Here's the hack I worked on this week, in rough and not too pretty form. I'll be beautifying it soon.

You can download an rtf with all the code changes listed at http://murmurs.com/codechanges.rtf. Also in that file is the table creation statement.

Attached is a zip of all the changed files. Comments are included, but not consistant yet.

You can see this in action at http://tony.murmurs.com. Only two forums, but still.

I'll pretty up the code this weekend and make better install instructions.

This is way beta, so if there are any problems just post. Don't put this on a production board yet

Ethan

ethank,

I had to remove your codechanges.zip file because it is in violation of the licensing agreement -- you may not post full files. You have to release them as instructions (or if you come up with a better way).

Doh! OK. Well, the rtf has the changed code, not full source. I'll figure out a better way to indicate where the changed code should go.

Anyhow, look at the rtf, as that will give you most of what you need, although its not as clear as it should be yet.

EThan

Two more additions. These two blocks assure that people get an initial Mark Read entry in the database if they don't have one. Its set to 0:00AM for the day they enter without one.

This goes in the login method in member.php, before the URL portion:

And this goes in register.php, after the initial databse insert after the Start Add Member comment. This goes right before the big insert method...:

One general inprovement that would be usefull (in general) for VBulletin.

If the link that marks read contained a timestamp of the time when you displayed the page, then anything posted after you read that page would still show as unread.

For instance.....

If you display the page at 12:00 ..
then sit there for an hour ..
then press Mark Read ..
anything posted after 12:00 will still be shown as unread.

The way that VB does it is it marks stuff as read from the moment that you hit the link, so there is a possiblity that you could miss postings made inbetween the period of actually displaying the page and hitting the read link.

Onslo

That happened with Webboard too.. I guess the way we could do it is set a timestamp in a cookie on page load, then when they mark read, use that instead of the time they click the Mark Read. Maybe have it as an option?

The other bug I found was that if you mark a child forum read, the parent forums still are flagged "new" cause they just look at the "lastpost" from all their children. I need to have it make sure that that last post wasn't in a forum that was marked read, and if it was look at the second to the last post, etc. I'll work on that bug tonight.

EThan

Hows it coming Ethan? :)

Onslo

I wasn't home all weekend so didn't have a chance to compile it all. I'll be working on it today as well as doing one last bug fix. There's a weird thing with subconferences....

Ethan

I'm back from Georgia and seeing as how final is being released Monday, I'll post an updated instructions document and the current iteration of the hack here on Tuesday (hopefully)!

Thanks for your patience.

EThan

Excellent! :)

I await your masterpiece.

Top sport Ethan :)

Onslo

In the process of setting up a test board so we can test this hack. Hope everything ok Ethan.

Let me know when it's done.

Can email me here :

onslo@worldmailer.com

Ta!

Onslo

I successfully implemented it on the release version, but I still have some bugs and things I need to fix that just popped up. The most challenging is that damn "new post" indicator when dealing with subconferences. I'm heading home tonight to work on it.

Anyhow, I'll e-mail you later.

EThan

Hi Ethan,

Have you tried emailing me? My inbox was full and so it may not have got through. It's clear again now :)

Any news?

Regards

Onslo

I just finished the first document of code changes based on my comparison between the 2.0 release and the modified code I'm running using a DIFF type tool.

I'll do the same for 2.0.1 this week. Here's the preliminary change list. Don't use it yet, cause I haven't had a chance to test it using a fresh copy of 2.0.1 yet.

But at least you get a preview. Please forgive any sloppy code, as I learned PHP while doing this.

Also, template changes are coming, but they are pretty self explanatory when you dig into the code. You can also see them on my boards at http://tony.murmurs.com

You can see the HTML documentation (since I can't upload it) at:

http://tony.murmurs.com/attachment.php?postid=21438

EThan

I have the change list updated for 2.0.1, but I graduated college this weekend so I didn't get to it. Might get to it tommorow.

Sorry for the delay everyone and thanks for your patience.

EThan

Can't wait for that code ethank. Let us know when you have the changes complete and documented.

congrattzz for graduating dude!!!

Does this exist somewhere?

Can't find any recent references to it , and the original link still says not to use until it has been doublechecked.

Anyone using this code?

Thanks much,

-Malek

I'm using it at Murmurs.com. The hack is extensive, and I haven't yet had a chance to document it :(

Let me go back and look at how extensive it really is and I'll see if I can get some code together.

Ethan

Ooh - me too.

I am another Ezboard refugee that really wants this functionality working!

:D

Any sign of when the code is going to be released?

HHH

Well, I plan on doing some hacking this weekend in vBulletin, so I think I'll break out Araxis Merge and try to ducment the code changes needed.

