergroup for those members that have not filled out these fields and include it in the phpinclude_start as another annoucement or is there a way do include the conditional for these "$post[fieldX]'s" into the annoucement templates I have now? I was looking at Revan's "Newbie Lock mod" and thinking of adapting it for this purpose. But his mod forces the user to a particular forum, not reguired profile fields. It's never easy!
Thanks, wirewolf