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.

[JustAskJulie]

Originally posted by Buck Satan
I keep getting the "Call to a member function on a non-object in webwelcome.php on line 24" error even though Guests are able to view my forums. Any ideas?

I was getting this same error, then I realized I was pulling the wrong file.

I set up my index.html to call webwelcome.php from a SSI. I had created another file with just the call for the PHP file and the php info in my SSI directory. That file called the info from the webwelcome.php file that was in my forums directory. I had accidently uploaded the webwelcome.php that should have gone in my forums directory over the one in my SSI directory and it was causing the above error.

If that made any sense at all maybe it will help you figure out where yours went wrong.

[JustAskJulie]

Just wanted to post that I did get this working on .html page sort of. I put it in a .php file then called the .php file via SSI.

I'm just having one glitch now, the "welcome text" isn't showing up for non-registered users. Any ideas?

[JustAskJulie]

Nevermind, I figured it out. I had one of my templates named wrong.

[amsch]

Can you explain how you did that? I would love to be able to do that.
Thanks a head of time!

[GTGT]

This was tricky... Can anyone help me. I got totally stuck

Doesn't work

[JustAskJulie]

Originally posted by amsch
Can you explain how you did that? I would love to be able to do that.
Thanks a head of time!

It's actually pretty simple. Take the bit of code that the instructions for webwelcome tell you to include on your webpage (where you want the webwelcome to show up)
and create a new page with just that code. Name it welcome.php and upload it to your server. (I keep all my SSI files in one folder named "SSI" off my root).

Now on your index.html page where you want the web welcome panel to show up, just include the SSI call instead. On my page it looks like this:

<!--#include virtual="SSI/webwelcome.php" -->

That's pretty much it.

[Bubba]

If anyone has any more info on the problem of a session not propogating out of the forum pages please let me know.

I'm running a site that uses core vBulletin code for handling sessions and I need them to propogate to pages outside the forums. For about 95% of my users this works fine, but there's a small group where it fails. I am unable to reproduce this error myself so it's been quite frustrating to say the least.

For the coders, specifically I am using this code in a general "global" file that is included everywhere:

include_once("$php_include_path/forum/admin/config.php");
include_once("$php_include_path/forum/admin/db_mysql.php");

// DB info removed

include_once("$php_include_path/forum/admin/functions.php");
include_once("$php_include_path/forum/admin/sessions.php");

This defines the $bbuserinfo array that lets me determine if a user has a current session in place. So the particular problem is that when a user leaves a forum page, this array isn't being repopulated on the non-forum page for some reason. It's semi-related to some of the dicussion in this thread but no one had a definitive answer. Any help would be really appreciated, or at least some knowledge of what conditions might actually cause this. Thanks!

[LOD-squa]

Hello, when run webwelcome.php I get:

Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /home/lod-squa/public_html/webwelcome.php on line 24

how can I fix this?

[LOD-squa]

could someone help me? =P sorry to bother alot.

[Wells]

Hi! MANY Thanks for your hack!
I need extra help.
I install this hack but getting an error:

Warning: open_basedir restriction in effect. File is in wrong directory in /users/home/tour/login.php on line 6

What to do?!!!!!!