Over the past year, I've developed a system which lets visitors to my site view up to 10 images before requiring them to register with my UBBThreads. The result has been that I get over 100 signups a day and bandwidth is a little more under control.<br /><br />Well, that is if you consider this "under control":<br /><br />[]http://www.extremebikini.com/fun/traffic.png[/]<br /><br />Anyway, I've gotten some emails from people wanting to know how I did this. Basically, I run all my images through a single php file. In the php file, I check for any of the UBBThreads cookies. If it is set, then I continue no problem. If not, then I set a cookie to the number of views performed and increment it for each viewing. When it hits 10, I send them to a page that explains the need to signup and refuse to show any more images until they have that UBBThreads cookie in place.<br /><br />I know, not the most secure; but it works.<br /><br />Also, for places like my videos; I dont let anyone see anything unless they have a cookie.<br /><br />I've also modified my pages to insert WHOSE ONLINE information into the Online database. This lets me show how many people are active across my whole site (not just the BBs): http://www.extremebikini.com/ebti/forums/online.php?Cat=<br /><br />I can then show stats on my front page at: http://www.extremebikini.com (see below under USERS ONLINE)<br /><br />Hope this helps anyone looking to do something similiar.

Actually, I'm wondering if this could be applied to the my board in the form of just plain page views. Allowing a guest the ability to view up to 10 threads afterwhich they are required to register on the board. I get greatly annoyed when I constantly have anywhere from 5 to 10 anonymous viewers looking at my board at any point in time.<br /><br />Would something like this be possible in that type of scenario and how might I go about implementing it?

I'm sure you could. All you would have to do is put in a cookie checker in the viewposts files. If no cookie, increment a counter cookie. When it reaches 10, send them to the login/signup screen.

Any suggestions for how I might do that? I'm a neophyte at this stuff. I can modify existing code to my heart's content, but developing code from scratch is not my forte'.

Hey Wraith, that's an easy one. I'll nock it off tonight after I have my new box set up and running. I'm sure I'll have it posted before midnight. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

Excellent. Once I've seen you you've done I'll better understand how it works and I can "tweak" it to suit my needs. I just don't know all of the PHP commands and their syntax and I'm too darn lazy to go and look them up. <img src="/forum/images/icons/laugh.gif" alt="" /><br /><br />What? I'm a Project Manger, not a developer. <img src="/forum/images/icons/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Nice to see JustDave step up to the plate; I'm swampped trying to get PhotoPost PHP done! <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />

My new box had some bumps. One of the cpu's didn't want to post... blah... lol<br /><br />I'm waiting on a replacement cpu to get here. I spose I could start everything with a single cpu but I really would like to see from the start the difference.<br /><br />I'll get to this hack soon. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /><br /><br />I'm copying files and getting ready to wipe my old computer clean. Will be around more shortly. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

I added code for the PHP version which lets you set a flag to only allow registered users to view images. They can still see thumbnails, but not the actual images without being logged in.

Done! <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

<blockquote><font class="small">Writes extremebikini:</font><hr> I added code for the PHP version which lets you set a flag to only allow registered users to view images. They can still see thumbnails, but not the actual images without being logged in. <hr /></blockquote><br />Sweet, is there a way to only allow a certain "group" to see images?

Well, my system only uses cookies to check for a valid registration - very simple and quick. If you wanted to go further, you would have to write queries into the header of each page where you wanted checks; which goes beyond what I wanted to do with this.