Add-On Releases - Limited Guest Viewing -- Improve community registration rates

Note: This addon works with the 3.6.x series only. Click Here for the 3.7.0 version of this addon.

With vBulletin, forum guests are able to view endless amounts of content without being directly asked or forced to register no matter how many times they come back. The purpose of the Limited Guest Viewing System is to drive in registrations by limiting the number of threads guests are able to view without interruption.

This plugin offers two options which can be used to drive in more registrations. The first option allows you to show a reminder message or advertisement after a guest has viewed a certain number of threads. The second option puts up a roadblock stopping guests from viewing threads altogether after reaching a certain number of views. Both options work together to encourage and ultimately force anonymous visitors to either register or login but can also be used separately based on your individual needs.

Because this plugin uses cookies, few if any bots will be impacted when it comes to spidering your site.

Modifications/ Instructions:
Template edits: 1
Plugins: 1 (adds 1 template and several settings)

This template hack should take under 5 minutes to implement and customize.

Customizing the content / messages
To customize which messages appear or what they say, go to vBulletin options, select the ?Limited Guest Viewing System? group and configure the options as desired. Each phase can be modified by adding translation text.

Through the ACP you can enable or disable each option, specify the number of threads that can be viewed before the option is enabled and input any forums you wish to exclude from being blocked.

About spiders/bots
This plugin works by setting a cookie to track the number of visits from a particular user. As bots do not tend to accept cookies, they should not be blocked. To further insure there is no spider accessibility issues, there script identifies major bots (google, yahoo, msn, aol) and explicitly lets them through -- you can easily add to this list by editing the plugin code should you so desire, however, unless a bot starts taking cookies this should not be necessary.


Welcome headers compatibility
The Limited Guest Viewing is designed to work with the Welcome Headers system without any conflict. To insure that welcome header messages do not show up at the same time as the limited guest viewing message, please be sure you are running welcome headers version 4.1.3 or greater (released 11/19).

Updates
5/9/2008 - Released update to prevent installs on 3.7 boards.
2/18/2007 - Minor update to fix register link. Updates optional.
11/20/2006 - Minor update released to fix error with links in some messaging. Updates recommended.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by iheartvb

your the man ted! thank you sooooooooooo much!!!

Glad I could be of assistance.

[swatkins]

Thanks! Installed and working well!

[mrkhm]

hi!

thanks for this amazing hack, i hope someone can answer this,

at the moment, looking at your xml file it seems the current code is

 if ($show['guest'] AND !$lvgbot AND $vbulletin->options['lgvon'])

but i would like the system to work as

if (is_member_of($bbuserinfo, x) AND !$lvgbot AND $vbulletin->options['lgvon'])

can you see what i am trying to do is make this work for a particular forum for a particular usergroup not just for guests and the only other way is to use if ($show['member']) (which does work but then it's a blanket application to ALL MEMBERS, i just want a specific usergroup.

do i have to call the global file or something?

please advise.

[Ted S]

mrkhm, You can combine the function is_member_of($bbuserinfo, x) with $show['guest'] like follows:

PHP Code:

if( ($show['guest'] OR  is_member_of($bbuserinfo, x) ) AND !$lvgbot AND $vbulletin->options['lgvon']) ) .... 


[mrkhm]

thanks for your response Ted S, before i saw yours, i managed to get this line of code to work:

if ($show['member'] AND is_member_of($vbulletin->userinfo, 2) AND !$lvgbot AND $vbulletin->options['lgvon'])

as supposed to

is_member_of($bbuserinfo, 2)

it's just every time they log out, vbulletin clears the cookies, but i take point that this was designed for guest views and not exactly for the way i am trying to modify it into sort of pay-per-views

but thank you all the same...

[Ted S]

Theres no need for "$show['member'] AND ", to be in a group you must be a member.

But yes, logging out clears the cookies which would get around this. If your goal is pay per view you'd likely want an addon that stores views in a database and hard counts them. This can of course be done with a little bit of customization.

[mrkhm]

hi ted can you do this.. i will pm you

[Welshy2008]

Thank You very Much. Works a treat. (My first Hack too).

[Welshy2008]

Hi,

Could you tell me how I can remove the message at the top on the hompage Please? And just keep the message that shows when guests have used up the stated amount of viewings before registering.

Many Thanks.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Welshy2008

Hi,


Could you tell me how I can remove the message at the top on the hompage Please? And just keep the message that shows when guests have used up the stated amount of viewings before registering.

Many Thanks.

This addon does not show on your forum homepage. Check your other addons and be sure you have properly installed this one.