[vB3 RC3] Welcome Hack v1.2

Hack Author:
Name: Hwulex
E-Mail: vbhacks[at]hwulex[dot]com
Forums: http://forums.xaprief.com


History:
I'm sure most of us are aware of trilOByte's popular Welcome Hack that was available for vBulletin 2.
I myself had it installed on my vB2 forums, and after upgrading to vBulletin 3 missed it, so, seeing as nobody else had, I decided to make my own version.


Description:
This hack does two things:
1. It alters the look of your forum's index page by reducing the size of the "What's Going On" box to just one line (more if birthdays / calendar events present). This box is also shifted up to the top of the page, beneath the navbar.
2. The information that it strips out of that box is not lost though as it is moved up in to the navbar box at the top of the page. The general statistics are only displayed on the forum homepage, as well as your avatar, and the number of new-posts and active-threads since your last visit. On all other pages, the navbar remains as it was.


Zip Contents:
welcome_hack_vb3_v1_2.zip
|- instructions.html :: Instruction on how to install this hack.
|- forumhome_loggedin.gif :: Shows what your ForumHome will look like after installation with a logged in user.
|- others_in_and_out.gif :: Shows screenshots of the hack in various states, plus a screenie of the vB2 version.
|- noavatar.gif :: Placeholder for those users who don't have an avatar set.
`- guestavatar.gif :: Placeholder avatar for guest viewers.

Testing:
Tested on vBulletin 3 RC 2


Files to Modify:
forumroot/index.php


Templates to Modify:
forumhome
navbar


Phrases to Add:
active_threads
info_forum
info_user
info_visitor
online_now


Phrases to Edit:
$vbphrase[welcome_to_our_newest_member_x]
$vbphrase[last_visited_x_at_y]
$vbphrase[forum_contains_new_posts]
$vbphrase[forum_contains_no_new_posts]
$vbphrase[forum_is_closed_for_posting]
$vbphrase[most_users_ever_online_was_x_y_at_z]
$vbphrase[private_messages]


Images to Upload:
noavatar.gif
guestavatar.gif


Notes:
If you do install this hack, please click on the INSTALL button.
You will receive updates in your e-mail whenever I add new features to it.
Please also post a reply with your comments, they are appreciated.


Updates:
1.1
- Fixed 'X' problem for NewPosts and ActiveThreads.
- Added noavatar.gif, and accompanying instructions, to the package.
1.2
- Made NewPosts and ActiveThreads display on forumhome only.
- Moved queries to index.php reducing per-page queries by two.
- Added guestavatar feature for indexpage.

[Hwulex]

Originally Posted by Cyricx

Can you entertain me & post the necessary code for me to add so it shows on like every page?

I hate the look of just one page showing that welcome hack. I want it on every page.

And yes, I don't care about the Database abuse.

Cyricx

You could make the welcome hack appear on every page, but you need to make some changes to index.php and global.php, as well as replace your navbar template.

The navbar changes I've got sorted, but I need to finalise the changes in global.php and index.php. If it doesn't take too long, I will try and work it all out for you. It will add around 5 queries per page though, just so you know.

[Hwulex]

Originally Posted by Cyricx

Can you entertain me & post the necessary code for me to add so it shows on like every page?

I hate the look of just one page showing that welcome hack. I want it on every page.

And yes, I don't care about the Database abuse.

Cyricx

Ok, I have mocked up this for you. It's not the most efficient thing in the world, and could add anything up to ten or twelve queries per page (as it's all called in global.php).

I have not re-written the biggest of the code/queries used here for getting the online users as it's too much work for me to do right now. This does, however, work. But please bear in mind that if you use the welcome hack on every page, you lose the original functionality of the navbar all together. You could of course modify the template to show the navbar underneath the welcome hack, perhaps, but I have not done that here.

The attached instructions are not comprehensive in their installation from scratch. You will still need the original instructions for phrase edits. Use the file edits and template additions from these ones though.

Cheers

[Cyricx]

Yea, no problem.

Gotcha I'll work on this today Thanks!!

Cyricx

[M.C.]

just one more question - where to change this:

[M.C.]

i mean i need phrases to translate to my origin language! Thanx

[Zelda-King]

It appears the phrases regarding PMs don't show if you have PMs disabled. I can't say for sure because I modded this hack for my board. You may wish to test it in any case.

[mcyates]

If you look at www.myfootballforum.com you will see that after a topic title is so long it puts ... at the end to shorten it. How can I adjust this so more of the title will be shown?

[Reeve of shinra]

How do I edit the phrases? I am using RC4? I think it was made it so you purposefully cant edit the standard phrases. Did I miss a hack for that or should this be done via a query in the DB?

[Hwulex]

Edit the phrases in the Phrase MAnager, the same as you would for any other phrase.

As for the no-pm thing, I'll look into that later.

[Zelda-King]

Originally Posted by Hwulex

As for the no-pm thing, I'll look into that later.

I've had a closer look. It's probably my own code that was doing it as I've fixed that on my board.