Portal Software - WebTemplates 3.7.x: VB Integrated CMS (Content Management System)

(This hack is for vb version 3.7.x & 3.8.x ONLY. For vb 3.6.x, 3.5.x, 3.0.x and 2.x see my profile for relevant threads.)

"WebTemplates" is a vBulletin integrated Content Management System which allows you to create vb integrated "HTML" pages in your vb admin cp very easily. The pages can inherit your vbulletin skin/style, can recognize logged-in user, can be applied permissions per user or usergroup basis, can keep visit logs, hit counts and do many more.

VB4 version Update (9.9.2010): Please find 4.x version of WebTemplates4.x in its own thread.


WEBTEMPLATES 3.7.x BASIC FEATURES:

• Very Easy Installation : Webtemplates can be installed to your board without modifying even a single vbulletin file. It is coded as a vb product and can be imported very easily.
• Apply VB Permissions: You can ban any webtemplate to any user or usergroups easily. So for instance you can design a webtemplate which only members can see while guests can not, or only user A can not see etc.
• Page Counter : Each webtemplate has a built-in counter and you can display page count to your visitors and you can edit it or turn it OFF/ON per webtemplate basis.
• Visitor Logging&Tracking : You can track certain users' (by usergroup or userid) webtemplate visits to see who visited a webtemplate and when. This is configurable per webtemplate basis.
• Site Contributers (Editor) Support : You can grant editing permissions for certain users or usergroups for your webtemplates individually and they will be able to update these webtemplates using their own editor interface. vB's WYSIWYG editor is supported in Editor interface.
• Page Browsers & Who is Online Display: Webtemplates can display who is browsing that webtemplate while visitor is reading them (like default forum browse display of vbulletin). Webtemplate visits can also be monitored in who is online page.
• Header/Footer Inclusion : Webtemplates can automatically use headers/footers (your default vb header/footer or custom ones)
• Help Documents : The script comes with an extensive help document.
• Admin Panel in Webtemplates : Your webtemplates can include an "admin panel" displayed to only admins and by using them you can access many details and stats of your page while you are browsing them.
• SEO friendly URLs: You can make webtemplate URLs seo friendly in vb settings (Requires apache server).
• XML Import/Export : XML Import/Export feature allows you to backup your webtemplates and use other hack users webtemplates in your board.

ADVANCED FEATURES FOR ADVANCED USERS:

• Webquery Feature : With advanced "webquery" feature you can create dynamic webtemplates which include database query results. For instance you can easily add "last 10 threads forum X", "most active users list" etc. to your webtemplates with default webqueries that comes with installation or you can create your custom webqueries with basic SQL knowledge.
• Multi Parsing : Webtemplates can parse PHP or HTML or TEXT (=smilie/img tags/bbcode parsing like vb posts). This means you can design a page just like vb posts (TEXT parsing), standart HTML (HTML parsing) or even in PHP (PHP parsing).
• PHPINCLUDE per webtemplate : Every webtemplate has its own "phpinclude" field which you can run PHP codes before loading the Webtemplate
• Theme Support : Webtemplates support "themes" which are parent webtemplates which include child webtemplates in them. For instance if you have 20 similiar pages which uses the same visual look, you can make a single theme for all of them, then just insert their content into this theme. If you change theme later, all 20 pages' visual will change automatically.
• Conditionals : Webtemplates supports VB3 template conditionals so you can design webtemplates which change their display under different conditions.
• Default variables : You can use/display certain variables in your webtemplates like username of the visitor, visitor email address, last visit time, page creation time, page last edit time, Last visitor name, last visit time etc.

Sample WebTemplates from Sites using this hack:
(Some 3.5 and some are 3.0 versions but WebTemplate look and feel didn't change much so both will give you the idea.)

http://www.worldwideknights.com/view_mission.htm
http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/view.php?pg=aboutus
http://www.hystersisters.com/vb2/view_guidelines.htm
http://www.worldwideknights.com/view_info.htm
http://www.hystersisters.com/vb2/view_books.htm
http://www.worldwideknights.com/view_spread.htm
http://www3.fertilethoughts.com/forums/view.php?pg=acronyms
http://www.makeuptalk.com/forums/view.php?pg=makeuptalk-newsletter
http://www.bklab.com (entire site is designed with Webtemplates only)
(Actually this hack is one of the most popular vb hacks so it is used by hundreds -if not thousands- of vbulletin sites and you can easily find them if you go to google and search "Logician's WebTemplates" WITH quotation marks)

3.5 version Admin CP screenshot attached to this post. 3.0.x screenshots (here and here) also still applies for this version.

