Add-On Releases - Welcome headers - Improve community registration rates

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 (notices entries, rules and phrases)
This template hack should take under 5 minutes to implement and customize.

Installation/ Upgrade Instructions

1 ? Backup any existing welcome header messages (upgrading)
2 ? Remove the default welcome header from your forum home template (new installs)
3 ? Install the attached plugin file
4 ? Now Required: Customize the messages 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. This addon no longer adds 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

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 and remains fully compatible with 3.8.

Updates from 3.7

No changes have been made; the code needed for both is the same so upgrading is not necessary.

[afflictionaoc]

I have installed according to the directions (running version 3.8) and the message are not showing up. They show up on the default vbulletin template, but not my custom template. How do I make this work?

[Ted S]

Insure that your custom style uses the proper variables to call in the notices block from vbulletin. These can be found in the default style.

[barryhynd]

Hiya, many thanks for your work on this, I'm also having no luck in getting the notices to display, I've tried the re-install and re-save the notices tips above but still getting nothing. The template has been changed from the default, but having had a look I can't see anything missing (apart from the <if condition"$show[guest']"> block. Can you give me a pointer to what the notices block looks like (or where in the vb templates it should be)? I have asked google, but it seems I must be asking the wrong questions .

Many thanks

[Ted S]

The notices hook is native to vbulletin and can be found at the end of the header template. I don't have the code in front of me but you can find it in the template or I can dig for it in a day or two.

[Rideharder]

Originally Posted by ph03nIX

I had the same problem, I had to go to the Notice Manager and change the display orders. I think by default they are 1, 11, 21 and 31, I changed them to 1, 2, 3 and 4 and then it worked. Not sure if it'll work for you but it's probably worth a try.

Thanks it worked for me!

[LI_Pets]

I deleted this
<!-- guest welcome message -->
<table class="tborder" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" border="0" width="760"

align="left" >
<tr>
<td class="tcat"><phrase 1="$vboptions[bbtitle]">$vbphrase[welcome_to_the_x]</phrase></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="alt1">
<phrase 1="faq.php$session[sessionurl_q]" 2="register.php$session[sessionurl_q]">$vbphrase[first_visit_message]</phrase>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<!-- / guest welcome message -->After install on 3.8.3

added plugin

notices show nothing?

[Ted S]

Try creating a test notice and see if it shows up at all.

If not you are missing the notices code in your templates.

If so reorder the notices this mod created which often activates them.

[LI_Pets]

I looked again and I see this mod was in before at 4.2????

I'm using 3.8.3

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by LI_Pets

I looked again and I see this mod was in before at 4.2????

I'm using 3.8.3

Huh?

[LI Pets]

What I'm saying it appears that version 4.2 was included with 3.8.3 is that possible?