Forum Home Enhancements - Remove guest welcome / first visit message

Hi,

this is only a little one but everybody starts from the scratch
I spent some time to search for that issue so I think it's of value to documentate it for others looking for the same issue.

--------------------

What ...?

vb shows to unregistered users a guest welcome message (first visit) on the Forum Home.

Welcome to the Forum
If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Why ....?

Maybe you just like to have that message gone or use the Notice system (Display this notice if > user belongs to usergroup "unregistered / not logged in"

since vb offers the Notice system I prefer to use that instead of the "guest welcome message". Especially as you can use the Notices on every page (-> search engines reffering to threads) and the guest welcome message is only shown on the forum home

How ...?

• Go to your Admin Control Panel
• Open the "Styles & Templates" > "Style Manager"
• Select "Edit templates"
  • you have to repeat that step for every parent style
• Find the "FORUMHOME" template and edit it
• Find this block
  

  <if condition="$show['guest']">
  <!-- guest welcome message -->
  <table class="tborder" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" border="0" width="100%" align="center">
  <tr>
      <td class="tcat"><phrase 1="$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 -->
  <br />
  </if>

• Remove it & save the template

[lazydesis]

hehe simple but i think thats a very good way to tell the guests who visit your forum what the site is about ..

it may not be a good idea to remove that ..

[Pip]

well, I totaly agree with that. But since vb offers the Notice system I prefer to use that instead of the "guest welcome message". Especially as you can use the Notices on every page (-> search engines reffering to threads) and the guest welcome message is only shown on the forum home

[imaroot]

thanks for sharing this

[mk craig 42]

yeah i agree with pip, i want to use the notice system instead of the first visit message, thanks alot for this pip.

[Hostboard]

Actualy I was thinking about doing this the other day since I use the notice system to post welcome and other messages based on conditionals and this was redundent.

Though I highly recommend you use TMS to do ALL template edits
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=152931

[80's]

I was exactly lookig for this, Thank you.

[merk_aus]

Thanks for this - it is definately a great addon for my sites.