[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by jantequino

1. How do I remove the "Sort By" dropdown from the entries page

This would require a template edit. The links_main template has the following sequence at around line 120:

<if condition="$sortnav or $keyfilterbit">
	<td align="$stylevar[left]" valign="top">
	<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2" border="0">
<if condition="$sortnav">
	<tr>
		<td align="$stylevar[right]">
		<form action="$script.php" method="get">
		<input type="hidden" name="s" value="{$vbulletin->session->vars['sessionhash']}" />
		<span class="smallfont">
		$sortreturnbit $vbphrase[ll_sortby] $sortorderbit
		<input type="submit" class="button" name="doit" value="$vbphrase[ll_go]" />
		</span>
		</form>
		</td>
	</tr>
</if>
<if condition="$keyfilterbit">
	<tr>
		<td align="$stylevar[right]">
		<form action="$script.php" method="get">
		<span class="smallfont">
		<input type="hidden" name="s" value="{$vbulletin->session->vars['sessionhash']}" />
		$keyreturnbit $vbphrase[ll_keywords_filter] $keyfilterbit
		<input type="submit" class="button" name="doit" value="$vbphrase[ll_go]" />
		</span>
		</form>
		</td>
	</tr>
</if>
	</table>
	</td>
</if>

If you change the first line to

<if condition="$keyfilterbit">

that will do the trick.

Originally Posted by jantequino

2. How do I force the entries pages to be viewed in Short view everytime the page is refreshed or returned to... Obviously when the user is on the page we want them to be able to expand.... but I don't like the fact that it remembers to always stay expanded... I want each refresh of the page to be put back into short view.

I can't reproduce this problem. As far as I can see, page refreshes do retain the entries' expand/contract setting, provided cookies are properly enabled.

But, to your main question - how to have the 'short' listing as the default and the standard listing as the alternative. This is quite straightforward with version 2.3.0, possible but requires code edits with 2.2.9.

With version 2.3.0, you first go to the LDM/admincp/linkbits & catbits page, find the links_linkbit_short entry, change the value in the 'collapsed' box from 0 to links_linkbit, and click on 'go' to save the change.

Then go to LDM/admin/settings and set the template_linkbit setting to Short (title, thumb, short description).

This will make the default display 'short' and the alternative 'long'.