WebTemplates 2.x: VB Integrated Content Management System

After a long wait, here is the new 2.x version of Webtemplates. First a short introduction for users who are not familiar with the old version:

This hack is a vbulletin integrated content management system. Term "Webtemplates" stands for dynamic webpages that reside in your MYSQL database and administered inside your vbulletin admin control panel. But they are more than regular site pages because they can automatically inherit visual design of your forum, can apply permissions according to your vb usergroup settings, can keep track of page counts, last visitorname/visit time, display page browsers in the page itself and in your whoisonline page etc. So basically webtemplates are dynamic web pages of your site which are powered by vbulletin.


WEBTEMPLATES 2.x FEATURES:
([New] indicates feature that is recently introduced in this 2.x version)

• Easy Installation : Webtemplates can be installed to your board without hacking even a single vbulletin file! It is coded as an add-on, not a hack.
• Conditionals : Webtemplates has built-in support for Logician's advanced templates conditionals so you can design webtemplates which change their display under different conditions. (Even if you don't have that hack installed)
• Private Webtemplates (NEW): With 1 click you can make a webtemplate "private" and it will be displayed to only certain usergroups.
• Apply VB Permissions: You can ban any webtemplate to any user or usergroup according to their userids or usergroupids. So for instance you can design a webtemplate which only members can see while guests can not or only user A can not see etc.
• Draft Webtemplates (NEW): You can put webtemplates in "draft" mode which makes them invisible to all but admins.
• Visitor Logging&Tracking (NEW): You can track certain users (by usergroup or userid) to monitor who visited a webtemplate and when. This is configurable per webtemplate basis.
• Site Contributers (Editor) Support (NEW): You can grant editing permissions for certain users or usergroups for your webtemplates individually and they will be able to update these webtemplates using their own editor interface.
• Categories (NEW): Webtemplates 2.x supports multi-categories for better webtemplate organizations.
• Multi Parsing (NEW): Webtemplates can now parse PHP or HTML or TEXT (=smilie/img tags/bbcode parsing like vb posts)
• Default variables : You can use/display certain variables in your webtemplates like username of the visitor, visitor email address, last visit time, page creation time, page last edit time, Last visitor name, last visit time etc.
• Outside Variables (NEW): Advanced users can now use outside variables in webtemplates, then webtemplates will accept/use/process user sent variables via HTTP_GET and HTTP_POST methods (eg. a HTML form can post to a webtemplate with this feature)
• Page Counter : Webtemplate has built-in counter and you can display page count to your visitors and you can edit it or turn it OFF or ON per webtemplate basis.
• Page Browsers Display (NEW): Webtemplates can display who is browsing that webtemplate while people is reading them (like default forum browse display of vbulletin)
• Who is Online Display (NEW): Webtemplates can display page visitors in who is online (This is Optional and require a simple hacking in file online.php). You can create private webtemplates which are hidden in who is online too.
• Theme Support (NEW): Webtemplates support "themes" which are parent webtemplates which include child webtemplates in them. For instance if you have 20 similiar pages which uses the same visual look, you can make a theme for them, then just insert their content into this theme. If you change theme later, all 20 pages' visual will change automatically.
• Header/Footer Inclusion : Webtemplates can use headers/footers (your default vb header/footer or custom ones)
• PHPINCLUDE per webtemplate (NEW) : Every webtemplate has its own "phpinclude" field which you can run PHP codes before loading the Webtemplate
• Help Documents : The script comes with built-in & detailed help documents (they are webtemplates too).
• Webquery Feature : With advanced "webquery" feature you can now add create dynamic webtemplates which include database query results. For instance you can easily add member count/post count/thread count/last 10 threads forum X etc. to your webtemplates with default webqueries that comes with installation or you can create your custom webqueries with basic SQL knowledge.
• Archieve to Text File (NEW): Webtemplates/Webqueries can be downloaded to a text file with one click for archiving purposes. You can also easily share these text files with other hack users.
• Login/Logout box (NEW): You can insert login/register box to your webtemplate if visitor is a guest and log off box if she is a member.
• Admin Panel in Webtemplates (NEW): Your webtemplates can include an "admin panel" displayed to only admins and by using them you can access many details and stats of your page while you are browsing them.
• Better Performance (NEW): Webtemplates 2.x structured so that it performs well even under heavy load conditions and high traffic servers. (See Performance issues below)
• Easy Back up: Simply back up your database (inside vbulletin or externally) and all your webtemplate structure is also backed up automatically.

For screenshots, FAQ, performance issues, migration from old version to new version, see below.

If you use the hack, clicking here will make sure you'll know about updates&bug fixes. It will also help me understand how many people is using the hack so please click the install button if you use it. Thank you..


