WebTemplates 3.x: VB Integrated Content Management System

After a long wait, here is the new 3.x version of Webtemplates for vB 3.x boards. First a short introduction for users who are not familiar with the old version:

This hack is a vBulletin integrated content management system. Term "Webtemplates" stands for dynamic webpages that reside in your MYSQL database and administered inside your vbulletin admin control panel. But they are more than regular site pages because they can automatically inherit visual design of your forum, can apply permissions according to your vb usergroup settings, can keep track of page counts, last visitorname/visit time, display page browsers in the page itself and in your whoisonline page etc. So basically webtemplates are dynamic web pages of your site which are powered by vbulletin. Or more simply putting, with this hack you can create regular HTML pages in your vB admin cp and these pages will be integrated into your vbulletin database about permissions, styles etc.


WEBTEMPLATES 3.x FEATURES:

• Easy Installation : Webtemplates can be installed to your board without modifying even a single vbulletin file, nor does it modify any vbulletin database table! It is coded as an add-on, not a hack.
• Apply VB Permissions: You can ban any webtemplate to any user or usergroup according to their userids or usergroupids. So for instance you can design a webtemplate which only members can see while guests can not, or only user A can not see etc.
• Private Webtemplates : With 1 click you can make a webtemplate "private" and it will be displayed to only certain usergroups.
• Draft Webtemplates : You can put webtemplates in "draft" mode which makes them invisible to all but admins.
• Page Counter : Each webtemplate has a built-in counter and you can display page count to your visitors and you can edit it or turn it OFF or ON per webtemplate basis.
• Visitor Logging&Tracking : You can track certain users' (by usergroup or userid) webtemplates visits to see who visited a webtemplate and when. This is configurable per webtemplate basis. Webtemplates have visits logs which admins can see.
• Site Contributers (Editor) Support : You can grant editing permissions for certain users or usergroups for your webtemplates individually and they will be able to update these webtemplates using their own editor interface. vB's WYSIWYG editor is supported in Editor interface!
• Page Browsers Display : Webtemplates can display who is browsing that webtemplate while people is reading them (like default forum browse display of vbulletin)
• Who is Online Display : Webtemplates can display page visitors in who is online (This is Optional and require a simple hacking in file /functions_online.php). You can create private webtemplates which are hidden in who is online too.
• Header/Footer Inclusion : Webtemplates can automatically use headers/footers (your default vb header/footer or custom ones)
• Help Documents : The script comes with built-in & detailed help documents (they are webtemplates too).
• Admin Panel in Webtemplates : Your webtemplates can include an "admin panel" displayed to only admins and by using them you can access many details and stats of your page while you are browsing them.
• Good Performance : Webtemplates 3.x structured so that it performs well even under heavy load conditions and high traffic servers. (See Performance issues below)
• Easy Back up: Simply back up your database (inside vbulletin or externally) and all your webtemplate structure is also backed up automatically.

ADVANCED FEATURES FOR ADVANCED USERS:

• Webquery Feature : With advanced "webquery" feature you can now add create dynamic webtemplates which include database query results. For instance you can easily add "last 10 threads forum X", "most active users list" etc. to your webtemplates with default webqueries that comes with installation or you can create your custom webqueries with basic SQL knowledge.
• Multi Parsing : Webtemplates can parse PHP or HTML or TEXT (=smilie/img tags/bbcode parsing like vb posts). This means you can design a page just like vb posts (TEXT parsing), standart HTML (HTML parsing) or even in PHP (PHP parsing).
• PHPINCLUDE per webtemplate : Every webtemplate has its own "phpinclude" field which you can run PHP codes before loading the Webtemplate
• Theme Support : Webtemplates support "themes" which are parent webtemplates which include child webtemplates in them. For instance if you have 20 similiar pages which uses the same visual look, you can make a single theme for all of them, then just insert their content into this theme. If you change theme later, all 20 pages' visual will change automatically.
• Conditionals : Webtemplates has built-in support for Logician's advanced templates conditionals so you can design webtemplates which change their display under different conditions. (Even if you don't have that hack installed)
• Default variables : You can use/display certain variables in your webtemplates like username of the visitor, visitor email address, last visit time, page creation time, page last edit time, Last visitor name, last visit time etc.
• Archieve to Text File : Webtemplates/Webqueries can be downloaded to a text file with one click for archiving purposes. You can also easily share these text files with other hack users.
• Outside Variables : Advanced users can now use outside variables in webtemplates, then webtemplates will accept/use/process user sent variables via HTTP_GET and HTTP_POST methods (eg. a HTML form can post to a webtemplate with this feature)

For screenshots, FAQ, performance issues, migration from old version to new version, see below.

If you use the hack, clicking here will make sure you'll know about updates&bug fixes. It will also help me understand how many people is using the hack so please click the install button if you use it. Thank you..


Version Updates:
16.Feb.2005 - > Version 3.01

* Hack released.




3.5 Version :
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=103076

[Logician]

Originally Posted by slim cutty

Thanks for the bug fix hope you update the view.php file before someone else downloads

Updated, thank you!

[bulbasnore]

Originally Posted by Logician

What you are trying to achieve is really sophisticated and I can not say if you can do it with webtemplates or not without trying it.

3-webqueries can only query vb database. But if you use your own DB connection commands in your phpinclude field of webtemplates, they are not blocked so your commands can query other dbs.

