Hmmm...paste that link in here.

Ethan

<a href="http://www.swforums.net/forum/" target="_blank">http://www.swforums.net/forum/</a>

<a href="member.php?s=$session[sessionhash]&action=markforumread&forumid=$forum[forumid]">Mark Forum Read</a>

I went through and redid the modifications to session.php and the hack is fully functional now. :)

Thanks for putting up with my questions and providing this excellent hack. :D

I think I know what I'm going to be doing this weekend. :)

I'm looking at the other version of hte Mark Read code as well. Looking at his code, its very similar to my implementation and the functionality should be similar. The only difference is the search code and the code that does the forum lightbulbs (mine checks subforums individually instead of going by last-post because last-post gives inconsistent results).

I contacted the author of the other one, so maybe we can just combine efforts and distrubte one persistent mark-forum-read hack instead of having two.

Its not a hurry because this one at least works and has for a while, even if it is a bit sloppy in parts :)

Thank god for Araxis Merge! It makes this all so easy :p

EThan

I'm glad it works :)

Ethan

After having and using this hack for a couple days now, an interesting idea for improving it has occurred to me. Why not make it automatic, so people don't have to click on any link to mark a forum as read. People don't have to do anything special to get a thread marked as read; why should they have to do anything special to get a forum marked as read? If all the new post indicators in a forum are off, the forum should automatically turn its own new post indicator off (in other words, mark itself as read).

I guess the way this would work is that whenever you view a page that has a forum list on it (forum home view, category view, forum with subforum view, etc.), the code would check to see if there are actually any new posts in any forums listed (in other words, check to see if you looked in the forum, would you see any new post folders?), and if not, the new post indicator for the forum would be off.

Well, judging from the new version of vBulletin, this hack might not be necessary. And that's cool!

:)

Ethan

Well I'll be a monkey's uncle. I noticed the "Version 2.something ;-)" earlier, but hadn't noticed the new links. Cool! :)

Don't be so sure...a database version of this may be just what I need (this cookie thing hasn't been working too well for me thus far).

Ahh...so it is still using cookies!

Well then...ONWARD WITH THE PROGRAM! I shall merge the other version of this code with mine, polish it up, format a very nice document on how to install it and release it this weekend.

2.? looks might cool though, outside of forum read :)

Ethan

I'd like to say that one of the parts of ethank's hack that I appreciate, is the ability to have the mark individual forum read link on the forum index as well as within the specific forum. :)

I have always been a fan of redundancy and having options in more than one place.

I too am getting the "mark all forums read" as a result of trying to mark them individually.

I see where SW posted that he was able to redo the session.php mods, but I am a bit confused.

From that file, we have (around line 342)
And from line ~352, there is
First, the instructions call to make the mods at the second instance of $bbuserinfo['lastvisit']=$bbuserinfo['lastactivity']; but I can only find the one case.

Secondly, there is an additional piece that is to be made at the $bbuserinfo['lastvisit']=$bbuserinfo['lastvisit']; but doesn't say which one - the one that Ethan added in the first group or the one that was there to begin with?

The remaining code (between 342 and 352) before modifications is Where do these additions go in relation to that?

Nevermind - I figured it out. Ethan - you need to update the instructions and clear up the sessions.php instructions to reflect one change instead of two.

We are testing this now - it appears to be working like a champ!

The cookie version has been a little flaky for me too, Tube. I think I'll go with Ethan's version once the new vB is out and the hack is done.

Weeeeeee! Can't wait to install this!

Thanks for taking the time to document it :)

I updated the file to clarify sessions.php instructions and removed the updateLocation() code.

If anyone has any code/query improvements, just holler!

I tried to merge in the other one, but I figured this one works and why do more hacking than necessary? So anyhow....

Ethan

Ethan - my hat is off to ya! I will be moving this into production today. :D

Here are some additional notes for the optional template section - changing the column header and the wording of the redirect screen.

in forumdisplay/forumdisplay_forumslist and
Forumhome/forumhome

Replace Moderator with Functions (or whatever tag you choose)

in redirection/redirect_markread

Replace with:
The forum(s) you have selected have been marked as read and the new post indicators will now be off.

