[RELEASE] Last Active Thread Display

[fastforward]

This is for vB 2.01

This little hack allows the display of the last active thread on the forums pages. This is the 'UBB like' feature. You can see an example at http://dbforums.com.

NOTES
It requires two extra column to be added in the forum table a few code additions and then the thread title and iconid can be referenced using the variables $forum[lastactivethread] and icon$forum[lastactiveiconid].gif. Instructions are in the attachment.

This was originally part of my usenet hack and due to popular request ( all two of them ) I'm releasing it seperately.

[eva2000]

nice but what happesn with very long thread titles ?

[h4p3]

I think they are cut off, if they are too long.

[Degen]

Looks like an awesome hack, and I really want to get it going, but I have no idea how to :

1) Run the following SQL statement:

ALTER TABLE forum ADD lastactivethread VARCHAR (64);

Is their an easy way to do this?

Thanks

[eva2000]

Originally posted by Degen
Looks like an awesome hack, and I really want to get it going, but I have no idea how to :

1) Run the following SQL statement:

ALTER TABLE forum ADD lastactivethread VARCHAR (64);

Is their an easy way to do this?

Thanks

you can run that via phpmyadmin you can get it from www.phpwizard.net

[nuno]

great hack fastforward
any chance to show last post icon also?
tx

[h4p3]

Hm, i noticed that it doesn't work correctly at dbforums.com. If you click on the last post icon, you will get only a blank page.

[fastforward]

Originally posted by h4p3
Hm, i noticed that it doesn't work correctly at dbforums.com. If you click on the last post icon, you will get only a blank page.

That's a template issue. It has nothing to do with the hack. All the hack does is create a new variable that can be accesed via the forum home pages.

[fastforward]

Originally posted by eva2000
nice but what happesn with very long thread titles ?

The default length of the title is 45. This is controlled by the variable $lastactivethread_length.

If you want it longer, add a line to your config_inc.php that reads

$lastactivethread_length=64;

or whatever. If you need it longer than 128, you will also need to increase the table column width.

[eva2000]

Originally posted by fastforward

The default length of the title is 45. This is controlled by the variable $lastactivethread_length.

If you want it longer, add a line to your config_inc.php that reads

$lastactivethread_length=64;

or whatever. If you need it longer than 128, you will also need to increase the table column width.

thanks gonna try this out locally first

[h4p3]

Originally posted by fastforward

That's a template issue. It has nothing to do with the hack. All the hack does is create a new variable that can be accesed via the forum home pages.

Ok, i just wanted to mention it

[h4p3]

Tested it on my local server and it works fine.

Thx fastforward!

Hm, one suggestion: if you move/delete a Topic, then you will see still the Title on the main site, or the wrong one if you have moved it.

Perhaps you can improve it a little

[fastforward]

Originally posted by h4p3
Tested it on my local server and it works fine.

Thx fastforward!

Hm, one suggestion: if you move/delete a Topic, then you will see still the Title on the main site, or the wrong one if you have moved it.

Perhaps you can improve it a little

Yeah... this is a problem with the location of the call to the indexpost() function from the move thread vB functions. I actually moved the call on my setup but that was with RC3 I was hoping it may not be an issue with the release version. I didn't move it on the hack release because I'm not sure what other implications it may have. I'll do some more testing and see if it's safe to move the function call.

[h4p3]

Great!

*waiting*

[fastforward]

Originally posted by nuno
great hack fastforward
any chance to show last post icon also?
tx

I knew someone was going to ask for that

The reason it's not there already is because I wanted to keep this as simple as possible, but mainly because I didn't want to cause the thread listings to generate any more queries than other than the standard vB ones.

Having said that, it wouldn't be too difficult to add an additional column containing the icon reference that could be called from the template in the same way as the title. The trouble is, with every column added and every extra line of code there's more to go wrong

I'll provide optional additions to the existing hack that will allow the title icon this weekend. That way people will have a choice of whether to implement it.