WebTemplates v.0.1 (Old Version)

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Attention: This version of webtemplates is obsolete since new version (2.xx) is released as of 30.June.2003.

If you are new user, please visit new hack's thread and install that one, not this version.

This thread is active for discussing migration issues and will be closed in the future.
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Introduction:
Basically this hack allows you create vbulletin powered non-vb pages within vb admin CP and administer them just like vb templates.

Your "webtemplates" reside inside MYSQL and have the same structure as regular vbulletin templates and you edit/modify/delete them inside your Admin CP. You can create as many as you like and display them like:
http://yoursite URL/yourboard URL/show.php?pg=YOUR_WEBTEMPLATE_NAME.

Features of Your WebTemplates:
* You can easily edit/update your non-vb pages from your vb control panel just like vb templates. No need to FTP or smt.
* Simply backup your vbulletin and your entire site (including your webtemplates) is backed up too.
* You can use some vbulletin variables in your non-vb pages, so eg. address your members with their member names in your entire site.
* Your entire web site can mimic your forum's visual interface. All your fonts/colors etc. are kept in your non-vb. pages too. Besides users' style sets apply for your web templates either. So for instance if you have 2 styles, every user will see your webtemplates in the style and colors they are using in the board.
* This hack allows you to specify usergroups/usernames which can or cannot see the page you designed. So your non-vb pages can inherit vb. access permissions. Every webtemplate can have different display permissions for different users/usergroups.
* You can have counters in your pages and show/trace page visits individually for all your pages. Every webtemplate has its own counter.
* You can have "last visitor's name and visit time" in all your pages.
* You can insert fixed header/footer for all your pages.
* The "conditionals" you can set, allow you to design advanced and dynamic web pages, which change themselves according to the conditions you set. For example you can set different texts/page designs IN THE SAME PAGE for different users and every user will only see the text that is addressed to him.

Webtemplates are very easy to create. Just copy paste the HTML code of your page into the webtemplate box, give it a name, click submit and voila, your webtemplate is up and running! By using this method, you can convert your existing non-vb pages into webtemplates with ease too. It is just a matter of copy/paste its HMTML code. Installation of the hack is easy too and the hack will work any version of vbulletin I know.

For Advanced Users: If you want your webtemplates to get data from your database and display it, you have an advanced feature named "webqueries". WebQueries feature allows you to run SQL queries in your MYSQL database and automatically create sorted tables for you which you can add in any WebTemplates. So your non-vb pages can be dynamic and you can have any kind of SQL results (related with vb or not) in any page you want. Webqueries are optional to use and appeals to people with basic SQL knowledge. You can still create webtemplates very easily without using webqueries if you don't know SQL or don't need to query your database in your webtemplate. If you want to play with webqueries, please read and follow instructions CAREFULLY. This hack gives you advanced tools to create powerful and dynamic web pages, so give yourself sometime and learn how to create these pages. I wrote help pages which you can find in your webtemplates section after installation, so please read them carefully and examine sample page's code before pelting me with questions!

If you installed this hack, share your webquery samples in this thread


Fixes and Add-ons:
* If you have than 1 MYSQL databases, webquery section might not work properly. If you encounter any problems related to that issue, apply the small fix in this post.[/COLOR]
* If you want to display your webtemplates in who is online, apply this small hack .
Also there is a small bug with "conditionals" feature of the hack, if you use more than 1 conditional in 1 webtemplate. I guess very few people use this feature but anyway I fixed it in the new release that is in progress..
* If you want your webtemplates search engine friendly and indexed in google or other search engines, read this tip by Piper.

Current version (BETA v.0.1) is NOT actually a beta anymore, it's proven to be working very well in many people's boards and is stable.

I plan to develop this hack. However to enhance it more, I need to change its algortihm which requires rewriting and I wait for VB3 so that the hack will will be competible with VB3 too. That's why development is pending at the moment.


If you install the hack please click install, thank you.

Regards,
Logician //=^))

[Logician]

Originally posted by DancesWithLysol
since you would be familiar with both hacks, do you think it would be possible create something similar to the news hack using web templates?

It's possible to compile news and post to a news page (not index.php though!) with WebTemplates Hack.

However considering the fact that you already applied Logician News Hack, you really wouldnt need WebTemplate for news. Logician News has more features for news like taking some part of the news, parsing smilies (Web Templates new release will do it too), having sticky news etc. So for news I suggest using Logician News, not Web Templates.

If you are tending to use WebTemplates, yes you can though. Just create a web query to compile data from your db and create a webtemplate to post them away. But it would be a little awkard at the moment since smilies, bbcode cant be parsed for example and you are for sure need show.php to display this page.

