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Attention: This version of webtemplates is obsolete since new version (2.xx) is released as of 30.June.2003.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

[Lesane]

Great hack/addition. Well done

[version]

this is basically what i did with my site. i respect that you put a nice face to it, but 'inheriting permission' is no harder than putting a include("./forums/global.php") in your source. should be helpful to quite a few people who don't want the bells and whistles of vbportal, but still maintain integration with vb.

[Logician]

Guys,

If you installed this hack, share your webqueries in this thread

To start the sharing and demonstrate what can be done with this hack, I posted a WebQuery+WebTemplate sample which will give you a page you can read last XX member private messages in your board. Find it there..

Regards,

[jamesdasher]

Hi, Logician...

Anyway, sounds like an interesting hack. The only question that I have is this.

Why should I use your hack instead of doing something like the following:

PHP Code:

<?php
// Default Information - Start with this
error_reporting(7);

$templatesused='forumhome_welcometext,forumhome_logoutcode,forumhome_newposts,forumhome_todayposts,forumhome_logincode';

require('./global.php');

$permissions=getpermissions();
if (!$permissions['canview']) {
    show_nopermission();
}
// Default Information - End

// if user is know, then welcome
if ($bbuserinfo['userid']!=0) {
  $username=$bbuserinfo['username'];
  eval("\$welcometext = "".gettemplate('forumhome_welcometext')."";");
  eval("\$logincode = "".gettemplate('forumhome_logoutcode')."";");
  eval("\$newposts = "".gettemplate('forumhome_newposts')."";");

} else {
  $welcometext = "";
  eval("\$newposts = "".gettemplate('forumhome_todayposts')."";");
  eval("\$logincode = "".gettemplate('forumhome_logincode')."";");
}

eval("dooutput("".gettemplate('home')."");");


?>

that is a very basic custom page that calls vBulletin templates, plus a custom template (called: home). It doesn't have any layout or anything, and I haven't done that much, but it is just like any of vBulletin's normal pages (just no current 'functionality' though it is easy to add, just displays information depending on vBulletin cookies)?

to see the above page in action go to http://www.teenssucceed.com/home.php

That is very easy to do with some custom templates and a basic understanding of how a vBulletin page works (the basic template outputs, etc.)

Why is your hack any better then doing it as above?

Oh, the one custom template used in the basic example above contains the following:

PHP Code:

<html>
<head>
    <!-- no cache headers -->
    <meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">
    <meta http-equiv="no-cache">
    <meta http-equiv="Expires" content="-1">
    <meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" content="no-cache">
    <!-- end no cache headers -->
    <meta name="keywords" content="vbulletin,forum,bbs,discussion,jelsoft">
    <meta name="description" content="$bbtitle is a discussion forum powered by vBulletin. To visit the forum, go to $bburl/ . To find out about vBulletin, go to [url]http://www.vbulletin.com/[/url] .">
    <title>$bbtitle - powered by vBulletin</title>
</head>
<body>
{htmldoctype}
<p>
    $headinclude
<p>
$header
$welcometext
$logincode
$newposts
$footer
<!-- /icons -->

</body>
</html> 


James

[ja5es]

*throws away current project*

crap this is awesome! even better than what I was going to do!

[Logician]

Hey James,

Originally posted by jamesdasher
Why should I use your hack instead of doing something like the following:Why is your hack any better then doing it as above?

* Your sample templates lack the ability to be administered inside vb cp.
* Your sample lacks the ability to have "conditionals", that is simple "if" clauses you can set in your templates without PHP knowledge.
* Your sample lacks the feature to do SQL queries in your db and create automatic tables in HTML, without PHP and even SQL knowledge.
* Your sample requires PHP coding for every template you need to design, especially if you need to ban the template to your users user1 and user2 only or you need to put a hidden text which will be shown to certain users.

What my hack does can be done by coding individiual PHP pages. This hack is no miracle and I didnt say that you cant have the same effects/pages by programming your own PHP scripts. Please read my answer to TWTCommish: This hack gives you to ground to create MANY dynamic pages easily without arduous job of coding, besides you can even have dynamic pages/queries even if you dont know PHP or SQL.

I created this hack for my own site. I could have the same dynamic pages by programming individual PHP scripts but I found it more easy to have a "system" that gives you the ground to easily control these pages without coding them individually. I added "WebQuery" feature to have db Query results easily. Even a guy with 0 knowledge of PHP and SQL can have dynamic pages with this hack by just inserting other's WebQuery's from vb cp.

If you are a PHP/HTML/SQL Wiz and commit time to code your own scripts, then you need neither my hack, nor ANY hacks in this site. You dont even need this site itself! You can create ALL the hacks in this site, by coding your own scripts or hacks. You can ask all hack writers: "I can do this by this PHP code too and why is yours better than mine?" and well, of course you can, you are also a programmer and as you may very well know, same effects can be achieved by different programs. So your question is unanswered, not only for my hack, but all these hacks in this site.

Regards,

[jamesdasher]

Okay, got ya...I think I understand your hack now...thanks for taking the time to help me out

James

P.S. I wish I was a 'programmer' but I am not, I have just spent some time getting to understand the vBulletin template system and am able to call and direct pretty well.

[WizyWyg]

Great hack so far, and room for more potential (It works by the way with no problems of installaiton and Im using it in conjuction with vbportal)

I was wondering if it could be possible to add to it.

I was wondering if it would be possible to change the query for the last 10 and instead of pulling the last 10 threads he/she has posted to the forum, pull only "all" threads he/she has posted to a private forum?

Edit:

Figured out how to do the post all threads (take off limit 10)
But how do I make the query only look at the private forum that he/she only has acces to? And apply to to every usergroup? I have all my users in usergroups (so no one under registered or groupid 2

I think i have the idea to make similar "whoareyou" templates for each usergroup I have so they would only have access to it. Would that be wise to do?

Another q:

Is it possible that instead of taking the user to the actual forum itself to view the thread, but to pull the contents of the thread and have them be viewed in a "threaded" format?

Is this possible?

[Logician]

Originally posted by WizyWyg
I was wondering if it would be possible to change the query for the last 10 and instead of pulling the last 10 threads he/she has posted to the forum, pull only "all" threads he/she has posted to a private forum?

Sure you can! This is what this hack is for: You can have ANY SQL queries in your database and you can make it listed in any Webtemplate you created.

So all you have to do is to add a new "WebQuery" that does the SQL query you need, then attach this webquery to any webtemplates to automatically list it in your page.

One downside: At the moment this hack does not list sql select results in pages in which you click and get the page 2, 3, etc..So you have 2 options: You can query ALL threads and if the query returns say 700 results, all will be listed in one page! Or you can limit your query with SQL command LIMIT then whatever numbers your user has, only your limited number of results will return.

Anyway if you have problems in designing your Webquery, ask me here and I can help you with the query.

[The Piper]

I had already installed WebTemplates in a test board a few weeks ago. Now I tried to install it on my main board, with no success. I did and re-did everything that is described on the installation instructions, but nothing seems to work:

When I go to
http://www.pinkfloydfan.net/forums/s...p?pg=whoareyou

I get a "mySQL error:No Database Selected"

When I go to
http://www.pinkfloydfan.net/forums/s...ebtemplatehelp

I get the "The page you requested does not exist!" error message.

Installation went fine and I'm not sure why this is happening. I'd really appreciate your support.

Thanks,
Paulo