Forum Display Enhancements - [vBMods.rocks] Display Forum Description on Forum Channel page using an Ad Module

It's a default feature in vB4 to have the forum description displayed below the forum name in the forum display page. Unfortunately, this is not the case for vB5. But don't worry, adding it is fairly easy thing to do and the actual code for it is so simple! You may wonder why on earth vBulletin has not implemented it yet? Don't ask me, I don't know why.

You can do this by editing a template but I don't recommend it for maintenance reasons as you may get template merge conflicts during an upgrade and you would have to resolve the conflicts every time. I prefer this approach better using an Ad module as this will not get affected by future upgrades.

Below are the steps:

1. Go to a Forum Channel Page.
2. Enable Sitebuilder (Edit Site ON)
3. Click Edit Page.
4. Drag and drop an Ad Module onto the page below the Page Title Module.
5. Edit the Ad Module by clicking on the Pencil icon.
6. Fill out the config form
   Title: Forum Description (or anything, it doesn't matter as this will not be displayed)
   Keep default values in other fields.
7. Click Edit button in the Config Ad option.
8. Click Add New Ad button.
9. Enter Ad title (e.g. Forum Description)
10. Enter the following HTML code and template variable. NOTE: The code in red is required as a workaround for vB 5.2.4 and above until this JIRA bug report is fixed. For vB 5.2.3 and below, do not add them.
    
    

    </vb:literal>
    <div class="custom-forum-channel-desc h-align-left">
    	{vb:raw page.nodedescription}
    </div>
    <vb:literal>

11. Check "Active" checkbox.
12. Save the form.
13. Save the page.
14. Overwrite the template. This makes the changes to the template available to all the Forum channel pages.
15. (Optional) If you want to style the forum description, you can add custom CSS in css_additional (or via Sitebuilder > Style > CSS Editor) with this CSS rule:
    

    .custom-forum-channel-desc {
    	/* custom style here */
    }

    You could also add the custom CSS directly in the Ad module itself by adding this at the very top of the code.
    

    <style>
    .custom-forum-channel-desc {
    	/* custom style here */
    }
    </style>

Live Demo:
http://vbmods.rocks/forum/vbulletin-...-modifications

This mod is also posted in http://vbmods.rocks/forum/vbulletin-...g-an-ad-module

Screenshot:
See attached image below.

[noypiscripter]

Originally Posted by Mark.B

This was on a self hosted site, not cloud. It just put the tags in itself and that generated the same symptoms as the user above. I removed them and it worked. So that might be this user's issue.

That looks like an issue then. There should be no vb literal tags in ad templates as vb template syntax is supported in ad modules

[noypiscripter]

I have tested in my 5.2.5 test site that it adds <vb:literal> tags around the code in Ad modules. I don't know if this was intended but it looks like this was implemented recently in the past one or two versions. I assume this was intended for vBCloud only and not for self-hosted. So I guess this has the same issue as the Text Only flag in css_additional template (http://tracker.vbulletin.com/browse/VBV-16683).

Btw, the added literal tags can be easily bypassed by closing and opening it and putting your code in between.

</vb:literal>

--- Your Ad module code here ---

<vb:literal>

First post updated to add this workaround. This workaround will probably work in vBCloud too.

[noypiscripter]

I checked vB 5.2.3 and it doesn't add <vb:literal> tags. So I think the addition of literal tags started in vB 5.2.4.

I still think that this was intended for vBCloud only. This should not happen in self-hosted version. Actually, the Ad code field has this text above it:

Template conditionals and variables are allowed.

That should be removed if template code syntax is not allowed.

[noypiscripter]

I created a bug report for this.

http://tracker.vbulletin.com/browse/VBV-16734

[satriamuda99]

you are very genius in vBulletin can you create a module like this? http://prntscr.com/d7zdpl

[noypiscripter]

Originally Posted by satriamuda99

you are very genius in vBulletin can you create a module like this? http://prntscr.com/d7zdpl

I recommend you to post a mod request to my site and explain what you want in detail and not just providing a screenshot.