BTW. why to you want to combine both of them? The only reason I can think of is to apply vb access permissions to your news page and except this you wouldnt need to integrate two, would you?

[DancesWithLysol]

BTW. why to you want to combine both of them? The only reason I can think of is to apply vb access permissions to your news page and except this you wouldnt need to integrate two, would you?

The site that I would like to use this for is a subscription site where subscribers get access to additional content (e.g. files). I was considering a system where I could show all the most recent files that the user has access to (based on the usergroupid) on the left, and have the site news on the right.

While I like your news hack, one thing I wish it would do is use the colors defined in the user's selected style. I figured that templates solve this problem and are a more general approach to accessing information from the database for use in web pages.

[Logician]

Originally posted by DancesWithLysol

While I like your news hack, one thing I wish it would do is use the colors defined in the user's selected style. I figured that templates solve this problem and are a more general approach to accessing information from the database for use in web pages.

I see.. Unfortunately it's not possible to combine Logician News and WebTemplates. If you want to create such an enviroment you need to stick with Webtemplates. It can help you to get the page you have in your mind, just one downside: It cant parse smilies and bbcode for your news yet. However I already added this feature to the new release which will be released soon, so I guess until you finish designing your page, it will be ready and you can use it with your news.

[Alan Ang]

hi logician...

i tried to install your hack, but got this after the installation... i am lost at what to do...

Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING in /home/poolfana/public_html/forum/admin/functions.php on line 812

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: vbsetcookie() in /home/poolfana/public_html/forum/admin/sessions.php on line 183

[Logician]

Originally posted by Alan Ang
i tried to install your hack, but got this after the installation... i am lost at what to do...

Alan please double check if you applied step 3 correctly. It seems that you made a mistake in step 3. Check it out, reapply if necessary and if you cant figure that out send me your "functions.php" via pm and I'll take a look at it.

[Alan Ang]

PM sent to you... thx in advance.

[GuruXL]

you know this hack seems kinda pointless I mean their is already a "Pages Via Templates" hack...so in my mind this hack is well...crap...

[Logician]

Originally posted by GuruXL
you know this hack seems kinda pointless I mean their is already a "Pages Via Templates" hack...

Already?

Pages Via Templates hack released in 03-27-02 05:49 AM
WebTemplates hack released in 03-22-02 07:58 PM

Make a subtraction..

I hope your maths is better than your "great" knowledge in coding and "wisdom" in critising something you have no idea.

[Alan Ang]

logician,
i finally got mine up and running. great hack!
it seems that i have a little problem, i can't preview the WebQuery but I can preview the WebTemplate...
what can be the cause?
also, when i run http://myURL/show.php?pg=whoareyou, the list of messages seems NOT to be the latest posts.
when i try out your PM Query, the PMs that i get are all the Odd numbered ones... ???
can i re-install the Webtemplates? will it create another extra 2 tables or will it just write over?
oh, and one last thing (sorry too many)... how do i link my index.htm to show the http://myURL/show.php?pg=whoareyou
please advice.
thx.

[Logician]

Originally posted by Alan Ang

it seems that i have a little problem, i can't preview the WebQuery but I can preview the WebTemplate...
what can be the cause?

what do you mean by "you cant preview webquery"? You cant access webquery screen inside your Admin CP? Can you list webquery list in Admin CP when you click modify query? Can you access your webquery when you click one in the modify query screen? Or is it just webquery doesnt work when you load a webtemplate?

Please give some more details, I didnt get it.

also, when i run http://myURL/show.php?pg=whoareyou, the list of messages seems NOT to be the latest posts.
when i try out your PM Query, the PMs that i get are all the Odd numbered ones... ??? can i re-install the Webtemplates?

Have you modified any webquery? Was it so when you first installed the hack and loaded whoareyou or did it become broken after sometime?

I must say that this is weird

Anyway here is my tips:
1- First apply the fix to show.php a few messages above and let's see if it will do the trick.

2- If not please delete your tables via these SQL commands:

drop table webtemplates;
drop table webtemplatequery;

(You have a tool to run a SQL query right? If not, you can use this one)

After deleting both, run installation script again..

how do i link my index.htm to show the http://myURL/show.php?pg=whoareyou

Do you mean replacing your index.htm with this template or inserting the results returned from this template inside index.htm?

Or if you just mean to put the link of the template in index.htm, you should link it just like a normal internet URL:
<a href="http://myURL/show.php?pg=whoareyou">My Template</a>

BTW. can I see your webtemplate? What's the URL?