vBGlossary

I must pay homage to user/moderator wluke for this idea. I must also thank him for allowing me to run with it, and release it publicly. Thanks Wayne!

What's it do?
Simple: creates a glossary of terms. They're sorted alphabetically much in the same way the Memberlist is. I find this is extremely useful for most forums, which surely have a lot of their own lingo. For my site, it's a few acronyms and goofy phrases. My members get a kick out of referring newbies to the glossary to learn about the phrases. It's really helped the whole place seem less like a clique...because others can catch up easily with a reference like this.

Here's a live demo


What's it take?
This hack involves a MySQL command, the uploading of two files, the modification of one, and the creation of five templates. It also requires the modification of a second file, and of two templates, if you want to display a random glossary term on the New Reply/New Thread pages. It'll require a bit more still if you want to add the Glossary to your forum jump menu.

First off, run the following query in MySQL. This is the table that will store the glossary data.

CREATE TABLE `glossary` (
  `glossaryid` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
  `text` text NOT NULL,
  `description` text NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY  (`glossaryid`)
) TYPE=MyISAM;

Attched to the post right after this one is an archive: files.zip. This archive contains two files: glossary.php and admin_glossary.php. The first goes in your main forums directory. The second should be uploaded into your /admin/ directory.

Next, you'll need to create five templates. I've attached a text file containing all five to this post. Should be pretty straightforward. Mess with the formatting as you see fit, of course.

After that, you'll probably want to open (back it up!!!) your /admin/index.php file. Find the code below (around line 340):

makenavselect("Templates");
// ***

Right after that, add this:

makenavoption("Add", "admin_glossary.php?action=add", "|");
makenavoption("Edit", "admin_glossary.php?action=edit", "|");
makenavoption("Delete", "admin_glossary.php?action=delete");
makenavselect("Glossary", "<hr><br>");

There, it should work now! Now, on to the extras (well worth installing, in my opinion):

Display a random glossary term on new thread/new reply pages
Open newreply.php and find the following code (around line 468...it should be right near the end of the file):

getforumrules($foruminfo,$permissions);

Right after it, add this:

  $rand_term = $DB_site->query_first("SELECT text AS term_text, description AS term_description FROM glossary ORDER BY RAND()");
  extract($rand_term);
  $term_description = str_replace("'", "\\'", htmlspecialchars(strip_tags($term_description)));

Yeah, that last line is a little messy -- I like saving space, though.

Save and upload. Next, open newthread.php and find the same bit of code (duplicated below) around line 368 or so:

getforumrules($foruminfo,$permissions);

After that, add the same bit of code above.

Next: the templates. Find the below in both templates...

$vbcode_smilies</td>

...and in both templates, replace it with this:

	$vbcode_smilies<br><center><smallfont><b>Random Term: <a href="#" onclick="alert('$term_description'); return false;">$term_text</a></b></smallfont><br>

	<smallfont><a href="$bburl/glossary.php" target="_blank">More Glossary Terms!</a></smallfont><br></td>

There, you're done!


Add vBGlossary to the forum jump menu
Open forumdisplay.php in your main forums directory. Find this, near the top of the file (line 13 or so):

	case 'cp': $goto = 'usercp'; break;

Right after it, add this:

	case 'gl': $goto = 'glossary'; break;

Next (and last) step: open the forumjump template and add this bit of code somewhere amongst the other options...where you put it depends on where you want it in the menu.

		<option value="gl" $frmjmpsel[glossary]>The Glossary</option>

That's it! All done. Enjoy.

I hope you all enjoy this hack. It didn't take nearly as much time/effort as I thought it would...I really love it, though.

[xware]

works well.
thank you! leased:

[SaintDog]

Thank you for a great hack, I was just wondering if it would be possible for one addition to be added to the hack though?

You know when you go to edit/delete the terms, they are all grouped together? How about making it to where they are sorted under headers? (see below if you are not sure what I mean):

---------------------------------------------------------------------
A
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Animal
AOL
ect..

---------------------------------------------------------------------
B
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Bald
Bird
ect..

and so on.....

This would make it look a little nicer, imo. (note: this would be for admin_glossary.php).

Do you think you could do this or add it to the hack?

I think it would be a nice addition to the hack.

Again, thanks for a great hack!

[TWTCommish]

Yeah, give me a little bit of time. Doing some other work now. I can do that, though. Won't be long, I don't think.

[TWTCommish]

Here we go. Attached is the new admin_glossary.php file. It create the aforementioned headers for each letter/number/whatever, and even features a handy drop-down menu to quickly jump to various areas, as I'm sure some glossaries will get quite large!

I'll also be updating files.zip with this new file. Enjoy.

[TWTCommish]

Here's a screenshot to show you what the new format looks like.

[Lionel]

excellent. Admin has a good glance.

[afterlab]

For some reason, i'm getting this in newreply.php:

Warning: extract() expects first argument to be an array in /home/sites/site1/web/newreply.php on line 479

[TWTCommish]

My bad: I forgot to mention...if you want a random term to show up, you've got to add a term to the DB. Otherwise it can't find anything.

[afterlab]

Yeah.. I figured that out..

[SaintDog]

Thanks for the speedy fix, imo, it looks nicer now and saves me some time. You even managed to save me some time by adding that drop down box to it with only the letters being used at the time.

Once again, thanks, great hack!