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.

[preemz10314]

So I installed this smoothly but when I get to "Using a Theme?" I do not have any other option other then "No parent template, This is an independent webemplate" I do not have an option to choose my default theme...So it just shows up "as is" not inherting my forum theme...

http://digitalbrass.com/view.php?pg=aboutus

I just do not have anything under "using a theme?" other then "No parent template"....

Please help, thanks alot.

[Logician]

Originally Posted by preemz10314

So I installed this smoothly but when I get to "Using a Theme?" I do not have any other option other then "No parent template, This is an independent webemplate" I do not have an option to choose my default theme...So it just shows up "as is" not inherting my forum theme...

http://digitalbrass.com/view.php?pg=aboutus

I just do not have anything under "using a theme?" other then "No parent template"....

Please help, thanks alot.

You missed STEP 3.

[preemz10314]

Thanks logician. You were correct. I am pretty sure alot of us are missing step 3 because, we are assuming it just says to upload the .xml and missing the rest... I think it is because our screen settings are cutting off the end of step 3 when viewing in notepad.. and we are just not scrolling all the way over to read. Regardless I did what you said and got it working.

However just one last question and then I wont bother you anymore...I will also donate.

http://www.digitalbrass.com/view.php?pg=aboutdigital is the test page I created. It is throwing off the navbar making it off center.. and moving the header image to the left when it should be center.

as shown here http://digitalbrass.com can you help me correct this? I am willing to PM you login details if you have some time and patience. Regardless

Thanks again.

[Logician]

Originally Posted by preemz10314

Thanks logician. You were correct. I am pretty sure alot of us are missing step 3 because, we are assuming it just says to upload the .xml and missing the rest... I think it is because our screen settings are cutting off the end of step 3 when viewing in notepad.. and we are just not scrolling all the way over to read. Regardless I did what you said and got it working.

However just one last question and then I wont bother you anymore...I will also donate.

http://www.digitalbrass.com/view.php?pg=aboutdigital is the test page I created. It is throwing off the navbar making it off center.. and moving the header image to the left when it should be center.

as shown here http://digitalbrass.com can you help me correct this? I am willing to PM you login details if you have some time and patience. Regardless

Thanks again.

Please pm me admin cp access (admin account you gave to me should have full permissions in admin cp) and let me check.

[bilgin61]

Teşekkür ederim

[SirShaw]

First off, great hack! Like many others, this is exactly what I was looking for.

I do however have a small problem.

my stats script for bf2 relies on variables attached to the url. each player has a different url to pull up stats.

for example:
player 44455101 would have a url such as:

http://www.knightsofkarbala.com/view...nput1=44455101

while player 44572383 would have a url as:

http://www.knightsofkarbala.com/view...nput1=44572383

ANYWAYS

onto my question here.

In order to get this to function properly, I need to set WebTemplates to PHP mode. The script then works as intended but is missing the vbulletin header and footer. I looked at a post a few pages back here which Logician, you suggested using an iframe. I did this and the script simply just loaded whenever a user inputed his player number/name on the main page. The script didnt grab his data.

I think I can get this to work with the vbulletin header and footer if in WebTemplates we were allowed to use both HTML and PHP at the same time within WebTemplates. I was trying to put the contents of the Default Basic Theme into the Template I was creating with the script code in it but all it outputs is a blank white screen.

If thats not possible, I was then wondering how to export the Default Basic Theme to include it in my script and have it load it that way.

thoughts?

[Logician]

Originally Posted by SirShaw

my stats script for bf2 relies on variables attached to the url. each player has a different url to pull up stats.

You can give it a shot for these 2 methods:
1- Edit view.php, find

PHP Code:

$pg = strtolower(trim($vbulletin->GPC['pg'])); 


after that add:

PHP Code:

    $vbulletin->input->clean_array_gpc('r', array(
        'input1' =>TYPE_INT
    ));

$input1 = strtolower(trim($vbulletin->GPC['input1'])); 


This should then allow you to use input1 variable in WT.

2- In php webtemplates, variables for header, footer, headinclude etc. are already compiles so I'd think just echo'ing them should work. Eg.

echo $header;
echo $headinclude;
echo $footer;

(I didn't test myself atm)

[SirShaw]

Originally Posted by Logician

2- In php webtemplates, variables for header, footer, headinclude etc. are already compiles so I'd think just echo'ing them should work. Eg.

echo $header;
echo $headinclude;
echo $footer;

(I didn't test myself atm)

perfect! my script now works as intended

thanks again!

[StudentCreche]

Great hack! How do I make the pages more SEO friendly though? Google's not picking them up as well as the other pages... Furthermore, how do I sort my header out? On the other pages the header logo is centralised. However, on the webtemplate pages the header logo is on the left. So for instance...
Normal page: http://www.studentcreche.co.uk/forum.php
Webtemplate page: http://www.studentcreche.co.uk/view....=periodictable

[Logician]

Originally Posted by StudentCreche

Great hack! How do I make the pages more SEO friendly though? Google's not picking them up as well as the other pages... Furthermore, how do I sort my header out? On the other pages the header logo is centralised. However, on the webtemplate pages the header logo is on the left. So for instance...
Normal page: http://www.studentcreche.co.uk/forum.php
Webtemplate page: http://www.studentcreche.co.uk/view....=periodictable

Please see SEO part of user manual. Yet I'd think that google should pick them well. I don't use SEO urls in my own board, and webtemplate pages ranks very high.