The Arcive of Official vBulletin Modifications Site.

Welcome headers - Improve community registration rates · **Released**: 10-28-2005

vBulletin 3.6 users click here for the 3.6 compatible version of this plugin.

The out of the box vBulletin style does not have a robust method of informing users about their current activity status or user level. As a result, guests entering on a page other than the homepage (which is most often the case) have no idea what a forum is about or that they may need to register. Additionally, there are no visible status indicators, making it confusing for unconfirmed, unapproved or new members to know what to do or where to begin.

To help solve these problems, the welcome headers plugin creates a 5-part set of conditionals to better introduce members to your community while pushing them to register, activate or post. The default templates are just that, default ? I highly encourage you to tweak the language and functions to meet the needs of your actual community environment.

Modifications/ Instructions:
Template edits: 2
Plugins: 1 (adds 1 template and several settings)

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

What?s new in 4.1.0
The 4.1.0 version of this system is a complete rewrite from earlier versions. All of the original functionality still exists; however, the system has been improved to make it much more modular. With the new version, you can now turn on/off individual welcome header messages, configure the content and change other settings all from your ACP Options panel. Additionally, a 5th welcome header has been added for global announcements. With the exception of one small phrase change, this upgrade is seamless to upgrade.

Upgrade Instructions:
Full upgrade instructions can be found in the attached zip file. However, to avoid confusion anyone upgrading from the 4.0.x version of this plugin to 4.1.x should do the following:

1 ? Upload the new version of the plugin file based on your version of vBulletin (3.5 or 3.6). Be sure to set the override option to ?yes?.
2 ? Go to your phrase manager and search for the phrase ?first_visit_message?, copy any customizations you have made to this phrase into the phrase ?welcome_guest?.
3 ? Go to your vBulletin options, select the ?Welcome Header System? group and configure the options as desired.

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

Details on how it all works:
Step One: Turning lurkers into Members
For most websites, upwards of 50% of traffic (or more) comes through search engines or deep links to threads, profiles and categories. Out of the box, vBulletin only displays a welcome message on the forum-homepage, meaning someone who enters through any other page does not have the benefit of seeing an explanation of the site or welcome message. The guest welcome header is used to explain the purpose of your site, sell users on the benefits of joining the community and push them to proactively register.

Step Two: Making Users Confirm their Account
Many vBulletin sites require email confirmation prior to being able to post or access an account. However, activation emails are often misdirected to spam folders, ignored or simply deleted, leaving unconfirmed users with little access rights and no explanation as to what is wrong with their account. The unconfirmed welcome header is used to inform unconfirmed members of their account status and to direct them to automatically resend their activation email, or to contact the webmaster for support.

Step Three: Get non-posting users to post
Another chronic problem faced by many forums is insuring users post after registering. Many new visitors register in order to access certain features with the intent of posting, but never do so. The never posted welcome header is used to encourage users to post for their first time and should ideally be linked directly to an introductions or new member forum to help users "break the ice".

Step Four: Getting inactive users to become more active
Many members start out as lurkers, register, post once or twice and then go back to being lurkers. Often time these members are not actively thinking about participating in topics or are still shy about interacting. The inactivity welcome header reminds members to make a post after a predetermined amount of time as specified by the forum administrator.

Step Five: General Announcements
Unfortunately the standard announcements are often overlooked or never even seen by members who use the "new posts feature". As a result, urgent notices may be missed by users causing problems and high volumes of support requests. The global announcement welcome header creates a message shown to all members who do not fall into the other welcome header groups (guest, unconfirmed, never posted, inactive). Whether it be a scheduled outage/ upgrade, an important request or the need to display an advertisement in a prominent spot, global announcements allow an administrator to effectively and quickly display messages in a way that is certain to be read.

The results:
At first glance this system may seem a bit superfluous, however, the numbers rarely lie, nor does the feedback. Since posting this plugin in October, it has risen to over 1700 confirmed installations and is now one of the top 5 vBulletin plugins. On ScubaBoard.Com, the site the system was originally tested on, posting rates have increased by over 100%; new user registration rates by over 60%; user activity by 50% and the welcome/ intro & greets forum has exploded over 400%. If you browse through the pages of this thread you will find even more real life testimonials and experiences from the thousands of people using the system.

