Advanced Templates: Dynamic Templates Changing according to different conditions

This hack allows you to design dynamic vb templates which change themselves according to different conditions. Thus you can customize your board very powerfully with "intelligent/interactive" templates. It uses the same "conditional concept" just like my Webtemplates and Dynamic Forum Announcements Hack. With conditionals you can program your templates to:

• be displayed differently to different users.
• hide/display some part/texts/html codes/even the entire template for some users
• include extra text/HTML codes/secret messages inside which will be displayed if page visitor matches your pre-configured criterias
• Have multi-templates inside 1 template and each of them will be parsed and displayed only if their set condition applies.

You can program your templates according to many different criteria, such as:

• user's userid
• user's usergroup
• user's profile fields' input
• user's post number
• user's last visit time
• user's seniority (register date)
• today's date, day, month, week, year, hour, second, if today is user's birthday
• user's is visibility status
• style id user's using
• user's cookie status
• user's time settings
• (in forumdisplay templates) forum id
• (in showthread templates) thread id
• etc.

Some practical examples about what you can do with this hack:

• You can have different postbit templates for different users/usergroups.
• Display your board differently to the user if it's his birthday, if he is X, if he age <Y, if he didnt visit your board since Z etc.
• Display Admin Only Profile fields/or any profile fields in postbit if X condition applies
• You can hide Admin only links in your templates such as "Show IP".
• Disable Email/Pm User links in postbit or userprofile screen if reader is from usergroup X etc.
• Send different email text to different users according to different criteria. Add hidden email texts if X condition applies
• Hide "register" link if user is not a guest, add access to pm if user is not a guest
• Ban some templates if X condition applies such as dont display profile screens if user's X profile field = Y
• Disable some forums if today is X day or hour is Y
• Dont display thread view/user count/last reply date if user's usergroup is X
• Hide threads according to different criteria in showthread templates

Well there are literally millions of possibilities you can apply, so please use your imagination for more examples..

The Hack's Features:

• Installation is VERY easy: Actually 2 steps in 1 file will take less than 1 minute..You will be surprised how such a small modification will make such a big difference in your board.
• It's compatible with ALL vb versions I know
• The hack covers all the templates in your database: ie. custom templates, ALL vbulletin templates including even emails and error messages etc.
• It's fully compatible with all your installed hacks and their custom templates too.
• It makes many small hacks obsolete because you can now modify your templates to achieve the same result instead of hacking your board (=changing .php files)

Vbulletin v.3 has been announced to have "conditional" concept in templates, however my hack wasn't inspired by it at all, because I'm using the conditionals in my Webtemplates hack since March 2002 so in fact vb developers might be inspired by me. My Dynamic Forum Announcements hack uses the same concept for forum home announcements too.. (Wait for my other hacks depending on conditionals cause I really like them, they are really powerful and customizable)

Performance Issues
The hack does NOT add any MYSQL connections. It just process your already retrieved templates in a function to parse the hack conditionals. Thus the performance is IMO quite bearable. However please notice that if a template has a conditional in it, the hack have to parse it before displaying it and technically this parsing is done with PHP's preg_match command which is known as a powerful but slow command. So does it cause any performance problems? In most cases no. But if the conditionals are applied in a very frequently used and/or long template and/or you used too many conditionals in one template AND your traffic or server load is high, this MAY increase your PHP processing time whenever this template is displayed as the hack has to deal with the conditionals everytime this template is called. I suggest applying Teck's Microstat's hack and observe the PHP running time with that hack after you applied a conditional especially in a frequently used template (eg. postbit). If it slows down the display, simply reduce your conditional count in that template or delete the conditional or remove the hack altogether. Personally I dont have any performance problems in my own board related to this hack but just wanted to give my 2 cents anyway especially for high-traffic boards..

If you liked the hack (I guess you will), I strongly suggest checking out my Webtemplates hack which provides exactly the same feature for your NON-VB pages.

Also please click INSTALL if you use the hack, thank you..

09.Sep.2002 Bug Fix: If you installed the hack before 09.Sep.2002 please download the instructions again and reapply step 2, since I made an update for a small bug fix. There was a variable name collision which causes a problem with email validation screen which uses the same variable so I changed my variable's name. If you are downloading the hack now, go ahead.. The code you download is already fixed..
07.Oct.2002 UPDATE: I updated the hack code, so that people who have enabled template debugging in their Admin CP/vb Settings can also use the hack. Also small modification applied to increase template parsing time. If you installed the hack before my update, you may choose to reinstall (not necessary). If you are a new hack user, the instructions you download is already new version's.