I had instructions done using line numbers, but I can't do that anymore, so what is the typical way of saying "put this here?"

Ethan

as far as i know... usually you find the thing that is right above it.. then say

Right below this... Put this... etc..

HHH

Really looking forward to testing this baby out, Ethan!

Can somebody make a LOOK FOR THIS CODE AND ADD BELOW THIS CODE instruction ? I made a lot of modifications in my board and cant follow this line number instruction.

BTW its a great hack

Suggestion:

I think it will be better if you visit a board the icon will be set automatically to "been red" like if you read a topic

I cant WAIT for this...as someone else said...I'm an ezboard refugee also...and my crew has been calling for something like this...glad to see someone has the know how:)

Looking forward to it!

Another Ez-board migrater who is DYING to get this feature back!

Thanks for all your hard work!

Yup, plenty of us :)

Would hate to see this one get lost in the quagmire.../drool...heh

Hows it going Ethan?

Busy as all hell! Story is, I kind of quit/was layed off, so I'm doing consulting and grad school admissions stuff so just got really swamped.

I'm going to diff my files against the released ones and see if I can get some documentation going.

I guess I'll use the installation wizard type thing that others use for hack distribution.

I don't have a timeline honestly, because right when I start working on doing all the documentation I get busy again. Erg.

Ethan

You too, aye? Been doing the consulting thing for 2 years ever since a layoff. It has two speeds - fifth gear and park.

Hang in there. :)

Looking forward to seeing what you have come up with.

:D

Here it is at long last. I went through in Araxis Merge, comparing my current code base to the released one and here are the instructions :)

This is preliminary. I need a brave soul with time to implement it and test it out, see if I forgot anything. This was my first PHP project, so the code is a bit sloppy in parts.

But its all there and its worked in production for 5 months on a 1500-3000 message per day forum.

If someone walks through it and it works, I'll start making a sort of install script type thing for it to make it nicer in format.

10:31PM PST on 10/24/2001 Fixed vague instructions in showthread.php code
11:04PM PST Changed instructions in session.php modification
11:17 PST Missing a }, caused parse error in index.php
October 28, 2001 Removed updateLocation() function calls, clarified sessions.php instructions a bit.

Yet to be done: Cleaning up the code a bit.

Ethan

I shall be thy guinea pig. :)

Only problem is, it may take me a day or more to begin. My new host provider didn't get the test region database set up when he set up production. It is there now, but I can't access it through phpMyAdmin for some unknown reason.

Blah.

As soon as I can access to script, I will run this for you and let you know how it reacts for me.

If you have any idea what may be wrong with the PhpMyAdmin thing, let me know that as well. They don't have any idea how to fix it and I don't know enough about it to try to suggest anything.

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...threadid=31338

I already went through this last night, with ethank standing by on AIM for support with a few bits of the original instructions that weren't quite clear. But as we worked it all out, he made changes to the text file, so what's attached in his message above should be good. I'm happy to report that the functionality of the hack seems to work just fine. :) There are one or two minor rough edges that I don't know if were addressed yet, for example the Moderators column gets used to hold the links to mark the forum read or get new posts in that forum, but the instructions don't mention to change the name of the column. You can probably figure that out on your own, but I think it should be in there. There was one other issue about templates...when you click the link to mark a forum read, it sends you through the same redirection as if you'd marked all forums as read. So you see the message that all forums have been marked read. Ethank suggested I change the wording of that template to be that the one forum had been marked as read, but then it would say that if you used the mark all forums read link. So there really should be a new template created that is called when you just mark an individual forum as read. I think that ethank is considering putting that in a later release along with some other stuff, although he can comment on that better than I.

The hack seems to have installed alright and not be causing any database errors, but there are a couple of issues I'd like to try and see if there are solutions for.

The getall action for viewing New Posts doesn't seem to be working. It yields this error:I found the instructions for modifying search.php to be a little lacking in detail and confusing.

And is it possible to have it when a user clicks on the Mark forum Read Link within a forum, to have them directed to the Forum Home Page?

Also, the hack appears to actually be marking all forums read, when clicking Mark forum read. =/

Need to remove the updateLocation function call.

I'll fix instructions for the search page. THe "Mark Forum read" link should look something like this:

http://tony.murmurs.com/member.php?a...ead&forumid=96

I'll take a look at the instructions and post updates.

Ethan

Yes, I was aware that the redirect looked that way, but the actual function appears to be marking all forums read. Perhaps removing the ?updateLocation function call.? Will solve that issue.

Now if I just new how to do that.

Is clueless when it come to coding PHP. :confused:

Just delete the line or put a // before it

EThan

Thanks. :) I have the "View New Posts" working again, but the feature, still marks all forums as read when I use the link provided in the instructions to Mark Forum Read.