Last XX Posts on non-vB page

UPDATED! Not a new version number, but a bug fix.
Fixed another bug with using forum titles and included forums.
New update: *Actually* fixed the bug with the forums this time.
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It's my best work to date (if I do say so myself ) and I think you'll like it and like all the configuration you can do.

This image shows the script with all of the columns on, and parsing [code], smilies, and the post icon, as well as showing the forum title before the thread title.


This image shows the script with all the columns off except $lastpostdate, and the $tw (table width) set to 600, and $showdate set to 0 (to just show the last post time).


This image shows the same as #2, except $tw is blank (allowing the table to compact and remove the empty space automatically).


Hack version: 1.0.1

Changes since version 1.0.0: Fixed small bug.

Changes since version 0.1.0: Parses [ b], [ i], [ u], [ code], and [ quote] within the "last post". Displays the icon of the post, or the thread if there is no post icon. Parses smilies. New option to convert new lines to <br> so the post appears as the author wrote it (note: may cause problems if there are large breaks in posts).

Changes since version 0.0.2: New option to show the text of the last post of a thread (also option to limit the number of characters of the post displayed). New option to set the table width, as a percent, a number of pixels, or just let the table size naturally. New option to show just the time of the last post, instead of the date *and* the time. New option to show a thin line around the cells (cell spacing).

Changes since version 0.0.1: Include only specific forums, or set to allow all forums except certain excluded forums. New option to display a "Last post date" column with the last post date and time, formatted with your board's date & time setting. Fixed a bug with font and font size. Split the config into a separate file to make editing easier.

For version: v2 betas 3, 4, 5, RC1, RC2.

Files needed: last10.php, last10config.php (see attached zip file).

Files to edit: last10config.php (see attached zip file).

Possible file locations: Anywhere, as long as the relative path to config.php and the URL to your board are correct. Also, you must put last10.php and last10config.php in the same directory!

Instructions
1] Unzip the files last10.php and last10config.php to your hard drive.
2] Open last10config.php in an ASCII text editor, such as Notepad (Windows), SimpleText (Mac), EditPlus, UltraEdit, TextPad, etc. (DO NOT use WYSIWYG HTML editors such as FrontPage, HotDog, DreamWeaver, etc. They will in all likelyhood screw up the file! I will not be able to support you if you edit the file in one of these programs.)
3] Edit the variables at the top. These are:

1. $path > path to your config.php file (usually in the /admin directory) - NO TRAILING SLASH! and DO NOT PUT config.php at the end of it! ( e.g. forums/admin )
2. $url > URL to your board - NO TRAILING SLASH! ( e.g. http://www.mysite.com/forums )
3. $urlimg > URL to your board's images - NO TRAILING SLASH ( e.g. http://www.mysite.com/forums/images ).
4. $maxthreads > max threads to show. will show less if $last24 or $last7 limits it to less results than this number
5. $ob > determines the sort order of the list. replycount and views are numbers, lastposter is a name, title is the name of the thread, and lastpost is the last posts' date. set to one of the following: replycount , views , lastposter , title , lastpost (lastpost is most popular. it's the thread most recently replied to, then the second-to-last most recent, etc.)
6. $obdir > set to "desc" or "asc". which direction to sort? "desc" goes from bottom to top (9 to 1, z to a, etc.). "asc" goes top to bottom (1 to 9, a to z, etc.)
7. $last24 > set to 1 to limit the possible results to the last 24 hours; 0 for no limit (must set this to 0 if $last7 is set to 1)
8. $last7 > set to 1 to limit the possible results to the last 7 days; 0 for no limit (must set this to 0 if $last24 is set to 1)
9. $bc1 > first alt color (for the alternating colored rows)
10. $bc2 > second alt color
11. $hc > head background color (title, last poster, etc.)
12. $lc > text link color
13. $tc > text color
14. $f > font face
15. $fs > font size in points. 6 is on the small side, 10 on the large side. Put only a number in this - no "pt", "pts", or anything else!
16. $lastposter > show the "last poster" column? 1 = yes; 0 = no
17. $views > show the view count for each thread? 1 = yes; 0 = no
18. $replies > show the reply count for each thread? 1 = yes; 0 = no
19. $lastpostdate > show the last post date and time for each thread? 1 = yes; 0 = no
20. $len > maximum number of characters of the title to show. e.g. if the title is 60 characters and this is set to 25, only the first 25 characters of the title will be shown (followed by ...)
21. $excludeforums > List certain forums to be excluded. Best used if you have a large number of forums you *do* want included and only a few that you want excluded. List them separated by commas, but without spaces - e.g. 1,2,3,4 - and DO NOT fill in both this and $includeforums! Use one or the other.
22. $includeforums > List certain forums to be included. Best used if you have a small number of forums that you want included and a large number you want excluded. List them separated by commas, but without spaces - e.g. 1,2,3,4 - and DO NOT fill in both this and $excludeforums! Use one or the other.
23. $showmessages > If you want to show the last post of the thread as well, set this to 1. You can limit the number of characters displayed in $lplen below.
24. $lplen > If you specify a number here, any post that has more than $lplen number of characters will be reduced to this number and "..." added to the end of it. If you don't want to use this feature, leave it blank e.g. "" - remember though that if $showmessages is set to 0, this won't do anything.
25. $tw > If you want to specify the width of the table, you can set it as a percent e.g. 95% or as a number of pixels e.g. 300 or just leave it blank and the table will size itself.
26. $showdate > If you want to show the date *and* the time, set this to 1. If you want to just show the time, set this to 0.
27. $cs > If you want a thin line around your cells, set this to 1 (or higher - experiment!). Set to 0 for no line.
28. $nb > if you want breaks in text to appear as such, set this to 1. otherwise set it to 0 (this may cause problems if there are large breaks in the text)
29. $showforumtitle > if you want to show the forum title, linked to that forum, for each thread also (forum title: thread title) then set this to 1. otherwise set it to 0.
30. $showicon > if you want to show the icon the author chose for their post, set this to 1. otherwise set it to 0.

