WebTemplates v.0.1 (Old Version)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Attention: This version of webtemplates is obsolete since new version (2.xx) is released as of 30.June.2003.

If you are new user, please visit new hack's thread and install that one, not this version.

This thread is active for discussing migration issues and will be closed in the future.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=




Introduction:
Basically this hack allows you create vbulletin powered non-vb pages within vb admin CP and administer them just like vb templates.

Your "webtemplates" reside inside MYSQL and have the same structure as regular vbulletin templates and you edit/modify/delete them inside your Admin CP. You can create as many as you like and display them like:
http://yoursite URL/yourboard URL/show.php?pg=YOUR_WEBTEMPLATE_NAME.

Features of Your WebTemplates:
* You can easily edit/update your non-vb pages from your vb control panel just like vb templates. No need to FTP or smt.
* Simply backup your vbulletin and your entire site (including your webtemplates) is backed up too.
* You can use some vbulletin variables in your non-vb pages, so eg. address your members with their member names in your entire site.
* Your entire web site can mimic your forum's visual interface. All your fonts/colors etc. are kept in your non-vb. pages too. Besides users' style sets apply for your web templates either. So for instance if you have 2 styles, every user will see your webtemplates in the style and colors they are using in the board.
* This hack allows you to specify usergroups/usernames which can or cannot see the page you designed. So your non-vb pages can inherit vb. access permissions. Every webtemplate can have different display permissions for different users/usergroups.
* You can have counters in your pages and show/trace page visits individually for all your pages. Every webtemplate has its own counter.
* You can have "last visitor's name and visit time" in all your pages.
* You can insert fixed header/footer for all your pages.
* The "conditionals" you can set, allow you to design advanced and dynamic web pages, which change themselves according to the conditions you set. For example you can set different texts/page designs IN THE SAME PAGE for different users and every user will only see the text that is addressed to him.

Webtemplates are very easy to create. Just copy paste the HTML code of your page into the webtemplate box, give it a name, click submit and voila, your webtemplate is up and running! By using this method, you can convert your existing non-vb pages into webtemplates with ease too. It is just a matter of copy/paste its HMTML code. Installation of the hack is easy too and the hack will work any version of vbulletin I know.

For Advanced Users: If you want your webtemplates to get data from your database and display it, you have an advanced feature named "webqueries". WebQueries feature allows you to run SQL queries in your MYSQL database and automatically create sorted tables for you which you can add in any WebTemplates. So your non-vb pages can be dynamic and you can have any kind of SQL results (related with vb or not) in any page you want. Webqueries are optional to use and appeals to people with basic SQL knowledge. You can still create webtemplates very easily without using webqueries if you don't know SQL or don't need to query your database in your webtemplate. If you want to play with webqueries, please read and follow instructions CAREFULLY. This hack gives you advanced tools to create powerful and dynamic web pages, so give yourself sometime and learn how to create these pages. I wrote help pages which you can find in your webtemplates section after installation, so please read them carefully and examine sample page's code before pelting me with questions!

If you installed this hack, share your webquery samples in this thread


Fixes and Add-ons:
* If you have than 1 MYSQL databases, webquery section might not work properly. If you encounter any problems related to that issue, apply the small fix in this post.[/COLOR]
* If you want to display your webtemplates in who is online, apply this small hack .
Also there is a small bug with "conditionals" feature of the hack, if you use more than 1 conditional in 1 webtemplate. I guess very few people use this feature but anyway I fixed it in the new release that is in progress..
* If you want your webtemplates search engine friendly and indexed in google or other search engines, read this tip by Piper.

Current version (BETA v.0.1) is NOT actually a beta anymore, it's proven to be working very well in many people's boards and is stable.

I plan to develop this hack. However to enhance it more, I need to change its algortihm which requires rewriting and I wait for VB3 so that the hack will will be competible with VB3 too. That's why development is pending at the moment.


If you install the hack please click install, thank you.

Regards,
Logician //=^))

[Crinos]

Alright Logician, I decided to give this hack a try, since I like the theory behind it and it might prove to be the easiest way to manage a site.

However, I am still a little confused as to its usage (forgive me if the answer was somewhere in this thread - I didn't want to hunt for a needle in a stack of needles). I mean, there are instructions on how to create webtemplates, but no clear instructions on how to actually use it in relation to the site.

Let's say for example that I have an "About Us" page in .SHTML format found in my root directory ... I want to convert it to .PHP using the webtemplates hack. This is the same procedure I want for all my pages in all other folders outside the forums directory.

So do I cut and paste the entire HTML code of the About Us page into the Webtemplate form and save it as "About_Us"? If so, this would give it the path of www.mysite.com/forums/show.php?pg=About_Us", right? So does this mean that all pages created with Webtemplates will have the "/forums/show.php?pg=" path?

Or am I getting this all wrong - is Webtemplates something you use as an include into your pages? I doubt it, of course, but you never know...

Also, I tried the above procedure and called up my page on the browser. It seems that when I put $header and $footer, it calls up the "default" style of the forums .... I have 5 different potential styles on my forums - how do I automatically make it so that whatever style the user has will be reflected in the webtemplates?

Okay, I'm beginning to confuse myself here, lol ... anyway, I installed it fine and there are no problems whatsoever - I just need to know how to actually use it, y'know... Maybe that is why a few people are not willing to click on the install button for it - coz it is unclear to them on how to actually use this hack.

Give me a step-by-step example on how to do this on a sample page. I am sure this hack is being underestimated because its usage is not as clear as day

Thanks in advance!

