Add-On Releases - Welcome headers - Improve community registration rates

Out of the box, your forum isn't personalized to assist or address your visitors. As a result, guests entering on a page other than the homepage (which is most often the case) have no idea what to do or why 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. But with a little customization, the use of the vBulletin Notices System and Welcome Headers, you can solve these issues in just a few minutes.

What is Welcome Headers?

Welcome Headers is a set of predefined messages and rules designed to help you get started in personalizing your site's notices using the vBulletin notice feature. The default templates are just that, default ? I highly encourage you to modify and add to the language and rules to meet the needs of your actual community environment.

Modifications/ Instructions:

Plugins: 1 (notices entries, rules and phrases)
This template hack should take under 5 minutes to implement and customize.

Installation/ Upgrade Instructions

1 ? Backup any existing welcome header messages (upgrading)
2 ? Remove the default welcome header from your forum home template (new installs)
3 ? Install the attached plugin file
4 ? Now Required: Customize the messages to include your site's name

For detailed instructions on each step please view the install.html file included with this addon.

Support

Please post any enhancement or technical questions you may have and I will do my best to respond in a timely manner. Please note: I can not guarantee an immediate response and am unable to assist with integrating this addon with other addons or with HTML related questions.

Why use this when the notices system exists?

Welcome Headers have been around since before vBulletin 3.0 but as of 3.7 the functionality of the system was no longer needed as vBulletin added its own native feature to handle notices. However while the notices feature lets you show welcome header style messages it doesn't give you any to start with. This addon no longer adds functionality but instead provides a set of 4 notices that have been time-tested and help your forum grow and function better for guests and members.

Please be sure to customize and add to the messages from this addon to match the individual needs of your forum!

Older Version Support

While most users are choosing to upgrade to the notices system, there are some advantages to the "old" system mainly in that it does not rely on a rules system and can be configured as designed with code changes. Additionally, the "old" version has automatic interfacing with several other addons which the notices system does not. For this reason, the old version is still supported and remains fully compatible with 3.8.

Updates from 3.7

No changes have been made; the code needed for both is the same so upgrading is not necessary.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by LI Pets

What I'm saying it appears that version 4.2 was included with 3.8.3 is that possible?

There is no welcome headers version 3.8.3.

Modification versions are not correlated to vbulletin versions. Depending on the age and number of audits to a mod it could be at version 1.0 for vbulletin 3.8 or at version 99 for vBulletin 3.6.

[LI_Pets]

I guess I have the only upgrade?

There is 3.8.3

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by LI_Pets

I guess I have the only upgrade?

There is 3.8.3

Right. But that's your vbulletin version, not your welcome headers version.

[LI_Pets]

Right the welcome header is 4.2, is that your latest?

If there is another newer version will it be different?

[Ted S]

There are several versions of welcome headers for different vBulletin versions. For 3.8 the script is 1.0 if you use the notices system and 4.2 if you use the old approach with templates.

If I update the script the version number is updated.

[kizzmet]

this is awesome! I am also using for a "useless fact of the day" .
Thanks a ton!
*clicked nomination*

[imedic]

Does anyone know where to edit to change background color of the notice to pale yelow ? (what code to add too)
Can the box format be edited?
I have read the whole thread and didn't find it and i remember it is somewhere...
Many thanks in advance.

[THE__DRIFTER]

Having a bit of an issue. The mod is fine but what I have is an issue with the url. If I use the standard settings, and go to my www.website. com it is fine. Since I have vb advanced I have the website as www.website.com; when I go to the forums I get errors due to the path as the forum is located at www.website/forum.com If I change it in the forum home section I can view it on the frontpage but if in forums it gives me www.website/forum.forum.com. How can I fix this?


Never mind as this has been resolved; Thanks.

[Ted S]

You can edit the paths by modifying the notices through the notices manager.

[zero5854]

ok I installed and removed the code specified and I still have the default showing. yours shows too though. I am using the newer version in this thread.

see ATT screenshot

Also I dug around and found another instance of this

<!-- guest welcome message -->

in the header of my template. I removed it and nothing happened. Any ideas?

thanks