Dynamic Announcements: Programmable Forum Home Announcement/Message with conditionals

(This hacks works with both 3.5.x and 3.6.x)

This hack allows you to post powerful dynamic announcements (changing according to different conditions) on forum home page. It differs from vbulletin's default announcements in 2 ways:

• The announcement is displayed in forum home page, not inside thread view. So visitors will read them on home page without clicking any links.
• The Hack's announcements are not static: ie. they can be powerfully programmed to display different texts according to different conditions.

For instance you can tell "why they should register" if visitor is a guest, but if he is a member with 0 posts, you can tell him why he should start posting etc.! All in one announcement! Everybody will see the relevant text according to his status. (This is the hack everybody keeps asking in the TheAdminZone.com whose using the hack for members with 0 and 1 posts.)


This version of the hack is for vbulletin 3.5.x and 3.6.x (vb 3.0.x version is here and vb 2.x version is here. 3.5 version is coded as a plugin so you can install it WITHOUT modifying vb PHP files. It is easily installed in 2 steps through your admin cp.

Basic Usage of This Hack: You can set a text in your Admin CP and it's displayed in forum home to all users. Alternatively if you want, you can set another text as a popup announcement and it is displayed to all as a pop up announcement (it can't be killed with popup killers software!)

Advanced Usage : With conditionals you can set different texts/notifications/messages/announcements and they will be displayed if your pre-configured condition applies. This allows you to create powerful announcements/private messages/texts which address their receipt only if a certain condition is met. Some examples:

You can set to show an announcement in forum home IF:

1. user is X
2. user's usergroup is Y
3. user has X posts or has more than Y posts but less than Z posts
4. his last visit time was X days ago
5. today is X, hour is between Y and Z, day is wednesday, month is Y, week is month's 2nd week, today is user's birthday
6. etc.

Here is a Screenshot from a general table announcement.
Here is a Screenshot from a popup announcement.

Some Features:

• Coded as a vbulletin pluggin. Can be installed easily without hacking PHP files.
• It's Admin CP integrated
• Smiley, BBCode, HTML, IMG tags are supported in announcements.
• You can address your users with their usernames inside announcements (Use $bbuserinfo[username] variable)
• Announcements are displayed directly in Forum Home so users are forced to read them.
• The Conditionals help you to design powerful and ever changing announcements/private messages/forum home notifications.
• Poupup announcement can not be killed by popup killer software

Hacks of Hack:
* For CMPS Integration see here
* French Translation by Allan : https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=143
* Nested Conditionals by dc3dreamer : https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=175
* Hack Annoucement appears in all vb pages:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...498#post911498



IMPORTANT FOR 3.x USERS:
If you were already using this hack in 3.0.x, remember to do 2 things:
BEFORE YOU INSTALL THIS HACK : Follow this instructions to remove the remnants of 3.0.x hack.
AFTER YOU INSTALL THIS HACK : Go to your admin cp / styles, find these 3 styles:
dfh_announcement
dfh_announcement_headercode
dfh_announcement_popup
and REVERT THEM so that your new templates that comes with 3.5 version will apply.

About vb4.x version:

I didn't consider porting this hack to vb4 because vbulletin has now a VERY SIMILAR feature in vb4 called "NOTICES". You can find it under your admin cp/Notices submenu/Notice Manager. It is not as powerful as this hack as this hack allows you to use any kind of conditional to produce your announcement but it is more user friendly because you don't need to deal with conditional syntax, you simply build your announcement (notice) with menus
If you install the hack, click INSTALL, thank you..

Logician \\=^))

[Logician]

Originally Posted by tqvn2004

Very nice hack! Keep up the good work, Logician

I have one request for modification: Is it possible to make the announcement appeared in all page, not just forum home page? I would like users to see announcement when they are viewing threads, for example.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....9&postcount=92

[eNforce]

I don't get a popup in firefox 1.0.7 at all


Technically not a bad thing for the user, but as an admin I want users to see it if they are on firefox 1.0.7

[Kran]

I love it, I love it to death, thank you so much

[funinthesun]

*Installed* Can anyone tell me if it works ok on other browsers as I use IE.

Thanks

[Bullethead21]

Works great!! Nice Hack!! Installed has been "clicked"....)

I use IE and it seems to work fine. The pop-up seems to "pop-up" within the VB window so IE settings dont affect it.

[Oblivion Knight]

It should be noted that this will add 2 additional queries to the forumhome if a condition is met by the user and an announcement is displayed. I've not tested this with the pop-up, but it is the case for the table..

I'm glad to see this one ported, very useful indeed!

[funinthesun]

To save me from reading through all the posts on this thread, can anyone tell me if there is a fix on this hack for firefox and netscape users as my members say that they are unable to close the pop up. Thank you

[Logician]

Originally Posted by funinthesun

To save me from reading through all the posts on this thread, can anyone tell me if there is a fix on this hack for firefox and netscape users as my members say that they are unable to close the pop up. Thank you

I try it with Mozilla 1.7.8 and Firefox 1.0.6 and I can close the popup fine.

[funinthesun]

Weird, I tried it after some of my members said they couldn't close it and it won't close for me either? Very odd.

[Logician]

Originally Posted by funinthesun

Weird, I tried it after some of my members said they couldn't close it and it won't close for me either? Very odd.

When did you install the hack? If you installed long ago, get the recent file in the first post. But if you installed in the last 2-3 days, this can't be the problem.