If you use the hack, clicking here will make sure you'll know about updates&bug fixes. It will also help me understand how many people is using the hack so please click the install button if you use it. Thank you..

About this 3.7.xx Version: This 3.7.xx version is same as previous 3.6.x version. 3.6.x version was already working in vbulletin 3.7.x except a few minor bugs and these bugs are fixed in this version to make it dedicated solely to vbulletin 3.7.x. Please see "what's new" in the next post for more details.

Version Updates:
29.July.2008 - > Version 3.7.00
* Hack 3.7.00 is released.

[Phaedrus]

How is it that I missed such a great idea for so long?

I'll probably install this and then they'll put out 3.8.x and I'll have to reinstall... But I'm still going to do this.

[Logician]

Originally Posted by Neutral Singh

Thank you!! It worked!!

Another request: What if i want the re written url ending ***.html instead of ***.htm ?

Well from seo point of view it really does not matter whether your url is a htm or html.

But if you still want to change, it would require some modifications in many files. You need to do the first change in .htaccess file, then search for "htm" in view.php, editors.php, wt_wt.php files and change them too.

[gchristo]

Installed.
Excellent, thank you Logician.
I noticed that you posted some examples of sites that use a template as their home page.

How would one name a template as an index file, or would a redirect to the desired template be used?
I'd like to use a template as a home page to try a few things.
Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Logician]

pre-installation faq item 7 covers it.

[gchristo]

Originally Posted by Logician

pre-installation faq item 7 covers it.

Thank you Logician for the information and great work! :up:

[wacnstac]

How much of the Hyster Sisters website is based on this template? How do they do their homepage over there? If most of their pages there are based off this template, it looks like I found a winner.

[Neutral Singh]

Thanks again. Well, integration with vBAdvanced is not possible if we enable url rewrite option in webtemplates... there must be a way to achieving this.

[birdie]

I love this mod and use it on several forums...

BUT, have a unique problem on a new forum. Its not possible for me to import .xml files the usual way through the AdminCP>Import Product as I get this error

Warning: file_exists() [function.file-exists]: open_basedir restriction in effect. File(/tmp/php_upload/phphD0Hoo) is not within the allowed path(s) in [path]/admincp/plugin.php on line 1638

No one has been able to fix it for me, so to import .xml, I load to the file to server and use the option to 'OR import the XML file from your server" and works fine to install products.

However, step 3 of installing this mod, requires the webtemplate_export.xml to be imported - the mod does not give me the option to import it from the server and I get the above error if try importing the required way.

Anyone got a work around or advice?

[ishare]

I have prepared a list with letterbar which let users to filter the threads. (Letterbar in this post)

Everything works perfect. I've used the letterbar as below in the templates.

<a href='view.php?pg=cat1&myletter=a'>A</a>
<a href='view.php?pg=cat1&myletter=b'>B</a>
<a href='view.php?pg=cat1&myletter=c'>C</a>

I've also prepared a list which shows all the threads from all the categories. (cat1,cat2,cat3) I used below querry.

SELECT t.threadid, t.title, t.postusername,t.postuserid,t.dateline, f.title as forumtitle 
FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "thread t
LEFT JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "forum f ON f.forumid=t.forumid
WHERE t.sticky=0 AND t.visible=1  AND (t.forumid=1 OR t.forumid=2 OR t.forumid=3) $letterquery 
ORDER BY t.dateline DESC
LIMIT 2000

I would like to learn if it possible to filter the threads of all categories with the same letterbar ?

What i mean is, i would like to be able to use a letterbar for the template which lists all the threads from category1, category2 and category3.

Is that possible ?
Regards

[Logician]

Originally Posted by wacnstac

How much of the Hyster Sisters website is based on this template? How do they do their homepage over there? If most of their pages there are based off this template, it looks like I found a winner.

Nearly all Hyster Sisters external pages are powered by Webtemplates. They have over 100 webtemplate pages. But their home page is not WT, it is a custom script.