WebTemplates 2.x: VB Integrated Content Management System

After a long wait, here is the new 2.x version of Webtemplates. First a short introduction for users who are not familiar with the old version:

This hack is a vbulletin integrated content management system. Term "Webtemplates" stands for dynamic webpages that reside in your MYSQL database and administered inside your vbulletin admin control panel. But they are more than regular site pages because they can automatically inherit visual design of your forum, can apply permissions according to your vb usergroup settings, can keep track of page counts, last visitorname/visit time, display page browsers in the page itself and in your whoisonline page etc. So basically webtemplates are dynamic web pages of your site which are powered by vbulletin.


WEBTEMPLATES 2.x FEATURES:
([New] indicates feature that is recently introduced in this 2.x version)

• Easy Installation : Webtemplates can be installed to your board without hacking even a single vbulletin file! It is coded as an add-on, not a hack.
• Conditionals : Webtemplates has built-in support for Logician's advanced templates conditionals so you can design webtemplates which change their display under different conditions. (Even if you don't have that hack installed)
• Private Webtemplates (NEW): With 1 click you can make a webtemplate "private" and it will be displayed to only certain usergroups.
• Apply VB Permissions: You can ban any webtemplate to any user or usergroup according to their userids or usergroupids. 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.
• Draft Webtemplates (NEW): You can put webtemplates in "draft" mode which makes them invisible to all but admins.
• Visitor Logging&Tracking (NEW): You can track certain users (by usergroup or userid) to monitor who visited a webtemplate and when. This is configurable per webtemplate basis.
• Site Contributers (Editor) Support (NEW): 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.
• Categories (NEW): Webtemplates 2.x supports multi-categories for better webtemplate organizations.
• Multi Parsing (NEW): Webtemplates can now parse PHP or HTML or TEXT (=smilie/img tags/bbcode parsing like vb posts)
• 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.
• Outside Variables (NEW): Advanced users can now use outside variables in webtemplates, then webtemplates will accept/use/process user sent variables via HTTP_GET and HTTP_POST methods (eg. a HTML form can post to a webtemplate with this feature)
• Page Counter : Webtemplate has built-in counter and you can display page count to your visitors and you can edit it or turn it OFF or ON per webtemplate basis.
• Page Browsers Display (NEW): Webtemplates can display who is browsing that webtemplate while people is reading them (like default forum browse display of vbulletin)
• Who is Online Display (NEW): Webtemplates can display page visitors in who is online (This is Optional and require a simple hacking in file online.php). You can create private webtemplates which are hidden in who is online too.
• Theme Support (NEW): 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 theme for them, then just insert their content into this theme. If you change theme later, all 20 pages' visual will change automatically.
• Header/Footer Inclusion : Webtemplates can use headers/footers (your default vb header/footer or custom ones)
• PHPINCLUDE per webtemplate (NEW) : Every webtemplate has its own "phpinclude" field which you can run PHP codes before loading the Webtemplate
• Help Documents : The script comes with built-in & detailed help documents (they are webtemplates too).
• Webquery Feature : With advanced "webquery" feature you can now add create dynamic webtemplates which include database query results. For instance you can easily add member count/post count/thread count/last 10 threads forum X etc. to your webtemplates with default webqueries that comes with installation or you can create your custom webqueries with basic SQL knowledge.
• Archieve to Text File (NEW): Webtemplates/Webqueries can be downloaded to a text file with one click for archiving purposes. You can also easily share these text files with other hack users.
• Login/Logout box (NEW): You can insert login/register box to your webtemplate if visitor is a guest and log off box if she is a member.
• Admin Panel in Webtemplates (NEW): 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.
• Better Performance (NEW): Webtemplates 2.x structured so that it performs well even under heavy load conditions and high traffic servers. (See Performance issues below)
• Easy Back up: Simply back up your database (inside vbulletin or externally) and all your webtemplate structure is also backed up automatically.

For screenshots, FAQ, performance issues, migration from old version to new version, see below.

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..


Version Updates:
30.July.2003 - > Version 2.03

* Adds feature to include regular vbtemplates into webtemplates

2.02 users: apply this fix to update.
New users: Get the hack from the first post of this thread (which is the latest version), you don't need to apply this update.

12.July.2003 - > Version 2.02

* Fixes a bug with outside variables.

