"Random Post Icon" possible?

[Dorign]

When posting a new topic and/or replying to a topic, you have the option of selecting an icon. By default, "No Icon" is selected.

I was wondering if there was a simple way to have the "No Icon" renamed to "Random Icon" and have the thread automatically select a random post icon from the posticon folder.

My reasoning is almost none of my users will pick an icon, and if I remove the "No Icon" button, then all the post icons will look the same. It looks ugly on the forum.

Here's an example.



The only one using post icons is me, so there's only one selected in the image.

Is this possible? How would I go about doing this?

[Dorign]

Bump

[Dismounted]

Possible. You'll have to override the setting in newreply and choose an id at random.

[GameWizard]

Wouldn't it make more sense to just apply a default icon? As if you have a random one selected, it would turn into a mish mash of random colors and shit all over which will look worse than no icons.

[Dorign]

Originally Posted by GameWizard

Wouldn't it make more sense to just apply a default icon? As if you have a random one selected, it would turn into a mish mash of random colors and shit all over which will look worse than no icons.

I disagree. Being as the entire site is monochrome green in the first place, a tiny mesh of 16x16 colorful icons in one column would add enough to capture the eye. I know a lot about colors and how they're used to capture the eye because I majored in Art. Sadly, I didn't major in coding and I have no idea how to get done what I want.

[GameWizard]

Well then it looks like were in the same preticament. Although I am slightly more proficient in coding, but also have a good eye for design. In your case, you'll need a pretty unique script as I have never seen such a thing anywhere else, best of luck. Maybe consider requesting it in the Paid section if you're willing to dish out some cash for it.

[sunilvarma]

Here's a way to do this. As this involves editing newthread.php, not everyone may like this solution.

Anyways, here's what to do:

(UPDATED) In newthread.php, FIND:

$newpost['iconid'] =& $vbulletin->GPC['iconid'];

REPLACE WITH:

if($vbulletin->GPC['iconid'] != 0){
		$newpost['iconid'] =& $vbulletin->GPC['iconid'];
	}
	else{		
		$icons_list = array();
		$iconids = $db->query_read("SELECT iconid FROM icon");
		while($row=mysql_fetch_assoc($iconids)){
			array_push($icons_list, $row);
		}
		$newpost['iconid'] = array_rand($icons_list) + 1;
	}

That should do it.

If you want to change the "No icon" text to "Random Icon" just edit the posticons template:

FIND:

$vbphrase[no_icon]

REPLACE WITH:

Random Icon

If anyone can implement this with a plugin, please show me how. And also let me know if the code is efficient.

[Dismounted]

You can hook a plugin further down the code to overwrite the variable. You also don't really need a query, just do a random number between 1-10 or something.

[sunilvarma]

if a posticon is deleted its ID is no longer valid right? so i used a query to get all the IDs in the table instead of generating a random number directly.

could you explain a little about hooking a plugin?

[Dismounted]

Well, you could always make a setting that lets the admin list ids that they want for the random icon. As for the plugin, find a plugin before the post is submitted, but after the varuable has been initialised.