WebTemplates 3.x: VB Integrated Content Management System

After a long wait, here is the new 3.x version of Webtemplates for vB 3.x boards. 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. Or more simply putting, with this hack you can create regular HTML pages in your vB admin cp and these pages will be integrated into your vbulletin database about permissions, styles etc.


WEBTEMPLATES 3.x FEATURES:

• Easy Installation : Webtemplates can be installed to your board without modifying even a single vbulletin file, nor does it modify any vbulletin database table! It is coded as an add-on, not a hack.
• 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.
• Private Webtemplates : With 1 click you can make a webtemplate "private" and it will be displayed to only certain usergroups.
• Draft Webtemplates : You can put webtemplates in "draft" mode which makes them invisible to all but admins.
• 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 or ON per webtemplate basis.
• Visitor Logging&Tracking : You can track certain users' (by usergroup or userid) webtemplates visits to see who visited a webtemplate and when. This is configurable per webtemplate basis. Webtemplates have visits logs which admins can see.
• 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 Display : Webtemplates can display who is browsing that webtemplate while people is reading them (like default forum browse display of vbulletin)
• Who is Online Display : Webtemplates can display page visitors in who is online (This is Optional and require a simple hacking in file /functions_online.php). You can create private webtemplates which are hidden in who is online too.
• Header/Footer Inclusion : Webtemplates can automatically use headers/footers (your default vb header/footer or custom ones)
• Help Documents : The script comes with built-in & detailed help documents (they are webtemplates too).
• 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.
• Good Performance : Webtemplates 3.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.

ADVANCED FEATURES FOR ADVANCED USERS:

• Webquery Feature : With advanced "webquery" feature you can now add 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 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)
• 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.
• Archieve to Text File : 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.
• Outside Variables : 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)

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:
16.Feb.2005 - > Version 3.01

* Hack released.




3.5 Version :
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=103076

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Nested selects also will not do this trick i think.

[Robert Basil]

Even if I could get the query to display the latest single post in each forum and then sort by forum name I would be happy.

Right now I can get it to display a single post from each forum and sort by forum, but it's displaying the oldest post in the forum and not the latest.

SELECT t.threadid, t.title, t.firstpostid, t.lastpost, f.title as forumtitle, t.replycount, t.postusername, t.postuserid, t.lastposter, t.dateline, t.views, p.pagetext, t.iconid, t.forumid
FROM thread t
LEFT JOIN post p ON p.postid = t.firstpostid
LEFT JOIN forum f ON f.forumid = t.forumid
WHERE t.forumid
IN ( 19, 116 )
AND t.open = '1'
AND t.visible = '1'
GROUP BY f.title
ORDER BY forumtitle DESC
LIMIT 0 , 3

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Maybe add a ORDDR BY t.dateline DESC to it

[Robert Basil]

Originally Posted by MarcoH64

Maybe add a ORDDR BY t.dateline DESC to it

Tried that but the query does not like 2 ORDER BY lines.

I also tried removing the ORDER BY line and adding:


ORDER BY t.dateline ASC

or

ORDER BY t.dateline DESC

Both lines in the query still bring up the oldest (first) thread in the forum and not the latest thread. :disappointed:

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Change

PHP Code:

ORDER BY forumtitle DESC 


To:

PHP Code:

ORDER BY t.dateline DESC, forumtitle DESC 


[Robert Basil]

When I use:

SELECT t.threadid, t.title, t.firstpostid, t.lastpost, f.title as forumtitle, t.replycount, t.postusername, t.postuserid, t.lastposter, t.dateline, t.views, p.pagetext, t.iconid, t.forumid
FROM thread t
LEFT JOIN post p ON p.postid = t.firstpostid
LEFT JOIN forum f ON f.forumid = t.forumid
WHERE t.forumid
IN (82,89,83,134,135,136,13,14,23,16,17,18,20,21,22,2 4,130,129,125,116,19)
AND t.open = '1'
AND t.visible = '1'
GROUP BY f.title
ORDER BY t.dateline DESC, forumtitle DESC
LIMIT 0 , 100

The forums are not in order and the posts are not the last posts.

