welcome/login panel on non-vB page

I've seen a lot of requests for this around here, but no solutions.

Latest version is 1.30
Works with V2.2.9 Should work with earlier version of 2.2.x too.


OVERVIEW
========
This hack/modification is designed to create a welcome panel on your non-vB homepage, so that users are either welcomed back if they are registered, or invited to login/register if they are not.

There are config options to show avatar and/or PM information and/or who's online (with or without usernames) in your welcome panel.

If you want to see a working example, then go to http://www.thebookforum.com The hack installed there does not show all of its features, but gives a general idea. The templates allow complete control over the look of the login/welcome panel.

There is one PHP file (webwelcome.php) to upload, and ten custom VB templates to create.

The templates can be modified to suit the design of your site. The ones that I have included in the zip file are those that I created for my site.

There are options to include the following additional info
- Avatar for guests or user's own avatar if logged in. If no avatar selected, a default one will be shown. Example guest and default avatars included in this release package.
- PM info to logged in users (will not show if user cannot use PMs or has chosen not to)
- Who's online (number of members of guests). Additional option to choose whether to show usernames.


CREDITS
======
This hack also uses some code originally written by several members of vbulletin.org in particular Firefly and MrLister.

Full credit is given in the php file for the relevent bits of code used. I have modified their code slightly to work with this hack.

I have not formally asked their permission due to the open source nature of the hacks at vbulletin.org
If they object I will remove their code from this hack release.


HISTORY
======
V1.30 13 September 2002
Hack creation now very simple. No more copy & paste. I've changed a lot of the original vb code so copy & paste would be nearly impossible.
Added option to include PM info and who's online (with or without usernames) in the welcome panel.
Default templates included in the hack release altered to include these new options.
New templates for the additional info to be shown.

V1.20 11 September 2002
Added option to include user's avatar in the welcome panel.
Default templates included in the hack release altered to include these new options.
Default templates altered to be more generic.

V1.10 13 May 2002
Fixes the bug where the "most users online...." on the forum page keeps reseting to zero.
Removes a lot of the unecessary bloat from the script.
Creation of script simplified. Now just cut and paste.
NB template name change in this version - webwelcome_home is now called webwelcome.

V1.00 07 April 2002
Original release.

[glo]

Hi Darren, I am testing the code on its own as I think that when inserted into my page that it gets corrupted along the way?

Anyway, when it logs me in, and i select "user CP" it doesnt send me to the correct link cause the directory for the forums is above the folder where the link is?

Can you please make some suggestions???

[Darren Lewis]

Sure

The paths for the links are controlled by the templates. The one for the UserCP is in the webwelcome_logoutcode template. You may want to add $bburl instead of the forums/ bit in the link?

I'm sure that something is getting corrupted on that page. I've attached a screenshot of what I get when viewing the php page. Anyone got any suggestions as to why it suddenly stops, and displays the raw HTML?

[WHO]

I have a few questions. Maybe someone can answer them for me.

I installed this, and for the most part it works great. When I first tried to install it, I put the "global.php" section at the top of the page and it didn't work at all.

So instead, I made a page called "login.php" with the following code:

PHP Code:

    <?php
    chdir("vbulletin/");
    require('global.php');
    include ("../webwelcome.php"); 
    chdir("../");
    ?>

I then included that from the page and everything worked great...for the most part.

It's not exactly a horrible bug that I'm getting because it's somewhat difficult to reproduce, but still a bit annoying. I open two web browsers, go to my homepage with one, and the forums home with the other.

On the homepage browser, I log out. I refresh the forms home browser and then log in on that page. THEN, I go back to the browser with the homepage in it and refresh it.

Without fail, there will be a "headers already sent" type error, but it goes away if I click on a link to the forum. If I just sit there and refresh it, it doesn't go away though.

Lost yet?


Another question I have is: Is it normal for all the guests that are just visiting the homepage to be listed as guests in vB now? If I'm logged in as an admin, I see the exact location on my site where they are, but if I'm logged in as anyone else it just says "Main Index". Normal?

Also, I noticed a big jump in page views and referrers according to the vBstats hack I installed. Will it count all the hits on my entire site now? Or just a fluke?

Thanks

[NTLDR]

Make sure in both webwelcome.php and the login.php you created that there is no whitespace (blank spaces) before <?php and after ?>

[WHO]

Originally posted by NTLDR
Make sure in both webwelcome.php and the login.php you created that there is no whitespace (blank spaces) before <?php and after ?>

Oh, thanks. Didn't realize that.

Still the same result though

[WHO]

Actually, now that I've tested it a little more, I really can't tell when this is happening. There are a few different ways it happens, most of them involving clicking back to the homepage from the forums.


http://www.truthhurts.org is the URL if anyone is interested.

[NTLDR]

Make sure the spaces arn't in main.php or functions.php either, if are no spaces then the error is on line 7 on main.php

[WHO]

Originally posted by NTLDR
Make sure the spaces arn't in main.php or functions.php either, if are no spaces then the error is on line 7 on main.php

Line 7 on main.php is the link to my CSS file. Could that have something to do with it? If so, how could I go about fixing it?

[NTLDR]

I would say yes that is the problem. The code in functions.php is trying to do stuff that must be done before any output is sent to the browser. So make sure there is no HTML before you have the bit where you require global.php in your main.php file.

[WHO]

Originally posted by NTLDR
I would say yes that is the problem. The code in functions.php is trying to do stuff that must be done before any output is sent to the browser. So make sure there is no HTML before you have the bit where you require global.php in your main.php file.

Thanks, I managed to fix it I think. For some reason when I put the code directly on the top of main.php I got the same error. But when I stuck the include for the login file that I made right there, it worked great.