Sitewide Announcement.

This was one of my first hacks, but I've learned so much since then so as to completely invalidate the old code. Not that it didn't work, but it's clumsy.

This template mod (there is no code to hack) generates an announcement in the variable of $announcement that you can then put in you're header or you're navbar if you're so inclined. The announcement changes based on the usergroup but also on whether or not registered users have posted or posted recently.

The key to the code goes in the PHPINCLUDE_START template. You can put this at the very start or the very end of you're template so long as you don't drop it into the middle of something else.

PHP Code:

// #####################################################
// #####            START ANNOUNCMENTS             #####
// #####################################################

eval('$announcement = "' . fetch_template('announcement_all') . '";');

if (empty($announcement)) //If it's empty we'll get our usergroup announcements
    {
    if (is_member_of($bbuserinfo, 1))  // Guests go first.
        {
        eval('$announcement = "' . fetch_template('announcement_guest') . '";');
        }
    else if (is_member_of($bbuserinfo, 3)) // Pending Registrant
        {
        eval('$announcement = "' . fetch_template('announcement_pending') . '";');
        }
    else if (is_member_of($bbuserinfo, 5) OR is_member_of($bbuserinfo, 6) OR is_member_of($bbuserinfo, 7)) // Staff (Supermods, Admins & Mods)
        {
        eval('$announcement = "' . fetch_template('announcement_staff') . '";');
        }
    else if ($bbuserinfo['posts'] == 0) // User has never posted. Encourage them.
        {
        eval('$announcement = "' . fetch_template('announcement_noposts') . '";');
        }
    else if (TIMENOW - $bbuserinfo['lastpost'] > 1209600) // User hasn't posted in 14 days.
        {
        eval('$announcement = "' . fetch_template('announcement_noposts14days') . '";');
        }
    else // All others
        {
        eval('$announcement = "' . fetch_template('announcement_registered') . '";');
        }  
    } 


Now create 7 new templates - the contents of which will be the messages the users receive. Leave announcement_all blank - it's an emergency announcment that, when active, suppresses the other 6. I use it to warn users about an hour ahead of time that I'm going to turn the boards off.

announcement_all
announcement_guest
announcement_pending
announcement_staff
announcement_noposts
announcement_noposts14days
announcement_registered

Ok, that's it and ready to run. You can plug $announcement into your header or the like, though you might want to frame it in a table or layer. You can turn that framing table or layer off when the $announcement is empty like so...

<if condition="!empty($announcement)">
<table><tr><td>$announcement</td></tr></table>
</if>

Now, you can of course do all of the above with raw template conditionals HOWEVER, this approach has the advantage that the $announcement templates are easier to read and modify by someone with very little HTML experience. So, this approach comes in handy for making modification easy for someone else.

However, for the curious, here is the SAME system, entirely as a template conditional done in HTML.

<if condition="is_member_of($bbuserinfo, 1)">
TEXT OF THE GUEST MESSAGE
<else /><if condition="is_member_of($bbuserinfo, 3)">
TEXT OF THE PENDING USER'S MESSAGE
<else /><if condition="is_member_of($bbuserinfo, 5) OR is_member_of($bbuserinfo, 6) OR is_member_of($bbuserinfo, 7)">
TEXT OF THE STAFF MESSAGE
<else /><if condition="$bbuserinfo['posts'] == 0">
TEXT OF THE MESSAGE TO USERS WITH 0 POSTS
<else /><if condition="(TIMENOW - $bbuserinfo['lastpost'] > 1209600)">
TEXT OF THE MESSAGE TO USERS WITHOUT A POST IN THE LAST 14 DAYS
<else />
TEXT OF THE MESSAGE TO ALL REMAINING USERS.
</if></if></if></if></if>

Does it work? I think so (Not so sure about the subtraction in an <if> tag on that last conditional). But digging through that anytime you want to change one of those can be a pain.

Anyway, if you absolutely must do some hacking, you can perform the following hack to optimize this template modification.

In your global.php file look for this code

PHP Code:

// identify where we are
define('VB_AREA', 'Forum'); 


Directly after it add the following:

PHP Code:

$globaltemplates = array_merge($globaltemplates,
        array(
            'announcement_all',
            'announcement_guest',
            'announcement_pending',
            'announcement_staff',
            'announcement_noposts',
            'announcement_noposts14days',
            'announcement_registered'
               )
); 


What that does is cache these 7 templates before they called, resulting in fewer MySQL queries (anytime you fetch an uncached template you cause another query to occur).

I'll leave you with EN World's contents of each of these messages to give you some ideas on what to put in each one in order to encourage folks to post and join you're community.

ANNOUNCMENT_GUEST

<b>Welcome to EN World, one of the busiest <i>Dungeons &amp; Dragons</i> and 
d20 System fan sites on the internet. You will need to <a href="register.php">join EN World</a> for 
free before you can post messages or use many of the site's features, but you are welcome to read the
boards and news without joining. Please feel free to join and participate in the friendly discussions 
of all things D&amp;D and d20!</b>

ANNOUNCEMENT_NOPOSTS

Welcome!!  You're seeing this message because you have successfully completed your registration but you've never posted. We'd love to hear from you.  <a href="newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=1828845">Click here</a> to say Hello and maybe even post a few details about yourself<br />
<br />
Oh, and welcome to EN World.

ANNOUNCEMENT_NOPOSTS14DAYS

Hello.  You're seeing this message because you haven't posted in the last 14 days. While participation in the forums isn't required, it is encouraged. We'd love to hear your comments and opinions on all things gaming related.

ANNOUNCEMENT_PENDING

Welcome to EN World!  You have registered a new account, but you still
 need to verify your email address. Please check your email for details on how to do this, or 
 <a href="register.php?$session[sessionurl]do=requestemail">click here</a> to be sent a new verification 
 email. If you did not receive the email then it's possible it was blocked by your email client. 
 In this case you can either disable your blocker software or enter a new email address in 
 <a href="profile.php?$session[sessionurl]do=editpassword">your profile</a>

ANNOUNCMENT_REGISTERED

<b>Welcome to EN World!  Please consider becoming a <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/subscriptions.php?">community supporter</a>.  A community supporter is somebody who has donated to EN World in order to help cover the costs of very server-intensive, and thus expensive features (in particular, the search feature). The features available only to community supporters are Search, Private Messaging, Custom User Titles, Who's Online and EN World's in-built RPG. Note that you can also get these features separately.</b>

Well, I think that's all. I hope this helps someone.

[Alien]

The hack where you add it to your globals so that it doesn't use queries is not working at all for me.. I used your PHPINCLUDE_START version, and it works perfectly but I have no luck with cutting down the queries..

It still uses one for staff and one for all, even though I've added them to the globals file. Btw, the way you stated to do it will NOT work (at least in latest vb3.03). It will give a php error. Have to add it to already created $globaltemplates line at the top of the file (this will only get it not to error out, but it does NOT cut down on uncached templates.. Help.

[Michael Morris]

Ack, missed a parenthesis. Correction

PHP Code:

$globaltemplates = array_merge($globaltemplates, 
        array( 
            'announcement_all', 
            'announcement_guest', 
            'announcement_pending', 
            'announcement_staff', 
            'announcement_noposts', 
            'announcement_noposts14days', 
            'announcement_registered' 
               ) 
); 


[Alien]

Worked Any reason adding those templates to the already pre-existing $globaltemplates line a few lines down in that same file didn't bring about the same effect? Just curious...

[Michael Morris]

Each template group must be in an array - $globaltemplates is a multidimensional array.