Thanks. I'll add those and HTML-ize the instructions, as well as put an install script together. Anyone have the source for a good install script, like the one Kier uses?

Do tell me how it works in production and if you see any code tweaks that can be done. I'm working on a blogger hack right now, so my coding time is all difused :)

Ethan

Yes, it should be interesting. I just checked and I have just under 400 users on line right now so I will wait for it to slow down a bit and load it up. I will let you know.

:)

Yeah, as on the index.php load, if it sees they don't have a markread set it adds it. You might want to close the board for 5 or so minutes to let people clear out, add the hack then open it.

Ethan

Yes - I saw that. I opened a thread in the "how do I" forum on doing a forced logout of the database connection but apparently there is no script that will do that but there were a couple of workarounds offered.

I will play with it.


BTW - can you take a look at this question on the MFR hack?

http://vbulletin.com/forum/showthrea...threadid=31721

I just want to say I installed this hack and (except for a few screw-ups on my part) it worked great! :)

Now I'm not a huge fan of EZBoard, but we are in the middle of a transition from EZB, so I'm trying to consider the needs of my users.

For those who aren't familiar with EZB, after a user reads a message, it still acts like it is "unread" UNTIL the user declares the forum as "Mark Read".

Hence, my question: How can I tweak it so a user can view a thread, and it still appears as "unread" until they manually declare it as "Mark Read"?

I know not all of us hackers want that feature, but I think my users would like that familiarity with EZB.

Any input would be appreciated.

And ethank, thanks again... this hack is great!

Thats a function in vbulletin, it uses cookies for the unread vs. read. The down arrow indicates its unread in the database.

I do want to fix it so it uses the time the user loaded the forum instead of when they click the link, that way if messages are posted when they're reading, they don't get marked. Of course you can fix that if you turn caching off.

Ethan

He's talking about the Mark Forum Read that uses two cookies that vbulletin 2.2 has I believe, not the database mark read hack.

Ethan

I am having the same problem in my test region where this hack is implemented. It still times out and marks forums as read based on the cookie as opposed to letting me manually set it.

Other than increasing the cookie timeout, is there something else that I can do to stop it from timing the lightbulb out?

It shouldn't even use the cookie if you're logged in and you put this hack on.

Ethan

My bad - it is working properly. I need to pay attention to the fact that it is logging me out everytime I change between the production and test boards.

DOH!

I will update that other thread as well with a link to this hack.

I'm still pretty pleased with this hack :)

But I would like to tweak it a bit but I do not know how.

I have my "Mark Forum Read" added to my "Forum Display" template so that the user can click on it while looking in the forum. FWIW, this is the code I used:

What I would like to make it do is when the user clicks on that link, it not only marks that forum read, but it jumps the user to that forum's parent forum. The logic being (and EZB did this too)... if you've finished reading the forum, then you probably don't want to look at it anymore! Cut out an extra click for the user and bring them back up a level. I hope that makes sense.

I assume this would have to be tweaked in the member.php file, but I'm not exactly sure how to do that.

Any suggestions?

Good idea, but I don't know if the functionality change will piss users off :)

I'm going to be reupping instructions today to reflect the 2.2 release, so I might add that and a new timestamp code.

Ethan

I would like to see it have the availability of that functionality as well. :)

Sorry to bother you, I'm a newbie both in this forum and with vBulletin, we opened our BBS to the public just yesterday. The cookie problem seems to be a major causer of whines, so I'm asking this: Is there yet a) a fool's documentation (so you can't possibly go wrong with it) or b) an install script or something like that?

Well, thanks anyway :)

If you look in this forum, I updated the documentation. Its in a thread called Persistent Mark Read.

Its not fool-proof yet, but I'm going to work on that when I get back from my trip (Nov 14)

Ethan

With the aid of Beyond Compare, I was actually able to preserve this hack when upgrading to 2.2.1 and then 2.2.2. Still working great :)