WebTemplates v.0.1 (Old Version)

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Attention: This version of webtemplates is obsolete since new version (2.xx) is released as of 30.June.2003.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

[jbear6]

Very nice, and VERY Powerful! I installed this on my test forum, and installation was a breeze. Even a novice can install this. I am just starting to "play" with this, but it looks incredible.

Thanks for all the time you spent,
Jbear

[grb123]

Originally posted by Logician

You can use this query:

SELECT threadid, left(title,28) as title1 FROM thread WHERE visible='1' AND forumid='1' ORDER BY title LIMIT 10

Dont forget to use ??title1?? in your tablerow

I tried that but all that appears for each thread title is "_" (which is linked to the thread). The title itself doesn't appear.

If I change "left(title,28)" in the query above to just "title", the thread titles appear (but obviously not only the first 28 characters).

[Logician]

@grb123: Can you post your query and tablerow here? let me check what the problem is.. (Also which version are u using?)

@jbear6: thx for the nice comments

[grb123]

Hi Logician

I have the following in my query (using the new, unreleased version of Webtemplates)

Query:

SELECT threadid, left(title,18), forumid, postusername, dateline FROM thread WHERE forumid='28' ORDER BY dateline DESC LIMIT 10

Table:

<tr><td class="leftboxcontent"><a href="$bburl/showthread.php?s=&threadid=??threadid??">??title?? </a></td><tr>

The result:

[Rose]

Logician - Love the hack! Thanks to the patient help of DrkFusion - the hack is installed and working smoothly, and I even have a slight concept of how to use it!

Please take a look at www.thesistersthree.com/site ALL my pages are webtemplates. I know you said not to use a lot of them, but is there a limit? So far it seems really helpful. I don't have a lot of the site finished, but if you check the gallery section, you will see a bunch of different templates in use (for every link there's a template).

If using this many is okay, is there a way to organize them in the admin cp similiar to the template section? For instance - I'd like all the gallery webtemplates to be in one section, spells in another, etc etc.

Also, I'd be interested in allowing more than two webtemplates to be called if you are considering releasing it.

[Logician]

Originally posted by grb123
I have the following in my query

@grb123: It's your query design that has the problem:

Try to follow my suggestion in my previous message. Like this:

Query:

SELECT threadid, left(title,18) as title1, forumid, postusername, dateline FROM thread WHERE forumid='28' ORDER BY dateline DESC LIMIT 10

Tablerow:
<tr><td class="leftboxcontent"><a href="$bburl/showthread.php?s=&threadid=??threadid??">??title1? ?</a></td><tr>

See the difference?

@Rose: Need to go offline now, I'll answer you ASAP..

[grb123]

Originally posted by Logician

@grb123: It's your query design that has the problem:

Try to follow my suggestion in my previous message. Like this:

Query:

SELECT threadid, left(title,18) as title1, forumid, postusername, dateline FROM thread WHERE forumid='28' ORDER BY dateline DESC LIMIT 10

Tablerow:
<tr><td class="leftboxcontent"><a href="$bburl/showthread.php?s=&threadid=??threadid??">??title1? ?</a></td><tr>

See the difference?

Ah excellent- works perfectly! Thanks very much!

[Logician]

Originally posted by Rose
Please take a look at www.thesistersthree.com/site ALL my pages are webtemplates.

I must admit that I'm impressed.. I have seen many sites fully powered with webtemplates, but your site also designed nicely..Who ever did it, congrats, nice job

I know you said not to use a lot of them, but is there a limit? So far it seems really helpful. I don't have a lot of the site finished, but if you check the gallery section, you will see a bunch of different templates in use (for every link there's a template).

There is no limit. You can use as many as you like.

If using this many is okay, is there a way to organize them in the admin cp similiar to the template section?

Sorry.. To achieve this I need to modify existing webtemplate table and this would cause incompetability with the existing version so I dont plan to do it. My suggestion maybe to use similiar names for similiar webtemplates. For example if you name them:
Gallery1_templatexxx
Gallery1_templateyyy
Gallery1_templatezzz
all gallery1 templates will be listed newt to each other and you can track tham easily

Also, I'd be interested in allowing more than two webtemplates to be called if you are considering releasing it.

There is a high demand for this feature but it really effects hack's performance badly by slowing the parsing and increasing loading time. So I cant promise for that feature.. Let's see what will happen in the next release..

[Aerith_Freak]

This will probably sound like the stupidest question ever. But if I use WebTemplates do I HAVE to use my forum stylesets as my layout in the WebTemplates?

I mean instead of the layout showing according to the styleset the user has selected is it possible to code it so the whole site appears as a specific styleset that is the same for all users, but that styleset is not accessible through the user cp.

I like the premise of this hack, but I don't quite fancy my forums styleset as the layout for my entire site.

[Logician]

Originally posted by Aerith_Freak
This will probably sound like the stupidest question ever. But if I use WebTemplates do I HAVE to use my forum stylesets as my layout in the WebTemplates?

Sure it's not mandatory. Using user styles in your webtemplates is a feature the hack gives you in case you want to use it. It's all upto you..

The system works like this: Webtemplates are basically HTML pages so they display the HTML source (together with vb variables if you choose to) when they are loaded. Simply put the source of any HTML page into a webtemplate and this webtemplate will display it in the design of the page. So if you dont use vb style sheet elements in your source code, they wont be displayed and your webtemplate will have a permenant style, just like a static HTML page.

I hope this helps you to understand the logic..