[Logician]

Originally posted by Crinos
So do I cut and paste the entire HTML code of the About Us page into the Webtemplate form and save it as "About_Us"? If so, this would give it the path of www.mysite.com/forums/show.php?pg=About_Us", right? So does this mean that all pages created with Webtemplates will have the "/forums/show.php?pg=" path?

Yes that's true: You copy paste the HTML code of your web page into a "webtemplate" by choosing "Add a New Webtemplate" and you also give it a name like "aboutus" (no spaces can exist in the name btw).

Then all you have to do is to visit this page:
yourboardurl/show.php?pg=aboutus

The webtemplate will be displayed just like you call the address:
yoursiteurl/aboutus.shtml

As far as your page content is plain HTML (that is no php/asp etc. codes in it), you can use it with all of your site pages.

Also, I tried the above procedure and called up my page on the browser. It seems that when I put $header and $footer, it calls up the "default" style of the forums .... I have 5 different potential styles on my forums - how do I automatically make it so that whatever style the user has will be reflected in the webtemplates?

If you want to apply a mandatory style to your webtemplate, you dont need the style itself, just use HTML commands. For example you have a style with greenbackground and you want to use that style in one of your webtemplates, just make your background green with plain HTML.

The style feature of the webtemplates apply when you want a webtemplate be displayed differently to different users according to user's style choices (ie. not mandatory by you). For example if you have 2 different styles where your users can choose with 1 red background and the other green, you may want to display the webtemplates accordingly. Its background will be red to red style users and green to greenstyle users etc. To achieve this goal, you have to use "vbulletin style codes" in your webtemplate and then that webtemplate will inherit your forum's style according to user's choices.

For a sample code check the sample webtemplates like "whoareyou", you'll notice how backgrounds, fonts etc. are assigned. It's the same method you use in your ordinary vb templates. Actually webtemplates are just like ordinary vb templates.

Maybe that is why a few people are not willing to click on the install button for it - coz it is unclear to them on how to actually use this hack.

Well you may be right. But I really worked hard to give proper instructions and help files. However please notice that this hack is an advanced hack and you may really write a thick instructions about what you can do with it, if you intended to.

And again most of its features are just related to vbulletin itself. So for example the style usage is just like vb. style usage, nothing different. You paid for vbulletin itself, but IMO even they dont provide that much instructions for usage, do they? Considering the facts that webtemplates is free, I try to give endless support here with no commercial intentions and its just one of my 25 other hacks which I also try to give support, these help documents are really the best I can do now..

If these are not really helpful, well sorry about that..

[Crinos]

Thanks for the detailed explanation Logician

I just wanted to make sure that I will be using your hack correctly, and that it will make site maintenance much easier as it's advertised to do. Your explanation just clinched it - I definitely need this hack and I think it's one of the most useful "functional" hacks out there. I even think it's better than the much hyped store hack (no offense Lesane, hehe), but then again, that's just me.

I like the idea of conditionals - it's an important cornerstone to value exchange and user personalization. It is with this thought that I also installed your Dynamic Announcements hack. I like the idea behind it, and I hope your future hacks always have this in mind.

And I do appreciate the support and documentation - I only nitpick at the best people

[grb123]

I can verify that this hack is absolutely brilliant! Content management is now so easy, I have someone updating the site who has almost no HTML knowledge. They can even create new pages. They couldn't do this before because all the pages were .shtml and it was far more complicated.

The only thing I'm looking for now is the search to be integrated with vb's search (hint , hint )

THANKS LOGICIAN!!

[zonegray]

Can WebTemplates and WebQueries be used in other pages besides show.php?

[Logician]

Originally posted by zonegray
Can WebTemplates and WebQueries be used in other pages besides show.php?

I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly?

Webtemplates are like html pages (in fact they are so, but they just reside in your MYSQL db, just like vb templates). When you load an html page, you call its address and for webtemplates they address are :

yourboard/show.php?pg=WEBTEMPLATE_NAME

To load a webtemplate you have to call its address in this format. If you are asking if you can call a webtemplate without using "show.php", the answer is no because show.php is the script that parses and displays webtemplates. Webtemplates can not be displayed without show.php because they reside in MYSQL and you can't directly access them.

However it's always possible to use .htaccess tricks and redirect another URL to a webtemplate.

Is this what you asked?

[zonegray]

show.php is the script that parses and displays webtemplates

Ahh, that's what I was after. Mostly thinking of the queries, wondering if there's an easy way to use them in regular vB pages. Would have been too good to be true.

[Wildthinks]

Hi Logician,

seems the same problem as in dynamic forun announcement...
This dont work:

                    W E B   T E M P L A T E

WEBTEMPLATE NAME :
--------------------
test


TEMPLATE:
------------ template cut start ------------------------------------------
[options]templatequeryon[/options]
[[($bbuserinfo[styleid]==1)]]
das ost 1
[[/($bbuserinfo[styleid]==1)]]

[[($bbuserinfo[styleid]==12)]]
Das ist 12
[[/($bbuserinfo[styleid]==12)]]

------------ template cut end ------------------------------------------


WEB QUERIES IN THIS WEBTEMPLATE
--------------------

No Webqueries exist in this webtemplate

================================================================================
SHARE YOUR USEFUL WEBTEMPLATE AND WEBQUERY SAMPLES IN VBULLETIN.ORG HERE:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...threadid=36578
You can attach the text file to your message to easily share them. Thank you!
================================================================================
~~~~  Powered by Logician WebTemplates & WebQueries Hack \=^)) ~~~~

Your account is still active....

THX for your help
Reminder: I use the beta

[LOD-squa]

so does this work inside the vbulletin also?

[cono]

i was going to wait for the new version, seems real good.

and announcement date yet? its been a little while.