[MarkFL]

Here is how I configured the custom block:



And this is the "Content":

PHP Code:

global $vbulletin, $db;

require_once('./includes/functions_user.php');
require_once('./includes/class_bbcode.php');
$bbcode_parser = new vB_BbCodeParser($vbulletin, fetch_tag_list());

$number_of_posts = 5;
$post_length = 25;

$output = '<ul class="restore">';

$recent_posts = $vbulletin->db->query_read("
    SELECT post.*, thread.title, thread.forumid
    FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "post AS post
    INNER JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "thread AS thread
    ON thread.threadid = post.threadid
    ORDER BY post.dateline DESC
");

$pcount = 0;

while ($tpost = $db->fetch_array($recent_posts) AND $pcount < $number_of_posts)
{
    if (($vbulletin->userinfo['forumpermissions'][$tpost['forumid']] & $vbulletin->bf_ugp_forumpermissions['canview']) AND (($tpost['visible'] == 1) OR can_moderate($tpost['forumid'])))
    {
        $pcount++;
        $avatar_url = fetch_avatar_url($tpost['userid']);
        $avatar = $avatar_url[0];

        if (!$avatar)
        {
            $avatar = './images/misc/unknown.gif';
        }

        $tpost['title'] = fetch_censored_text($tpost['title']);
        $tpost['pagetext'] = $bbcode_parser->parse($tpost['pagetext'], $tpost['forumid'], $tpost['allowsmilie']);
        $tpost['pagetext'] =  html_entity_decode($tpost['pagetext']);
        $tpost['pagetext'] =  Html::trim($tpost['pagetext'], $post_length);

        $output .= '<li class="avatarcontent floatcontainer widget_post_bit">';
        $output .= '<div class="widget_post_userinfo">';
        $output .= '<div class="cms_widget_post_useravatar widget_post_useravatar">';
        $output .= '<a class="smallavatar comments_member_avatar_link" href="member.php?' . $tpost['userid'] . '-' . $tpost['username'] . '">';
        $output .= '<img alt="' . $tpost['username'] . '" src="' . $avatar . '" title="' . $tpost['username'] . '">';
        $output .= '</a></div></div>';
        $output .= '<div class="smallavatartext widget_post_comment">';
        $output .= '<p class="widget_post_content">';
        $output .= $tpost['pagetext'];
        $output .= '</p><h5 class="widget_post_header">';
        $output .= '<a class="title" href="showthread.php?' . $tpost['threadid'] . '-' . str_replace(' ', '-', $tpost['title']) . '&p=' . $tpost['postid'] . '#post' . $tpost['postid'] . '">' . $tpost['title'] . '</a>';
        $output .= '</h5><div class="meta">';
        $output .= vbdate($vbulletin->options['dateformat'], $tpost['dateline'], 1) . ',';
        $output .= '<span class="time">';
        $output .= vbdate($vbulletin->options['timeformat'], $tpost['dateline']);
        $output .= '</span><br></div></div></li>';
    }
}

unset ($recent_posts);
$output .= '</ul>';
return $output;

class Html{

    protected
    $reachedLimit = false,
    $totalLen     = 0,
    $maxLen       = 25,
    $toRemove     = array();

    public static function trim($html, $maxLen = 25){

    $dom = new DomDocument();
    $dom->loadHTML($html);

    $html = new static();
    $toRemove = $html->walk($dom, $maxLen);

    // remove any nodes that passed our limit
    foreach($toRemove as $child) 
        $child->parentNode->removeChild($child);

        // remove wrapper tags added by DD (doctype, html...)
        if(version_compare(PHP_VERSION, '5.3.6') < 0){
            // http://stackoverflow.com/a/6953808/1058140
            $dom->removeChild($dom->firstChild);            
            $dom->replaceChild($dom->firstChild->firstChild->firstChild, $dom->firstChild);
            return $dom->saveHTML();
        }

        return $dom->saveHTML($dom->getElementsByTagName('body')->item(0));   
    }

    protected function walk(DomNode $node, $maxLen){
        if($this->reachedLimit){
            $this->toRemove[] = $node;
        }else{
            // only text nodes should have text,
            // so do the splitting here
            if($node instanceof DomText){
                $this->totalLen += $nodeLen = strlen($node->nodeValue);

                // use mb_strlen / mb_substr for UTF-8 support
                if($this->totalLen > $maxLen){
                    $node->nodeValue = substr($node->nodeValue, 0, $nodeLen - ($this->totalLen - $maxLen)) . '...';
                    $this->reachedLimit = true;
                }
            }

            // if node has children, walk its child elements 
            if(isset($node->childNodes))
                foreach($node->childNodes as $child)
                    $this->walk($child, $maxLen);
        }

        return $this->toRemove;
    }  
} 


Near the top, you can control how many posts a user will see, and how many characters of the post will be displayed, by altering these two lines:

PHP Code:

$number_of_posts = 5;
$post_length = 25; 


Users will only see posts they have permission to see. Give this a try and let me know how it works for you.

Note: You must have PHP version 5.3 or higher in order for this to work.