Mini Mods - Welcome Headers: Notices System Default Messages & Settings to Drive Participation

Out of the box, your forum isn't personalized to assist or address your visitors. As a result, guests entering on a page other than the homepage (which is most often the case) have no idea what to do or why to register. Additionally, there are no visible status indicators, making it confusing for unconfirmed, unapproved or new members to know what to do or where to begin. But with a little customization, the use of the vBulletin Notices System and Welcome Headers, you can solve these issues in just a few minutes.

What is Welcome Headers?

Welcome Headers is a set of predefined messages and rules designed to help you get started in personalizing your site's notices using the vBulletin notice feature. The default templates are just that, default ? I highly encourage you to modify and add to the language and rules to meet the needs of your actual community environment.

Modifications/ Instructions:

Plugins: 1 (creates notices rules and phrases)
This template hack should take under 5 minutes to implement and customize.

Installation/ Upgrade Instructions

1 ? Install the attached plugin file
2 ? Customize the notices to include your site's name

For detailed instructions on each step please view the install.html file included with this addon.

Support

Please post any enhancement or technical questions you may have and I will do my best to respond in a timely manner. Please note: I can not guarantee an immediate response and am unable to assist with integrating this addon with other addons or with HTML related questions.

Why use this when the notices system exists?

Welcome Headers have been around since before vBulletin 3.0 but as of 3.7 the functionality of the system was no longer needed as vBulletin added its own native feature to handle notices. However while the notices feature lets you show welcome header style messages it doesn't give you any to start with. The notices version of this addon does not add any functionality but instead provides a set of 4 notices that have been time-tested and help your forum grow and function better for guests and members.

Please be sure to customize and add to the messages from this addon to match the individual needs of your forum!

Older Version Support (Templates)

While most users are choosing to upgrade to the notices system, there are some advantages to the "old" system mainly in that it does not rely on a rules system and can be configured as designed with code changes. Additionally, the "old" version has automatic interfacing with several other addons which the notices system does not. For this reason, the old version is still supported being developed and will appear as a seperate file to download.

Updates from 3.7/3.8

Minor code changes to support 4.0, no changes to the functional mod.

[Simon Lloyd]

just change the setting of that particular notice to be persistant, non dismissable

[LisaArnold]

Originally Posted by Simon Lloyd

just change the setting of that particular notice to be persistant, non dismissable

Thanks, I'll try doing that without breaking something (I'm new to this modding stuff).

I've been told I can find where to do that (in the Notice Manager), but I have no idea where to find that.

[cavyspirit]

Originally Posted by Simon Lloyd

Go to your style>Main CSS and in the additional css box add this

/* ***** Notice colours ***** */
.notice {padding:.8em;margin-bottom:1.6em;border:2px solid #ddd;}
.notice {background:#FFF6BF;color:#514721;border-color:#FFD324;}
.notice a {color:#514721; background:none; padding:0; margin:0; }
/* ***** End of Notice Colours ***** */

then wrap your notice in this:

<p class="notice">YOUR NOTICE TEXT</p>

I just wanted to add a variation on this that I did that was more what I was looking for.

Rather than a paragraph class (it takes up too much space and still leaves the default background), I have some specific notices that I wanted in a DIFFERENT background color.

So, I put this code in my Additional CSS template:

.notices li#navbar_notice_4 {background: #fee303 !important;}

You can get the notice number by looking at the link when hovering over it in the backend or in the view source on the frontend. #4 was the one I wanted in a different background color.

[Peter Cook]

I don't see a use for this mod as it's easy enough to change the notices header manually yourself to match the template you are using! Once saved there is no further modification required

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Peter Cook

I don't see a use for this mod as it's easy enough to change the notices header manually yourself to match the template you are using! Once saved there is no further modification required

Did you read the intro to this addon?

[Filgga]

This' not working for me nowadays, 3rd day now

[Simon Lloyd]

it's nothing to do with the mod as it simply "adds" some notices in notices manager to get you started, if it doesn't work it may be disabled in notce manager or you have changed something there.

[Filgga]

Originally Posted by Simon Lloyd

it's nothing to do with the mod as it simply "adds" some notices in notices manager to get you started, if it doesn't work it may be disabled in notce manager or you have changed something there.

Where did I go wrong?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Filgga

Where did I go wrong?

As the previous poster mentioned, this modifcation is a series of notices. If the notices don't show up, check the notices manager [a default part of vBulletin] and the settings you have for notices. If everything is enabled and it still hasn't show, check your template modifications to be sure you didn't remove the system.

And as a piece of advice saying a mod "doesn't work" is not the best way to get help. Be specific. Explain the issue. It saves the reply from asking for those exact things speeding up help by hours if not days.

[Simon Lloyd]

In your navbar template look for

<!-- / nav buttons bar -->

<br />

and

<if condition="$show['forumdesc']">

and replace everything between them with this

<if condition="$show['notices']">
<form action="profile.php?do=dismissnotice" method="post" id="notices">
<input type="hidden" name="do" value="dismissnotice" />
<input type="hidden" name="securitytoken" value="$bbuserinfo[securitytoken]" />
<input type="hidden" id="dismiss_notice_hidden" name="dismiss_noticeid" value="" />
<input type="hidden" name="url" value="$return_link" />
	<table class="tborder" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" border="0" width="100%" align="center">
	<tr>
		<td class="thead">$vbphrase[notices]</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td class="alt1">
			$notices
		</td>
	</tr>
	</table>
	<br />
</form>
</if>

that will be your standard notices, if they still dont work you probably have them set wrong in notice manager.