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.

[drew82]

Can someone please help me!?

I have created a homepage using this mod. But now how do I make the homepage act as my my defauly homepage when someone goes to mysite.com. My VB is installed in the root... I tried domain forwarding and that didn't work. There must be a simple way to do this?

[MTGDarkness]

Hi, I need my front page to be at www.mtgdarkness.com and my forums to be at http://forums.mtgdarkness.com; can this CMS manage that? If so, how can I set that up?

[gsmph]

@drew82 and MTGDarkness

PHP Code:





<?php 
ob_start(); 
header("Location: http://location here where your visitors will land.com"); //without a trailing slash
ob_end_flush(); 
?>

make a clean index.php and put this code inside it. and upload it on your main domain..

ps.
ofcourse edit the red text except the "location:

br

gsmph

[MTGDarkness]

But that will just redirect, won't it?

[drew82]

yeah that worked, but now when I click my forum link it just reroutes it to my homepage

I still want to be able to view my forum overview?

can anyone help?

[TheLastSuperman]

Originally Posted by drew82

yeah that worked, but now when I click my forum link it just reroutes it to my homepage

I still want to be able to view my forum overview?

can anyone help?

Edit your index.php or index.html and at the VERY top add:

<meta HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" content="0; url=http://www.yoursite.com/the rest of the url from WebTemplates etc">

Then save and that should redirect you, gsmph gave a more forum friendly php way of doing it but the lesser works just as good.

Edit the content="0 to 1 or 2 for seconds IF you want the redirect to take place after 1 or 2 seconds and so on... maybe change your original index into a loading or intro page... perhaps add a splash page etc.

S-MAN

[drew82]

that does the same exact thing

let me try to explain this another way

I want my custom homepage to come up when you go to mysite.com, but I still want access to the forum page

does anyone know how to do this

[TheLastSuperman]

Well then you need to have your redirect via your hosting/cpanel/ whatever verified, it should work w/ the specified URL.

[TheLastSuperman]

Originally Posted by drew82

that does the same exact thing

let me try to explain this another way

I want my custom homepage to come up when you go to mysite.com, but I still want access to the forum page

does anyone know how to do this

I think we have lost each other, sounds simple but take it one way and you go another route eh?

So here's what I have so far... (So we ALL can be clear & help you)

1. You created a custom page via WebTemplates
2. You want that custom page to be your new homepage
3. The custom page (I suspect you did it w/ a theme if not and it is in fact an Independent template then simply copy the contents and replace the contents in your original index file and no need for redirect) is not being redirected properly even when you apply a redirect via your hosting panel/cpanel etc.

Is that correct?

[drew82]

i don't want to replace the default homepage with my new custom homepage

after I made a custom homepage called *home I added it to my menu as well as added a menu item called *forums

but I want my landing page *home, but I want to keep access to the forums main page so my members can click *forums and see the overview

I though I can do this by redirecting my domain to www.mysite.com/view.php?pg=home

but this solution is not working