OK I finally installed your system on the test-board. Nice and easy, thanks. Love the built in help with the variables.

Here's how far I got:

Selection page (a.php) This db driven page loads its date for the selection drop down just fine. Yay!

Update Form (b.php) Alright, this page comes up blank, except for static text, but no errrors. In my php code I'm looking for this variable (adodb style): $HTTP_POST_VARS['formSetNo'] . It apparently isn't being passed, even though I put this HTTP_POST_VARS['formSetNo'] in your blank for "Outside Variables".

I'm guessing "Outside Variables" is expecting slightly different syntax OR "Outside Variables" can only pass info to some restricted part of the page.

Would you again steer me down the right path? If I can get this variable's value from the post, the problem is licked!

Again, my compliments on an easy install.

[jluerken]

Originally Posted by Inzagi

Is there a version of the hack for vb 3.5 or is it planned ?

I would like to know this also...

[Logician]

Originally Posted by bulbasnore

OK I finally installed your system on the test-board. Nice and easy, thanks. Love the built in help with the variables.

Here's how far I got:

Selection page (a.php) This db driven page loads its date for the selection drop down just fine. Yay!

Update Form (b.php) Alright, this page comes up blank, except for static text, but no errrors. In my php code I'm looking for this variable (adodb style): $HTTP_POST_VARS['formSetNo'] . It apparently isn't being passed, even though I put this HTTP_POST_VARS['formSetNo'] in your blank for "Outside Variables".

I'm guessing "Outside Variables" is expecting slightly different syntax OR "Outside Variables" can only pass info to some restricted part of the page.

Would you again steer me down the right path? If I can get this variable's value from the post, the problem is licked!

Again, my compliments on an easy install.

Try to set your outside variable as "formSetNo" instead of "HTTP_POST_VARS['formSetNo']"

[Logician]

Originally Posted by Inzagi

Is there a version of the hack for vb 3.5 or is it planned ?

I don't have such a plan in the near future, however I believe webtemplates should work with vb3.5 either (not tested by me). Since it is a add-on, not a hack and it does not change any vb db tables, nor vb source coude, I don't think a 3.5 version is needed either. 3.5's pluggin support is for hacks which changes vb source code but webtemplates does not.

I can advise better after I checked 3.5 code myself (which I haven't done yet) but I'd encourage people to test a 3.5 installation as it shouldn't have any clash issues.

[bulbasnore]

Originally Posted by Logician

Try to set your outside variable as "formSetNo" instead of "HTTP_POST_VARS['formSetNo']"

Ah, thanks for the reply.

I tried this, but the missing piece for me was -

Don't try to read from the http_post_vars array. The value is passed DIRECTLY in the variable(s) you reserve in the outside variables link.

So, where my code was:

$somevar = $HTTP_POST_VARS['formSetNo']

if had to become

$somevar = $formSetNo;

So, my path was:

1. a.php - Select from a menu and post the selection as 'formSetNo' (normal form menu code).
2. b.php - set 'outside variables' to formSetNo in the control panel AND read from $formSetNo in the script
3. c.php - now here is the trick! There are about 200 variables that get created by b.php and posted to c.php (arrays of arrays). That is probably going to HAVE to be an outside form!!

[harry1951]

If I run http://mywebsite.co/forum/admincp/webtemplate.php I get this error:

Warning: main(..\wt_options.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in \admincp\webtemplate.php on line 29

Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required '..\wt_options.php' (include_path='.;c:\php4\pear') in D:\mywebsite\www\forum\admincp\webtemplate.php on line 29

The OS = WinNT 4.0

I removed the if else statement and changed it to a direct require_once and then it works fine.

[Bro_Joey_Gowdy]

Is this available for vb3.5.0 yet ?

[bulbasnore]

Hey there! I now have WebTemplates installed on our production forum and will be moving the pages from the test board into it this weekend. That is the last use I have for our test board before I start testing our systems with 3.5, so when I get around to testing WT with 3.5 I'll let you know the results (probably not 'til late Sept).

I did some further exploration in this vast system and tried the priv_privatemessages template. This template is to return the last 30 pms on the board! However, it returns 30 pms, in an order I don't understand (database hash?).

Anyway, as I microscopic contribution to this vast system, I provide the code to to change the privatemessages example so it does give you the last 30. Insert the code in red into the $WQ_priv_privatemessages webquery.

SELECT pm.pmid, pm.pmtextid, pm.userid, pm.folderid, pm.messageread, pt.fromusername, pt.fromuserid, pt.title, pt.message, pt.touserarray, pt.dateline, u.username AS tousername
FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "pm pm
LEFT JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "pmtext pt ON pm.pmtextid = pt.pmtextid
LEFT JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "user u ON pm.userid = u.userid
WHERE pm.folderid = '0' order by pm.pmid DESC
LIMIT 0 , 30

Anyway, this is dangerous code, like any code! After I'm done putting up our price guide in WT, I think I'll adapt this example so that members can see their last 50 PMs on a page. We have people who make lots of trades and I imagine going one by one through their PMs to find where to send the requested items can be a pain. Seeing the last 30-50 at once will let them pick off the addresses and items in one scroll.

[T3MEDIA]

Is there a way to make a very simple WOL varable? WOL as in Who's online on the whole site not just viewing the Logician's Webtemplates page. Like online.php. I used a iframe and put online.php in it but I do not want the header and footer (making a nice personals page). Any ideas if anyone is still into this?

Thanks in advance.