But enough about why -- give it a shot yourself and let me know how your results turn out.

vBulletin 3.6 users click here for the 3.6 compatible version of this plugin.

99SIVTEC · #92 11-01-2005, 01:56 PM

It works fine on my boards when I use the code manually inserting

PHP Code:


			
<if condition="THIS_SCRIPT != 'register' AND THIS_SCRIPT != 'login'">

<if condition="$show['guest']"> 

    <!-- guest welcome message --> 

    <br />

    <table class="tborder" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" border="0" width="100%" align="center">

    <thead>

    <tr> 

    <td class="alt1" colspan="6">

        <phrase 1="faq.php?$session[sessionurl]" 2="register.php?$session[sessionurl]">$vbphrase[first_visit_message]</phrase>

         $vbphrase[welcome_ads]

    </td>

    </tr>

    </thead>

    </table>

    <!-- / guest welcome message -->

<else /> 



<if condition="is_member_of($bbuserinfo, 3)">

    <!-- / unconfirmed user message -->

    <br />

    <table class="tborder" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" border="0" width="100%" align="center">

    <thead>

    <tr> 

    <td class="alt1" colspan="6">

       $vbphrase[welcome_unconfirmed]

       $vbphrase[welcome_ads]

    </td>

    </tr> 

    </thead>

    </table>

    <!-- / unconfirmed user message -->

<else />



<if condition="$bbuserinfo[posts]<1">

    <!-- never posted message -->

    <br />

    <table class="tborder" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" border="0" width="100%" align="center">

    <thead>

    <tr>

      <td class="alt1" colspan="6">

         <phrase 1="$bbuserinfo[username]">$vbphrase[welcome_neverposted]</phrase>

          $vbphrase[welcome_ads]

     </td>

    </tr>

    </thead>

    </table>  

    <!-- / never posted message -->

<else /> 



<if condition="$headerstime - 1209600 > $bbuserinfo[lastpost]">

    <!-- never posted message -->

    <br /> 

    <table class="tborder" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" border="0" width="100%" align="center"> 

    <thead>

    <tr> 

        <td class="alt1" colspan="6">

           <phrase 1="$bbuserinfo[username]">$vbphrase[welcome_postmoreoften]</phrase>

            $vbphrase[welcome_ads]

       </td>

    </tr>

    </thead>

    </table>

    <!-- / never posted message -->

</if>

</if>

</if>

</if>

</if>

into the header template, but using the plugin kills all of my sites.

caliman · #93 11-01-2005, 01:59 PM

Ted this installed without any probs for me just now.

However I did your original version for 3.0.7 before I upgrade to 3.5 and although I still had to do the first step of removing the stock guest welcome on the FORUMHOME template, I noticed that my welcome phrases that I modified from your original version were not overwritten by the new ones. Not sure if this helps, but I thought you should know. I was actually relieved they were not, so perhaps you were thinking it was better to leave them.

Anyway, this is still one of my favorite mods and anyone that had problems before should check out the latest version as of the 30th as I noticed it said he fixed some header issues.

99SIVTEC · #94 11-01-2005, 03:12 PM

Found the code that causes the problem for some people. It's the cache portion of the xml. I'm not sure why it causes problems, but I found two ways to fix it for now.

find the code below in vbwelcome_headers.xml and change the plugin active="1" to a 0 like below, or disable the Welcome Headers [Template Cache] plugin in your plugin manager.

PHP Code:


			
<plugin active="0">

            <title><![CDATA[Welcome Headers [Template Cache]]]></title>

            <hookname>fetch_userinfo</hookname>

            <phpcode><![CDATA[

                global $globaltemplates;

                $globaltemplates  = array_merge($globaltemplates, array('welcome_headers'));

            ]]></phpcode>

        </plugin>

dfdems · #95 11-01-2005, 05:25 PM

I didnt have any problems with it in Firefow but when I veiwed it in IE I had to messages, one above and below the nav bar. Any clue why or a fix?

