[SOLVED!] Can I show a pop-up to visitors from off-site?

[curiousadmin]

I'd like a plugin or some way for me to pop up a welcome message to visitors from off-site, just something they can dismiss? I have hundreds of viewers from all over the web, I'd like to pop up a message to them:



"Welcome! I hope you enjoy this article, we'd love to have you in our community to discuss electronics projects, raspberry pi and other boards, arduino, and everything else! When you're done reading I hope you'll take a moment to register and check back."



Which would encourage them to register. I want to have more regular users. (instead of only just hudnreds of guests).  Can this be done via a popup? Is there some standard configuration or a plugin?


If not could you very kindly make one for me!  If it's not possible for the plugin to read the referral site then can a plugin set a cookie so that users aren't continuously bothered as they click around?  it should just pop up when viewers come from off-site.  Any solutions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

my board is: curious.boards.net

[Lynx]

Have you checked out the First Time 2 plugin?

[curiousadmin]

Jul 13, 2016 17:01:04 GMT -8 Lynx said:

Have you checked out the First Time 2 plugin?

I installed First Time 2.  That message is pretty awful - jarring - it's a warning box using the browser's default warning page.  I mean, I guess I'll take it if there's nothing better - but there's no more attractive HTML box here?  I've started using this but really would prefer a better version.  Thanks for the link - have you found anything else, or is there any way to improve this or could I make a request??  This is what it looks like:

Chrome:



Firefox:



Internet explorer:



You can see the full-sized images here.


But I hope you will agree, that is pretty awful! somewhat jarring. I'd like a more normal HTML-type floating display that you could [X] out of.

Any ideas?  Could the current script be improved to incorporate that?


Thanks so much for any thoughts!!

[Lynx]

It's not my plugin, so I can't edit it. Maybe trying the VPester plugin?

[curiousadmin]

Jul 14, 2016 14:57:17 GMT -8 Lynx said:

It's not my plugin, so I can't edit it. Maybe trying the VPester plugin?

Oooooh, looks promising!  I'll give it a go

[curiousadmin]

Jul 14, 2016 15:03:35 GMT -8 curiousadmin said:

Jul 14, 2016 14:57:17 GMT -8 Lynx said:

It's not my plugin, so I can't edit it. Maybe trying the VPester plugin?

Oooooh, looks promising!  I'll give it a go

Okay, so I tried both, and very surprisingly my decision is to keep both.  The popup that is like a system notification is actually pretty cool, it's just like a small error or something, shows that the site is not very commercial, has an everyday feel.  That is a good 'smell' for a real community.  Small-time.

The VPester only gets activated after someone has really taken a look around, has started exploring ten or so different threads.

I think this could work to remind people that there's a community behind the link that they just clicked (while they can just dismiss it) but if they do stick around - they'll be pestered.

We'll see what happens the next time we get an influx of visitors!!

By the way, MSG, I'd like your impression of this user experience.  Would you visit a specific link, like say this one (assuming you got to it from some other site), click out of my alert window, and then visit ten or fifteen different forum threads.

What do you think about this user interaction?  I have the pester thing to go away for a full 96 hours, so it would only come back if someone really is returning.

I'd love your thoughts about how this might work building my community.  I have thousands of views, so I'd like to remind people to join and contribute.  If you would look through it as a 'user' and tell me what it's like, that would be amazing!

And thanks so much for your help!!  I will now mark this thread closed, as I feel with the combination of the two kinds of popups, I've had my needs addressed.