2.01 users: apply this fix to update.
New users: Get the hack from the first post of this thread (which is the latest version), you don't need to apply this update.

2.July.2003 - > Version 2.01

* Fixes bug that bothers webqueries if "Show Template Name" option enabled in vb admin cp
* Fixes bug in webquery $WQ_mostactivemembers
* Fixes visual look of webtemplate test
* Fixes visual look of admin panel and makes sure it looks ok in dark backgrounded boards too.

2.00 users: update here.
New users: Get the hack from the first post of this thread (which is the latest version), you don't need to apply this update.


Webtemplates 3.x (for vb.3.x) is released here:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=76422

[MetroSports82]

this is really nice m8, great work Logician!

[Asso]

great work!

very useful and nice, i click install now!

[Intex]

Logician - fantastic work! I'll install this tonight. Just one quick question - how does this differ from the HTML / JAVA / TXT hack as a whole apart from you can obviously include queries in yours amongst the other new features. The reason I ask is because I'm using that at the moment. As far as I can see yours does exactly what this does but also so much more.

Superb instructions and FAQ's also - you anticipated pretty much everything .


Wildthinks - Logician mentions in his FAQ's above that this cannot be used with vB3.

* Does it work in vb.3.x?
No, not now. It is coded for vb 2.x.x. However it does not modify vbulletin scripts or vb database tables but it has its own tables, scripts so it can be (and will be) adapted to vb3 when time comes. But not soon.. I don't plan to migrate to vb3.x until it is stable and I won't recode it for vb.3 until I migrate to vb.3.

[irn-bru]

Thanks for the update I have been a user since the first version.

I think I will wait to install with vb3 gold.

cheers

[Intex]

irn-bru - you'll have to wait longer than when vB3 goes gold as Logician says this doesn't work with vB3 yet .

[Craigr]

Great work as always.

Craig

[Chazz Layne]

Wow, the last one was great... I can't wait to get this one up. I'll be installing tonight.

[high]* Chazz Layne clicks install.[/high]

[Logician]

Today at 03:58 PM Intex said this in Post #13
Logician - fantastic work! I'll install this tonight. Just one quick question - how does this differ from the HTML / JAVA / TXT hack as a whole apart from you can obviously include queries in yours amongst the other new features. The reason I ask is because I'm using that at the moment. As far as I can see yours does exactly what this does but also so much more.

I'll repeat what Erwin told in his hack's thread:

I didn't use HTML / JAVA / TXT hack so don't know how exactly it works.

This hack is designed as a vb integrated content management system and a new version of my first webtemplate hack which has been first released at 22-March-2002. So webtemplates hack is not been inspired by any other hacks that is released after that date and afaik it is one of the first vb content management systems for vbulletin.

However it is not the only content management hacks around and there are other good hacks from good hack authors (like Erwin's hack). Honestly I don't know them much. Some can be better for some users depending on the features users are looking for so your best bet is to check their features list and decide which one is better for your needs.

Wildthinks- Logician mentions in his FAQ's above that this cannot be used with vB3.

Yes.

As mentioned in the FAQ, this is NOT compatible with VB3.

I waited more than 6 months to recode this hack as I thought VB3 is coming at any time but it didn't show up for more than 6 long months and I decided not to wait any more and coded this new version. 1 week before I finish coding, VB3 BETA is released. :tired: So it is just bad luck, sorry!

I don't plan to migrate my board to VB3 soon. I will wait for a stable release. In my eyes, "stable release" is not necessarily mean a "non-beta" release. I will label a VB3 release as stable when another new version for bug fixing is not considered for quite sometime after its release.

I don't plan to recode this sophisticated hack for VB3 until I migrate my own board to vb3 so there is no ETA for VB3 release.

But to releive you I can say this much: This hack is coded as an add-on (it does not depend on hacking of existing files), it does not modify any vbulletin tables and store its data in its own tables so:
1- A version for VB3 will be coded. This is not a hard to upgrade hack.
2- It is likely that you won't need any modifications in your "webtemplates" when you upgrade to webtemplates's VB3 version so there won't be a migration issue for your webtemplates you created now. (I can not guarantee this, but it likely to happen so.)

[Kaelon]

This is brilliantly done, Logician. I am in awe of your work, as usual.

[Xyphen]

Wow nice hack, good work Logician.