Version 1.6.5 beta has been released. This is a bug update fixing a few issues with the beta.

- Fixes column sorting to the top helpful answers page
- Fixes searching the top helpful answers page
- Adds up/down sorting options the top helpful answers page
- Adds multiple pages to the top helpful answers page

This is still marked as beta although there's been more usage and I'm close to marking a stable release. For those of you not using the beta my appologies that the "updated" flag is being triggered... vBulletin.org does that every time a new zip file is uploaded.

Ok, installed the new beta. Where should the page links be on the search results page?

http://diecastcrazy.com/community/helpfulanswers.php

Sorry, didn't upload the right file. Please use 1.6.6 and you'll see the tabulation at the end of the page (see www.divematrix.com/helpfulanswers.php for example).

For anyone running the beta version who has not already resynced their votes there was an error with my upgrade script which may have caused you to lose your vote history. Please run the attached ha_revote.php script from your admincp folder which will recreate vote summaries for each post using raw vote counts. If you notice anything wrong with your vote summaries as shown in posts and the helpful answers page please let me know.

Ok, that worked! It deleted my votes again but I just ran the php file you posted yesterday. Thanks again for this great modification!

Glad the search page now shows the most rated at the top instead of least.

Ya. I noticed that when i was building in the page sorting and clearly fixed it right away.

The migration to the external post file has definitely been a pain but for the long haul it's a much better solution for sites in keeping alterations to the original vbulletin tables to a minimum and in optimizing load for larger sites.

Looking forward to more suggestions about functions I can add that will drive more votes and visibility. Thanks!

Yes I would. But I see you have already altered your core code. I think that's a much more professional approach.

One question. I would like to implement this mod into our bargain forums to be able to have a 'hot or not' type system (as seen at www.hotukdeals.com), with some kind of prominent indication of the 'hotness'... that would be heat :) of threads and the ability to sort by the heat of bargains. But at the same time I would like to use the thumbs up/thumbs down type of voting for replies so that threads with thousands of replies can also be sorted so that people can quickly see the most helpful ones.
Is it possible to have different voting types (i.e. essentially graphics) in different forums? And is it possible to quickly implement certain voting types into the required forums? E.g. with over 300 forums, I would like to be able to, for example, click a parent forum and specify that I want the hot or not type voting system in it and all its sub forums.

Could this be something that is added to the next beta? I can't quite figure out how to modify things to do it myself, other than manually adding a link in there. Can guests also see the ratings if there are any?

Sure thing. I was thinking of rather than taking them straight to the register page we could jump them to a guest vote message letting them know they have to register to continue. What do you think?

And yes, guests can see votes.

What can I say... When I like an idea, I like it. :D

So if I get you right the sum total of "good" posts would be used to determine hotness.... Or would you use the first post's rank only. First post is easier and would just require a JOIN on the existing FORUMDISPLAY page while the sum total would need some edits to the hack.

This could definitely be done although you'd have to decide how a thread is measured as hot. For example, is a thread with the most goodrankings hot or is it more than 100 good ones, 150? Etc...

A simple template conditional would show whatever graphic image you want once you sort out which data you want to use.

Yes although the addon does not support this naively. But you could easily use a template conditional to change the images in select forums or to be more efficient and deal with larger numbers of forums, add a new option to the forums to control this.

There's a bulk editor that allows you to enable this in all forums, certain forums, or all forums except certain forums. Nothing is in place to deal with forum hierarchy though so you can't pick 3 out of 4 top level categories or anything like that.

Sounds like an interesting feature you're working towards... Can't wait to see it in action!

Hi

What do you think about an integration for blogs and or for visitor comments??