Enjoy!
Logician \\=^))

[Mr. Brian]

Hi Logician,

Ya, last time I used to use notepad. But I've already no longer using notepad but using editplus instead.

BTW, I'd like to take this opportunity to thanks you by keep giving support to me as whenever there's a need(s) and there's always a will from you .

Anyway, I think my forum already gone case or maybe can said close shop soon. It had been almost a week, till now still can't even figure out any anythings.. Really in a lost! :hurt:

[Logician]

Yesterday at 11:17 PM Matthew Lam said this in Post #171
Hi Logician,

Ya, last time I used to use notepad. But I've already no longer using notepad but using editplus instead.

BTW, I'd like to take this opportunity to thanks you by keep giving support to me as whenever there's a need(s) and there's always a will from you .

Anyway, I think my forum already gone case or maybe can said close shop soon. It had been almost a week, till now still can't even figure out any anythings.. Really in a lost! :hurt:

sorry dont have a clue then.. If this is really important hack for you and you can give me FTP and Admin CP access, I can take a look at it.

[winky6]

:banana: I can only dream of being so creative..
Outstanding hack.
Thank You :banana: :banana:

[lowtaxbaby]

Greetings,

First of all, this is a wonderful hack and I love you to death for it, as it's very useful. I have one quick question for you: I'm trying to make it so that a certain message is displayed to a user if they do not have a custom title. In showthread.php, I believe this is a boolean named "$avatarenabled". How would I be able to make this message appear if they do not have an avatar enabled? I tried this:

[[(!($avatarenabled))]]
You do not have an avatar enabled.
[[/(!($avatarenabled))]]

But it simply threw up:

[[(!(0))]]
You do not have an avatar enabled.
[[/(!(0))]]

What stupid error am I making here? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Once again, thank you very much!

[Boofo]

Try this:

[[(!$avatarenabled)]]
You do not have an avatar enabled.
[[/(!$avatarenabled)]]

[Logician]

Today at 05:11 PM lowtaxbaby said this in Post #174
Greetings,

First of all, this is a wonderful hack and I love you to death for it, as it's very useful. I have one quick question for you: I'm trying to make it so that a certain message is displayed to a user if they do not have a custom title. In showthread.php, I believe this is a boolean named "$avatarenabled". How would I be able to make this message appear if they do not have an avatar enabled? I tried this:

[[(!($avatarenabled))]]
You do not have an avatar enabled.
[[/(!($avatarenabled))]]

But it simply threw up:

[[(!(0))]]
You do not have an avatar enabled.
[[/(!(0))]]

What stupid error am I making here? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Once again, thank you very much!

[[(!$avatarenabled)]]
You do not have an avatar enabled.
[[/(!$avatarenabled)]]
will do the trick provided that your variable is correct (I didnt check it but it seems correct according to your outcome)

[Logician]

you are fast Bob! (and invisible) hehe

[Boofo]

Today at 09:18 AM Logician said this in Post #177
you are fast Bob! (and invisible) hehe

LOL Sorry about that, Sinan. Just thought I'd lend a hand.

Being invisible sometimes has it's advantages. Chen taught me that trick.

[lowtaxbaby]

Today at 03:16 PM Boofo said this in Post #175
Try this:

[[(!$avatarenabled)]]
You do not have an avatar enabled.
[[/(!$avatarenabled)]]

Thank you very much for your quick response, but apparently I have the wrong variable. Here is what I am attempting to accomplish, and if anybody could reveal which variable I am looking for, I would be forever in your debt.

What is the variable that determines if a user has a custom title or if the user simply has the default user title that shows up for X posts? That is, by default, people have their custom titles changed when they reach X posts. However, an admin can give them a custom title that does not change despite the number of posts they make.

Does anybody know what variable this is or how I could possibly find it? I'd like to make the postbit layout slightly different for people who have been given a custom title by the admins, which is why I'm asking.

Thank you very much!

[Logician]

Today at 05:33 PM lowtaxbaby said this in Post #179


What is the variable that determines if a user has a custom title or if the user simply has the default user title that shows up for X posts? That is, by default, people have their custom titles changed when they reach X posts. However, an admin can give them a custom title that does not change despite the number of posts they make.

if user has a custom title, variable $post[customtitle] gets value 2 and his custom title is saved in variable $post[usertitle]

so conditional is

PHP Code:

[[($post[customtitle]==2)]]
you have a  custom title which is $post[usertitle]
[[/($post[customtitle]==2)]] 


Enjoy..

Just thought I'd lend a hand.

yes please be my guest anytime..