How to modify "You may search for posts updated during the previous 24 hours" to different time period.

[ToddChamberlain]

Hi. I'm considering vBulletin, but it'll be used for a forum that may get much lower traffic than average. When I go to other site's that are running vBulletin, and if there are no new threads to read, I see a message saying "You may search for posts updated during the previous 24 hours, here". How can one change that time period to '48 hours', or to '7 days' or something like that?

In our case, it'll be a professional forum with only a limited number of members and posts, it'll OFTEN be that there are only a few posts per week - so when you're trying to reference back to the last post you read a couple days ago - a ''previous 24 hours'' will usually result in a ''Sorry - no matches'', so we would need to be able to modify that for ''previous week''.

Thank you.

[Wayne Luke]

Members get a different link "New Posts" and it shows new posts since their last activity. You can adjust the duration of the look back in the options. The default is 10 days.

[ToddChamberlain]

Right - but if you've read all the 'new posts', and then come back two days later, and if there are no new posts in the last two days - it'll say...

Sorry, there are no new posts to view.
You may search for posts updated during the previous 24 hours, here

...and since there are no new posts in previous 24 hours, clicking 'here' accomplishes nothing. I know your question - 'but you're already seen all the new posts?' - which is true. However, if for example I read the new posts on a Friday, and then Monday morning I check and if there's are no replies to those posts in the last 24 hours, the conversations tend to just die out and stop. And, when other users say to themselves, 'what were those last discussions last week about?', it's unnecessarily complex to do an advanced search just to refresh the memory, and conversations tend to just die out. As a forum operator of a low-traffic forum, I would need that to be editable to 'previous 72 hours' or 'previous 7 days' or something longer than 24 hours like that, in order to keep recent conversations going. Even if it's a manual code edit somehow is fine.

[Wayne Luke]

The end user can run advanced searches on the search page to find content over greater periods. You can also create custom links once you buy the software.

Changing the values in the default links requires modifying the PHP code which isn't supported.

[ToddChamberlain]

OK, thank you Wayne.

Would the 24 hour value in the default link be something that we could pay to get modified, or is it possible to add it as a feature request (or a sponsored feature request where we pay for that feature), or is it possible to hire some developer to add this sort of customization, or is the default ''previous 24 hours'' simply locked down and that's that?

I'm sorry to belabor the point and I do appreciate your answers - as silly as it may seem, that single feature is a deal-breaker for the way the forum needs to work for us. Since the forums are very low traffic, some people may only log in once per week, and even if they've previously read all the threads, the conversations simply die out unless there's a way for them to see ''You may search for posts updated during the previous 7 days, here" .

Thank you.

[Kent55]

OK, thank you Wayne.

Would the 24 hour value in the default link be something that we could pay to get modified, or is it possible to add it as a feature request (or a sponsored feature request where we pay for that feature), or is it possible to hire some developer to add this sort of customization, or is the default ''previous 24 hours'' simply locked down and that's that?

I'm sorry to belabor the point and I do appreciate your answers - as silly as it may seem, that single feature is a deal-breaker for the way the forum needs to work for us. Since the forums are very low traffic, some people may only log in once per week, and even if they've previously read all the threads, the conversations simply die out unless there's a way for them to see ''You may search for posts updated during the previous 7 days, here" .

Thank you.

It's not locked it will be in one of the core PHP files but I'm not sure which one exactly. I know that it will be set as as time, like in the banning.php file the times (you see in the drop down) can be modified from that file. It'll be like that only for the new posts. Once found I believe it will only require a small edit.

If you decide to purchase vBulletin then you will have access to vbulletin.org where you can find modifications and coders. It is the site dedicated to customizing vBulletin so you would most definitely get an answer on there. Oh that reminds me, they do have a pre-sales forum so you should ask this. I highly doubt you won't get an answer.

Here's the link: http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=26