Dynamic Announcements: Programmable Forum Home Announcement/Message with conditionals

This hack allows you to post powerful dynamic announcements (changing according to different conditions) on forum home page. It differs from vbulletin's default announcements in 2 ways:

• The announcement is displayed in forum home page, not inside thread view. So visitors will read them on home page without clicking any links.
• The Hack's announcements are not static: ie. they can be powerfully programmed to display themselves according to many conditions.

This hack is the VB3 version of my Dynamic Forum Home Announcement Hack and it is a bit more improved in that it is now able to display your announcement as it was before AND also in DHTML popup box as well which ever you prefer better or even both. (DHTML poupup announcement is not technically a popup so popup killers can not kill it either.)

Basic Usage : You can set a text in your Admin CP and it's displayed in forum home to all users.

Advanced Usage : With conditionals you can set different texts/notifications/messages/announcements and they will be displayed if your pre-configured condition applies. This allows you to create powerful announcements/private messages/texts which address their receipt only if a certain condition is met. Some examples:

You can set to show an announcement in forum home IF:

1. user is X
2. user's usergroup is Y
3. his profile field Z is X
4. user has X posts or has more than Y posts but less than Z posts
5. his last visit time was X days ago
6. today is X, hour is between Y and Z, day is wednesday, month is Y, week is month's 2nd week, today is user's birthday
7. User is invisible/visible
8. his timeset is set to A
9. etc.

It's tested in vb versions from v.3.0.0 to 3.0.9 and works fine with all of them. It will work for all future 3.0.x versions too. For vb2 version click here.

Here is a Screenshot from a general table announcement.
Here is a Screenshot from a popup announcement.

Some Features:

• It's Admin CP integrated (Screenshot)
• Smiley, BBCode, HTML, IMG tags are supported in announcements.
• You can address your users with their usernames inside announcements (Use $bbuserinfo[username] variable)
• Announcements are displayed directly in Forum Home so users are forced to read them.
• The Conditionals help you to design powerful and ever changing announcements/private messages/forum home notifications.
• Poupup announcement can not be killed by popup killer software

If you install the hack, click INSTALL, thank you..

Hacks of the hack:
* Hack 1: Puts the announcement into header instead of forum home page so that announcement appears in all forum pages.
* Hack 2: Integrates announcement with vBA_CMPS portal hack.
* Hack 3: Popup announcement will popup once in every XX hours.


Logician \\=^))

[CyberRanger]

Love this hack! I now have the message showing in my OT area only:
http://www.strategyzoneonline.com/fo...play.php?f=161

But, check this out:
http://www.strategyzoneonline.com/fo...ad.php?t=30396
In this one thread, the default Dynamic Announcement seems to have been inserted as the message for a number of the posts. I'm baffled!

[Logician]

Originally Posted by westpointer

Love this hack! I now have the message showing in my OT area only:
http://www.strategyzoneonline.com/fo...play.php?f=161

But, check this out:
http://www.strategyzoneonline.com/fo...ad.php?t=30396
In this one thread, the default Dynamic Announcement seems to have been inserted as the message for a number of the posts. I'm baffled!

I'm reported this bug a few times before but it just happens (infrequently, not always) if you hack the hack to apply it to global.php. I don't use the hack this way and I suggest using it as its original release (as a forum home announcement only) so I didn't trace the roots of this problem.

Edit : Turning off post caching (vb admin cp/options) may help. Give it a shot!

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by Logician

I'm reported this bug a few times before but it just happens (infrequently, not always) if you hack the hack to apply it to global.php....
Edit : Turning off post caching (vb admin cp/options) may help. Give it a shot!

Okay, I'm not that familiar with the impact of turning off post caching. Would that have other adverse effects?

BTW - the problem is very interesting. If I look in the post table, the correct text IS present for the post in question. So ... where in the world is it pulling that text from??? I don't have that in my announcements anymore. Time to poke around some more. I like having this in global.php so I'd rather find the cause.

Thanks for the very quick reply!

Edit - hmm, the problem is in post_parsed. 26 records have "Hello Unregistered! Welcome to our board!" in the pagetext_html field. A rebuild of the post cache (via the AdminCP) fixed the problem.

[BRC2]

Great hack! Is there a way to specifically exclude spiders from seeing the "guests" annoucement messages?

Thanks,
Brian

[David_R]

Originally Posted by westpointer

Okay, I'm not that familiar with the impact of turning off post caching. Would that have other adverse effects?

BTW - the problem is very interesting. If I look in the post table, the correct text IS present for the post in question. So ... where in the world is it pulling that text from??? I don't have that in my announcements anymore. Time to poke around some more. I like having this in global.php so I'd rather find the cause.

Thanks for the very quick reply!

Edit - hmm, the problem is in post_parsed. 26 records have "Hello Unregistered! Welcome to our board!" in the pagetext_html field. A rebuild of the post cache (via the AdminCP) fixed the problem.

did you got a working solution to fix the problem, when dynamic annoucements are added to global.php ?
Rebuilding post_cache fixed the problem temprarily only.

[ragintajin]

Any plans for a VB3.5 update?

[SirJonathan]

I'd LOVE to have this again for vB 3.5 !

[Logician]

I need a few beta testers for 3.5 version. Anybody interested please email me.

I need someone who is:
* Already using this hack in vb 3.0 version and familiar with the hack
* Already upgraded his board to 3.5 (latest version ie RC3) or at least has a test 3.5 enviroment to test the hack.
* Ready to install the hack to his board (or test board)
* Let me know the results adn give me feedback

Please contact me via PM or email and let me know your email adress if you meet ALL the conditions above and I'll send you the hack.

3.5 version is coded as a pluggin so it does not require you to hack your vb codes. You can easily install it through vb3.5 pluggin system and can also uninstall/disable it with 1 click.

I've tested it in my localhost and it works fine but my own board is not upgraded to 3.5 yet, so I want to get a few confirmations from others before releasing the hack officially.

Thanks!

[Kihon Kata]

I am already running RC3 here with this hack working just fine WINK! lol

Originally Posted by Logician

I need a few beta testers for 3.5 version. Anybody interested please email me.

I need someone who is:
* Already using this hack in vb 3.0 version and familiar with the hack
* Already upgraded his board to 3.5 (latest version ie RC3) or at least has a test 3.5 enviroment to test the hack.
* Ready to install the hack to his board (or test board)
* Let me know the results adn give me feedback

Please contact me via PM or email and let me know your email adress if you meet ALL the conditions above and I'll send you the hack.

3.5 version is coded as a pluggin so it does not require you to hack your vb codes. You can easily install it through vb3.5 pluggin system and can also uninstall/disable it with 1 click.

I've tested it in my localhost and it works fine but my own board is not upgraded to 3.5 yet, so I want to get a few confirmations from others before releasing the hack officially.

Thanks!

[Logician]

Originally Posted by TonysDesigns

I am already running RC3 here with this hack working just fine WINK! lol

Great! Yet you are running it as a "code modification" (ie hack), however 3.5 version I ported runs as a pluggin so it is manageable through your admin cp/products section and can be installed without modifying vb code.