Search: New Posts - Auto-refresh.

[gcphost]

I tend to keep my browser on the New Post page to see if there are any new posts needing my attention.

With most popular web e-mail clients you see how many new e-mails there are in your browsers title bar along with an auto refresh to check for new e-mails, why not have the same for your forums?

I did this for my last forums and figured I would do it for vB, since this forum has given me tons of cool stuff already I enjoy trying to give some stuff back, hopefully someone else will find this u sefull.

This is very easy to do so give it a shot:

admincp > style manager > edit templates > search templates > search_results

Modify the header:
# ORIGINAL

<title>$vboptions[bbtitle] - $vbphrase[search_results]</title>


# HACKED
<title><if condition="$action == 'getdaily'">$numitems posts today - </if>$vboptions[bbtitle] - $vbphrase[search_results]</title>
<if condition="$action == 'getdaily'"><meta http-equiv="refresh" content="30" url="search.php?do=getdaily"></if>


Note the change of the title to add how many posts there are new and the check to see if we're on the search page, if so do the refresh every 30 seconds.


Really basic but very functional, got to love tabbed browsing and the ability to see all "new" activity without being on the tab, super lazy!

[gcphost]

I've failed to realize the searchid is not static..

:grumbles:

I'll post an update shortly...

** I changed it to <if condition="$action == 'getnew'"> so it only shows on new posts
-- Well sorry I jumped the gun posting all of this, I changed it to getdaily, if there are no posts it displays the vB message and not the search_results template, I'll figure out what tpl it shows the error in and post those changes later.

[Borgs8472]

Nice idea. One day this will be done via ajax with alert noises etc etc :)

[gcphost]

Jez glad I know how to use AJAX :)

http://gamecp.com/ajax/

I might give your idea a shot Borgs8472, jez I should be working on my program!

[GTAce]

I like the idea here a lot, however...this is what I get when trying to save the template

The following error occurred when attempting to evaluate this template:

Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_STRING in /home/username/public_html/path/forums/includes/adminfunctions_template.php(3537) : eval()'d code on line 7

This is likely caused by a malformed conditional statement. It is highly recommended that you fix this error before continuing, but you may continue as-is if you wish.

Also, I'm just speculating here, but I imagine that this will give you the # of posts regardless of whether they are read or not....and the main purpose behind this is to leave a tab up all day long, well, if it is on the same session...that number will never really reflect the number of new, unread posts, but instead the number of posts made the last 24 hours, correct? This would be the case even if it were changed to getnew instead of getdaily...at least I believe this is how it would work out.

[gcphost]

Sorry was missing the close ' in:
<if condition="$action == 'getdaily'">

Doing it with getnew shows the 'no new posts' more often and since that requrires another tpl edit I didnt want to do it, getdaily tends to always show atleast something so youll wake up, see 2 posts, read em then when it says 3 post you got a new one.

Its not perfect, just something basic and simple to do.

[GTAce]

Understood, I appreciate the response, gpchost!

[Nutz]

Good idea for company forums.

Thanks,
Mat

[Snake]

Wow that's good.

[Rukbat]

so is the coding in the original post for the hack
<title><if condition="$action == 'getdaily'">$numitems posts today - </if>$vboptions[bbtitle] - $vbphrase[search_results]</title>
<if condition="$action == 'getdaily'"><meta http-equiv="refresh" content="30" url="search.php?do=getdaily"></if>
the one to use? or do I need to change per the other posts?

[gcphost]

The original code was updated, it is what you should use, not from the other posts.

I wonder if this would work as a hook?

[Rukbat]

thank you :D

[Rukbat]

Only thing is the 'todays posts' on reload also takes away any posts counts included that were done more than 24 hours prior to the reload/refresh....
So this won't work at all for the 'newposts' search at all?

[Rukbat]

Nice idea. One day this will be done via ajax with alert noises etc etc :)

that would be Excellent! Would be lovely if an alert noise could sound when someone on a person's 'buddy list' logs in... tho i suppose if wishes were fishes....