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 (or other board pages), not inside thread view. So visitors will read them without clicking on them.
• The Hack's announcements are not static: ie. they can be powerfully programmed to change themselves according to many conditions.

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:

2. user is X
3. user's usergroup is Y
4. his profile field Z is X
5. user has X posts or has more than Y posts but less than Z posts
6. his last visit time was X days ago
7. 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
8. User is invisible/visible
9. user is using style A
10. his cookies are on
11. his timeset is set to A
12. etc..

The conditionals even allows you to design "Board Tips" ever changing according to user's seniority or post number. See how-to document for conditional usage and more info..

It's tested in both v.2.2.6 and v.2.2.7 but it should work with any versions > 2.0.3. (v.2.2.8 or later Users READ HERE!) I'm using it in my own board and a friend's board for more than a month and found it quite stable and released it. Although not likely, if you found any bugs, holler and I'll fix it..

Here is a Screenshot from a "general announcement".
Here is a Screenshot of announcement which is addressed to a certain user.

Some Features:

• It's Admin CP integrated (Screenshot)
• Smiley and BBCode in announcements are parsed
• 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.

If you have problems displaying HTML/smilie/bbcode in your announcements, make this tiny change in hack code

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

Logician \\=^))

[Logician]

Originally posted by LawnDawg
[edit]Is there any way I could add this into my "header" template? does seem to work.. [/edit]

I havent tested it with header template but I cant see a reason it wouldnt work. Just make sure you delete the code from index.php and add it to global.php as mentioned in the install instructions.. Not tested, should work though..

But if you need to use conditional power inside your header template (or any other template) I suggest you checking my Advanced Templates hack either..(Please find it in my profile). You can set conditionals inside your header (or any other template) and if you want you can set announements there too..

2 methods, choose your pick!

[RayMatrix]

. . .but got this Error Message:

Warning: Failed opening '/home/ish/install.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/php') in Unknown on line 0

This comes up when running the DFHA_install.php

The File ist in the Board root Folder, the Board work and its php4.1.x installed.

Any Ideas ?

[Willard Reece]

RayMatrix
permissions for that folder and file?
Do you have that dir and or file chd to 777 so you can run it.
If its not, then it will do that too.

[RayMatrix]

. . .thats it. . .the simplest things are most time the hardest aranoid:

THANKS !!

[PIMPY]

You maze me yet again Logi, I now have three of your additions on my forums, Currently i'm trying to get them integrated and working, but they are on and working.

Only questions I have are..

Simple: How can I find the usergroup IDs? (i'm sure its very simple and I'm sure I could just create a small bit of PHP to tell me, but hey, why screw up when ya'll are so smart)

and two..

Would it be possible to somehow get more conditionals working at one time? I know you say it can't be done in all of your readmes, but I'm sure there is a way for it to parse each thing not just do one then stop. I havn't looked but I'm assuming that the general code is similar to
If conditional1 is true end, else goto next bit

but could it be possible to do

if conditional1 is true display, now do conditional2, and so on

yes good 'ol PSEUDO

because currently how I plan to do it willl be have one conditional with all things i want in it, plus everything else, then another conditional for some thigns already in the other and so on, but that takes SOO much time, and is SOO un-efficiant. Theres gotta be someway we cna make it so it parses every conditional no matter what.


Edit: OK, now i was thinking that considering most code in the php files around everywhere, its along the lines of

If Blah
elseif blah
elseif blah

so really maybe it just should be

if blah;
if blah;
if blah;

then each conditional is parsed and used no matter what

little bit of editing needed so that all things appear in one box and not in 4 or 5 :P

[Logician]

How can I find the usergroup IDs?

This will help..

if conditional1 is true display, now do conditional2, and so on

Before trying to modify this hack I suggest you first checking Advanced Templates Hack. It has the same conditional power (now for vb templates) and its parsing is just like you want: It parse through the entire template and parse all met conditionals, does not return when found a first true conditional. So you can use it for your needs, say, by creating conditionals in your forumhome template and putting inside your announcement and its HTML code. All of them will be displayed if condition is true..

[The General]

Cheers mate!

VeryVERY cool hack, works like a charm on 2.2.8!

[Wildthinks]

[[($bbuserinfo[usergroupid]==6 OR $bbuserinfo[usergroupid]==7)]]
Hi $bbuserinfo[usergroupid],
diese Nachricht k?nnen nur Moderatoren und Admins lesen. Bitte einen Thread im Mod-Board aufmachen oder in einem Antworten, ob Du das lesen kannst :umfall:
Gr??e Wildthinks
[[/($bbuserinfo[usergroupid]==6 OR $bbuserinfo[usergroupid]==7)]]

The "Hi $bbuserinfo[usergroupid]," are on screen and not "Hi Wildthinks"

[Logician]

Originally posted by Wildthinks
[[($bbuserinfo[usergroupid]==6 OR $bbuserinfo[usergroupid]==7)]]
Hi $bbuserinfo[usergroupid],
diese Nachricht k?nnen nur Moderatoren und Admins lesen. Bitte einen Thread im Mod-Board aufmachen oder in einem Antworten, ob Du das lesen kannst :umfall:
Gr??e Wildthinks
[[/($bbuserinfo[usergroupid]==6 OR $bbuserinfo[usergroupid]==7)]]

The "Hi $bbuserinfo[usergroupid]," are on screen and not "Hi Wildthinks"

Did you see my default text correctly when you installed the hack?

And BTW. you should use "Hi $bbuserinfo[username],", not "$bbuserinfo[usergroupid]"

[kira]

Just wanted to thank you for another great and powerful hack, Logician. Every bit of personalization and customization helps, and as always you've added tremendously to my abilities to control my forum. Thanks!