When I use:

SELECT t.threadid, t.title, t.firstpostid, t.lastpost, f.title as forumtitle, t.replycount, t.postusername, t.postuserid, t.lastposter, t.dateline, t.views, p.pagetext, t.iconid, t.forumid
FROM thread t
LEFT JOIN post p ON p.postid = t.firstpostid
LEFT JOIN forum f ON f.forumid = t.forumid
WHERE t.forumid
IN (82,89,83,134,135,136,13,14,23,16,17,18,20,21,22,2 4,130,129,125,116,19)
AND t.open = '1'
AND t.visible = '1'
GROUP BY f.title
ORDER BY t.dateline ASC, forumtitle DESC
LIMIT 0 , 100

The forums are in order but it's still showing the first posts (not the latest ones).

[Logician]

@Sportbikeworld : I don't think it is possible to grab the data you want with one query. I'd suggest to give up and use multiple webqueries to compile this data. I think you don't want to increase the query count of your webtemplate with a single query for each forum but this shouldn't cause a big performance problem so try it.

@Spinball : Webtemplate PHP parsing is exactly same as vbulletin's PHP parsing in phpinclude template and you are not able to use the other webtemplate features in a PHP parsed webtemplate like automatic header/footer inclusion. However you should consider:
a) If your PHP code is basic : Make your webtemplate parsing TXT or HTML (instead of PHP) and run your PHP code inside PHP parsed template of webtemplate.
b) If your PHP code is advanced : Grab vb header and footer inside your PHP code with PHP commands as well like:

eval('$headinclude = "' . fetch_template('headinclude') . '";');
eval('$header = "' . fetch_template('header') . '";');
eval('$footer = "' . fetch_template('footer') . '";');

[Robert Basil]

Originally Posted by Logician

@Sportbikeworld : I don't think it is possible to grab the data you want with one query. I'd suggest to give up and use multiple webqueries to compile this data. I think you don't want to increase the query count of your webtemplate with a single query for each forum but this shouldn't cause a big performance problem so try it.

Darn, I have over 150 forums and need to query just about all of them. I was hoping to not have to re-enter a webquery for each one.

I wish you had a way to copy a default query over and over in the admin area.

Thanks for the help though. Still very happy with the hack.

[Spinball]

Originally Posted by Logician

@Spinball : Webtemplate PHP parsing is exactly same as vbulletin's PHP parsing in phpinclude template and you are not able to use the other webtemplate features in a PHP parsed webtemplate like automatic header/footer inclusion. However you should consider:
a) If your PHP code is basic : Make your webtemplate parsing TXT or HTML (instead of PHP) and run your PHP code inside PHP parsed template of webtemplate.
b) If your PHP code is advanced : Grab vb header and footer inside your PHP code with PHP commands as well like:

eval('$headinclude = "' . fetch_template('headinclude') . '";');
eval('$header = "' . fetch_template('header') . '";');
eval('$footer = "' . fetch_template('footer') . '";');

Thanks, Logician.
I did as you suggested and got a header and footer. No navbar, page title or page in a category table, though.
What I want to do is run a fairly complex PHP script which allows people to search for a make & model of DVD player, read the hacks for it, comment and provide feedback on those hacks and submit and edit new ones.
All while maintaining the logged-in appearance of the forums. I want to write the user id to any comments/hacks records they contribute and display their user name from the vB database in the displayed records.
Now writing that script is well within my capabilities. Having it all happen within the forum 'environment' is not.
Help!
Thanks.

[cessna140]

Hey Logician!

Got the following error when trying to update the database. Ran it both ways. Know what this means?

==============
Error

SQL-query :

--

MySQL said:
#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax near '--' at line 1
===============

Clark