Portal Software - WebTemplates 4.x: VB Integrated CMS (Content Management System)

(This hack is for vb version 4.x and above. For vb 3.x, version 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.


WEBTEMPLATES 4.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:
(Most are from 3.x versions but WebTemplate look and feel didn't change much so all 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://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)

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..

From FAQ 13: Vbulletin already has a CMS now , why would I need this hack?

If you have CMS license, you might not need Webtemplates. On the other hand, CMS license is paid, webtemplates is free and many forum owners don't have CMS licenses.

Also please note that vb has CMS since 2010. Webtemplates was first released for vb2.x in 2002 and it was around in vb3.x, 3.5.x and above for thousands of vbulletin users who have developed their sites around webtemplates CMS. So regardless of new vb CMS owners might or might not need it, Webtemplates 4.x is still realased and supported as a courtesy to its old users and fans. I personally prefer and use Webtemplates over vb CMS and this hack lives for people who agrees with me.

Version Updates:
12.October.2013 - > Version 4.0.2
* Minor fixes for PHP 5.4.x (Fixes "Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated" errors in new PHP versions.
14.July.2012 - > Version 4.0.1
* Vbulletin changed WYSIWYG editor parsing in vb4.2.x so hack's editor.php is updated accordingly.
9.September.2010 - > Version 4.0.00
* Hack 4.00.00 is released.

[RollaJedi]

i am trying to copy and paste my html code (which is really, really long) into the box. I can paste it there, but once it does, the whole browser freezes and never comes back. Is this something you might know about?
Thanks

[Logician]

Originally Posted by RollaJedi

i am trying to copy and paste my html code (which is really, really long) into the box. I can paste it there, but once it does, the whole browser freezes and never comes back. Is this something you might know about?
Thanks

If it is too long, browser or server might not be handling it. Try to paste the same into a vb forum post and see if it reacts same way. If it also freeze in a vb post, it is not about the hack.

[RollaJedi]

Thanks for the tip! yes, it was not the webtemplates mod. It is something else i guess. I have over 19,000 lines of html code. :P

[Antidepresiv]

Hello Logician, and thank you for this great hack! However i have a problem, here is my forum link . It's messing my header and footer pretty bad, can you help me with this, it would be realy appreciated. thank you again.

Best Regards,
Antidepresiv

[Logician]

Originally Posted by Antidepresiv

Hello Logician, and thank you for this great hack! However i have a problem, here is my forum link . It's messing my header and footer pretty bad, can you help me with this, it would be realy appreciated. thank you again.

By default vbulletin has header related CSS/styling code only in header template and footer related code only in footer template. By this way other applications like webtemplates which wants to use vb header and footer can do so by inheriting these templates. However some designers might put some their styling codes in other vb templates too and in this scenario it is not possible for other applications but vb to render them correctly. As a matter of fact this kind of designing is a bad practise as structurally header/footer styling should only be done in header/footer templates as they are intended to. Therefore unfortunately the designer who did your custom design needs to fix this problem, it is not possible for me to fix it in WT end.

[Antidepresiv]

Thank you again dude, i will figure smtin out with the designer..

[Antidepresiv]

Hello again Logician, and sry for bothering you again with this.. I talked to my designer, and he said folowing to me..

"vBulletin stores all CSS in external CSS files, not inside the header template. It then references these files in the headinclude and headinclude_bottom templates. We store our CSS in external files, just like vBulletin. It sounds like your plugin isn't including the headinclude_bottom template, which is where we reference our CSS files. This can be fixed by either moving the reference to our files from headinclude_bottom to headinclude, or by fixing the plug-in so it includes the headinclude_bottom. This is a mistake in the plug-in, not a mistake in our skin or bad practise. "

Could you help me out with this, i would rly like to make you'r product work, thnak you again..

Regards,
Antidepresiv

[patsalko]

I had an old version of this hack on Vb 3.8x and it worked fine.
I upgraded to vb 4.0.8 and uninstalled the hack, then re-installed the new version of the hack and now it does not work.
I created a very simple HTML template but when I click on it, it does not display anything, except the header and footer.

Any ideas?

[Logician]

Originally Posted by Antidepresiv

This can be fixed by either moving the reference to our files from headinclude_bottom to headinclude, or by fixing the plug-in so it includes the headinclude_bottom.

So it seems that if you move the style code in header_bottom to your headinclude template it should work. Have you tried that?

[Logician]

Originally Posted by patsalko

I had an old version of this hack on Vb 3.8x and it worked fine.
I upgraded to vb 4.0.8 and uninstalled the hack, then re-installed the new version of the hack and now it does not work.
I created a very simple HTML template but when I click on it, it does not display anything, except the header and footer.

Any ideas?

Does test webtemplate work fine? If no, please pm me access to your site and let me check (I'd need FTP access, phpmyadmin access and vb admin cp access). If test webtemplate works fine but not your custom webtemplate, then it should be related to your code in your custom WT.