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 \\=^))

[Willard Reece]

I just tried to install and got this error.

Warning: Failed opening './global.php' for inclusion (include_path='') in /home/reecefam/public_html/DFHA_install.php on line 3

What did I do wrong.
here is where I am trying to run from

reecefamilies.com/vp/DFHA_install.php

Thanks
Willard

Reecefamilies

[Logician]

Originally posted by Willard Reece
[B]I just tried to install and got this error.

Warning: Failed opening './global.php' for inclusion (include_path='') in /home/reecefam/public_html/DFHA_install.php on line 3

You have to upload (and run) the installation file from your FORUM directory (where global.php resides). It seems that you uploaded the file to a wrong directory.

I checked your site and for you correct dir is:
http://www.reecefamilies.com/vp/forums/

Upload and run (once!) the file from there and you'll be fine..

[Xenon]

As i thought, i'm away for two week and Pal Logician writes a terrific hack.

Very good work pal, and not increasing the querie amount
:thumbsup:

i'm sure i'll install it

[Willard Reece]

Logician

Thank you so much..

It worked like a dream,

This is the second hack I have done by myself,
first hack was games hack and now this one. So i'm learning

The first addition I added to my board was vbportal.
I had to have alot of help on the...vbportal add on.

[MalaK_3araby]

sounds just Great.

will try it soon.

Thanks logician ..

[Willard Reece]

Just another word


Man this is nice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Reecefamilies

[Logician]

Originally posted by Willard Reece
Just another word

Man this is nice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seems your visitors liked it too..

A few tips for your board:
a) You can use bbcode in your announcement so you can link the relevant thread inside your announcement with url tag
b) Your poll is open to site members only so you can limit your announcement for only their view too. Just add:
[[($bbuserinfo[userid]>0)]] in the begining and [[/($bbuserinfo[userid]>0)]] in the end of your announcement which will restrict this announcement for only your members' view and guest will not see it..

Enjoy..

[Willard Reece]

I'm trying to uninstall this hack to see if it is my problem.

I got it installed and now 2 days later with out doing anything else to the site, my wifes pc and my neice's pc don't log on. and I ask someome else and they said the same.
It takes there name and p/w and comes back to a blank 404 error page.
Anyone have this problem yet??

Thanks
Wilard
Reecefamilies

[Logician]

Originally posted by Willard Reece
I'm trying to uninstall this hack to see if it is my problem.

I got it installed and now 2 days later with out doing anything else to the site, my wifes pc and my neice's pc don't log on. and I ask someome else and they said the same.
It takes there name and p/w and comes back to a blank 404 error page.
Anyone have this problem yet??

Thanks
Wilard
Reecefamilies

It does not sound like your problem is related to this hack. But to make sure try these steps:
1- Delete your announcement box and try again. It can be a invalid conditional you set can be the cause.
2- Delete the part you added to global.php. This is very close to uninstall and if the hack is your problem, it will be solved in this step.

The hack has been used in many boards for sometime now (including mine) and I havent noticed any bugs (especially something weird like that). And the problem you refer does not seem related to a section this hacks changes. But let me know anyway..

BTW.:
1- Does it your wife's PC not logging on or her account. That is, can she log in from another computer?
2- Do other people logon without problems?
3- What's the URL they get after unsuccessful login attemps.

It sounds like it's related to member.php so I suggest checking this file too, especially if you applied any hacks there..

[Willard Reece]

If I go to another pc , I can't even log on as myself.
4 pc's and can't log on,,maybe more havn't heard from anyone yet,
My main pc here is logging on because I have it save in cookies.
I hope thats why.


url comes up this
http://www.reecefamilies.com/member.php
and error 404 page.
After trying to log on.

and can't log on with her name or my neice's account.