Version Updates:
30.July.2003 - > Version 2.03

* Adds feature to include regular vbtemplates into webtemplates

2.02 users: apply this fix to update.
New users: Get the hack from the first post of this thread (which is the latest version), you don't need to apply this update.

12.July.2003 - > Version 2.02

* Fixes a bug with outside variables.

2.01 users: apply this fix to update.
New users: Get the hack from the first post of this thread (which is the latest version), you don't need to apply this update.

2.July.2003 - > Version 2.01

* Fixes bug that bothers webqueries if "Show Template Name" option enabled in vb admin cp
* Fixes bug in webquery $WQ_mostactivemembers
* Fixes visual look of webtemplate test
* Fixes visual look of admin panel and makes sure it looks ok in dark backgrounded boards too.

2.00 users: update here.
New users: Get the hack from the first post of this thread (which is the latest version), you don't need to apply this update.


Webtemplates 3.x (for vb.3.x) is released here:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=76422

[Highlander]

Hi there..that means i can parse a complete PHP/HTML site with this Webtemplates?
So an example here:
http://spielplanet2.de/download.php?db=2 <--this is self coded and merged HTML/PHP it is possible to parse all this code (47KB) ??

greets
Highlander

www.spieleplanet.com

[corsacrazy]

Yesterday at 08:52 PM Intex said this in Post #79
corsacrazy - I guess that depends on what you mean. I believe Logician's design surrounds vB and allows you to control everything 'within' vB so you can admin it anywhere.

You can certainly include HTML, PHP, TXT etc. within the templates, so if you have something external to the forum, you would create a template and place that code within the custom template you've made. You then get all the headers and page hits and other superb admin capabilities.

Superb hack - install it NOW !!! .

well i basically wanted to run my entire site thru this hack BUT still include som vb functions ie the forum headers and footers members online and a welcome panel and maybe a few l8test threads. but it needs to be in the root directory cos i cant/dont want have a site all in the forums directory !

Today at 03:22 AM K33nny said this in Post #80
Do you mean something like this?

http://www.ewplanet.org/view.php?pg=adverts

similar

[Logician]

Today at 09:44 AM corsacrazy said this in Post #82
well i basically wanted to run my entire site thru this hack BUT still include som vb functions ie the forum headers and footers members online and a welcome panel and maybe a few l8test threads. but it needs to be in the root directory cos i cant/dont want have a site all in the forums directory !

As I mentioned in the FAQ:

This is possible but I dont support it, sorry. Because although it is no big deal to add a change directory command at the begining of view.php and change its locations, if you do that there might be a lots of sections in the hack code to change to fix smaller bugs that modification will produce.

For instance admin cp "view webtemplate" link will not work. Webtemplate Admin Panel links will be broken etc. There can be other bugs introduced after the change which I can not think at the moment either.

So if you dont mind such small bugs, only care that you put view.php to another directory and it displays webtemplates and take the risk of having some bugs, that is ok, you are welcome to do it with your own risk as K33nny did.

But if I support this modification, I will be then invited to fix the bugs that is introduced by this hack which may require working on the entire code from the start so this is why I neither support, nor encourage this change.

K33nny is welcomed to share how he did it and you or any others are welcomed to apply his hack to change this behavior.

I'm sure you'll understand my point.

[corsacrazy]

Thanks alot for the explanation i will give it a go

[soccerclue]

hi logician,

when i try to edit the page using TEXT format....I have problem to make more than one space character..when I try to make for example several space characters..it will just show one space character. Can you let me know how to manipulate using the keyboard space character for the space character instead of making nbsp;?

[Logician]

Today at 11:13 PM soccerclue said this in Post #85
hi logician,

when i try to edit the page using TEXT format....I have problem to make more than one space character..when I try to make for example several space characters..it will just show one space character. Can you let me know how to manipulate using the keyboard space character for the space character instead of making nbsp;?

In text parsing webtemplate is parsed exactly in the same way a vbulletin post is parsed. And this restriction is inherited from vb post parsing. Test it and you'll see you can not add more than one consecutive space into vbulletin posts too.

[soccerclue]

Yeah..that's the problem..do you have any idea how I can manipulate that? How come the board cannot allow multiple spaces?

[soccerclue]

Hi,

Just now find the general discussion of this hack..and saying that newer version supports the form processing? Is this the new version already? Does it mean we can use the form to send the data from user's input into our SQL with this hack?

[Logician]

Today at 01:05 AM soccerclue said this in Post #88
Hi,

Just now find the general discussion of this hack..and saying that newer version supports the form processing? Is this the new version already? Does it mean we can use the form to send the data from user's input into our SQL with this hack?

yes new version means ver 2.x

This supports form processing by accepting outside variables. You can then use this variables in your webtemplates or webqueries so yes technically you can use user input for SQL. Check webquery help file please, there are a lot of info there.

[soccerclue]

Does that mean we can trace the variable's value from SQL table and also insert value to SQL table?