PET · #96 11-01-2005, 09:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tanyeri24

MY ADMIN PANEL IS CRASHED BECAUSE THIS PRODUCT PLEAS DON'T INSTALL IT!! I CANNOT LOGIN TO MY ADMINCP GETTING THIS ERROR:
Warnung: array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument #1 is not an array in /includes/functions.php(1047) : eval()'d code (Zeile 3)

AND ONLY THIS ERROR.

Reduced to normal font size. It's really not necessary to shout out that loud. Andreas

Same problem here...i also installed this new update 4.0.3 !

99SIVTEC · #97 11-01-2005, 09:23 PM

Check my temporary fix above

Quote:

Originally Posted by PET

Same problem here...i also installed this new update 4.0.3 !

dan35 · #98 11-01-2005, 09:46 PM

4.0.3 works great!

Thanks! Clicked install

Ted S · #99 11-02-2005, 01:38 AM

Thanks Dan!

caliman, the hack doesn't overwrite the phrases which is a good thing, a very good thing!

99SIVTEC, thanks for discovering that. I'll try to duplicate this on a new board and move that portion of the plugin elsewhere.

GrendelKhan{TSU · #**100** 11-02-2005, 05:05 AM

Q: what do we need to edit in order to control the FONT SIZE of the messages?

I tried a few things but nothing seems to work.
<<< n00b.

Snake · #**101** 11-02-2005, 06:56 AM

Just add the FONT tag in all the phrases.

ie: <font size="XX">something goes here</font>

X vBulletin 3.8.12 by vBS Debug Information
Page Generation 0.09748 seconds Memory Usage 2,346KB Queries Executed 25 (?)
More Information
Template Usage: (1)SHOWTHREAD (1)ad_footer_end (1)ad_footer_start (1)ad_header_end (1)ad_header_logo (1)ad_navbar_below (1)ad_showthread_beforeqr (2)bbcode_php (2)bbcode_quote (1)footer (1)forumjump (1)forumrules (1)gobutton (1)header (1)headinclude (1)modsystem_post (1)navbar (6)navbar_link (120)option (1)pagenav (1)pagenav_curpage (4)pagenav_pagelink (3)pagenav_pagelinkrel (11)post_thanks_box (11)post_thanks_button (1)post_thanks_javascript (1)post_thanks_navbar_search (11)post_thanks_postbit_info (10)postbit (11)postbit_onlinestatus (11)postbit_wrapper (1)spacer_close (1)spacer_open (1)tagbit_wrapper Phrase Groups Available: global inlinemod postbit posting reputationlevel showthread	Included Files: ./showthread.php ./global.php ./includes/init.php ./includes/class_core.php ./includes/config.php ./includes/functions.php ./includes/class_hook.php ./includes/modsystem_functions.php ./includes/functions_bigthree.php ./includes/class_postbit.php ./includes/class_bbcode.php ./includes/functions_reputation.php ./includes/functions_post_thanks.php Hooks Called: init_startup init_startup_session_setup_start init_startup_session_setup_complete cache_permissions fetch_threadinfo_query fetch_threadinfo fetch_foruminfo style_fetch cache_templates global_start parse_templates global_setup_complete showthread_start showthread_getinfo forumjump showthread_post_start showthread_query_postids showthread_query bbcode_fetch_tags bbcode_create showthread_postbit_create postbit_factory postbit_display_start post_thanks_function_post_thanks_off_start post_thanks_function_post_thanks_off_end post_thanks_function_fetch_thanks_start post_thanks_function_fetch_thanks_end post_thanks_function_thanked_already_start post_thanks_function_thanked_already_end fetch_musername postbit_imicons bbcode_parse_start bbcode_parse_complete_precache bbcode_parse_complete postbit_display_complete post_thanks_function_can_thank_this_post_start pagenav_page pagenav_complete tag_fetchbit_complete forumrules navbits navbits_complete showthread_complete
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