4] Upload both last10.php and last10config.php to your website. You can include last10.php as follows. To include it on a PHP-parsed page (.php, .php3, .phtml, etc.):
<? include("last10.php"); ?>
To include it on a server-parsed page (.shtml, .shtm, .ssi, etc.):
<!--#include file="last10.php"-->

Instructions are also included in the zip file (last10.txt).

FEEDBACK WANTED! Likes/dislikes/modification requests all gladly accepted!

Please DO NOT contact me via IM or PM about this hack. Post your problem/question here and I will try to help you.

[jarvis]

Nothing like showing my lack of technical abilities in a public venue...

PHP include example:

PHP:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<?php include("/vb/recent/last10.php"); ?>

So are you telling me that instead of my main page being index.htm or index.shtm, I should have it be index.php, which I would assume invokes the php filter. Question here is, how is the rest of the HTML handled on the page? Is it left alone by the PHP filter, and how would FrontPage handle this?

Yes, I am using FP....

Thanks for everyone's help...

[RobAC]

I would be careful doing this. If you have registered your site with a lot of search engines and you have users that have bookmarked the index page of your site, as soon as you change the file extension to .php, you just broke all the links at all the search engines as well as any users that have bookmarked your site. If you're not registered with that many search engines, then I would be too concerned about it. Keep this in mind.

[jarvis]

Yeah, I was thinking about that, too...

There has got to be a reason why my normal include statement is not working right.

So everyone that has this hack working, I'm assuming their running it on some Unix-based web server, or they are just including from a PHP-parsed page?

Seems like I'm just overlooking something little here, but maybe it's not meant to be for me on my main page, lol.

Tubedogg (or anyone for that matter), have you tried the include statement on a non PHP-parsed page (shtm, etc) and if so, what web server was the provider running?

Good thing I don't smoke, this would have thrown me over the two pack a day threshold.

[RobAC]

This may not make a difference, but try renaming the file to .shtml instead of .shtm

Did you try embedding the include in a regular .html document?

If you have AOL Instant Messenger, log on. My screen name is CorvetteAC and I'll try and help you through it. It's a little easier than going back and forth on here.

[jarvis]

Thanks again RobAC for your help...

Okay we figured it is boiling down to a server config issue. I host my own pages on IIS5 and PHP 4.0.4 running as an ISAPI filter on the site. My shtm docs invoke the ssiinc.dll properly, but then as you see from the link above, my test.shtm throws out a bunch of unparsed PHP code. Short of changing my default doc to a PHP doc, or not running this hack, I wanted to see if there were any IIS gurus out there.

Thanks again! (I seem to be the Win32 guinea pig around here for some reason )

[tubedogg]

Originally posted by RobAC
I would be careful doing this. If you have registered your site with a lot of search engines and you have users that have bookmarked the index page of your site, as soon as you change the file extension to .php, you just broke all the links at all the search engines as well as any users that have bookmarked your site.

He also did that by changing it to .shtm.

Here's what I would do. Rename it to index.php, and then make index.html a page with a meta refresh tag saying "please wait" and then it auto-refreshes (with a link for those whose browsers' suck). That way the page still works, and you can still use a php page.

Also, I would imagine most of your visitors typed in (and bookmarked) mysite.com and not mysite.com/index.html. Just a thought.

[RobAC]

Kevin,

That's a great idea. It would be a great fix until he can figure out the root cause of why it won't parse the PHP code when the extension is changed.

[jarvis]

Well, I've employed the help of some of my more technical buddies, but I think that the way I'm doing the web layout, I'm out of luck with this hack.

Reason being, I'd hate to redo all the FrontPage hooks just to rename the page php. Until I can figure out why the PHP wont parse in the include statement, I'll have to do without this cool hack.

Thanks for your help Rob and Kevin!

[c-pr0mpt]

In last10.php.

Where can I edit out so that the header does not show?


I tried a few things and keep getting parse errors.
Thanks in advance, and very nice work.

[c-pr0mpt]

Nevermind. I figured it out. lol I have to stop doing this, and wait a little longer cause it always ends up being done by me anyways.