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.

[TigerLily]

I love this hack, but Netscape has been giving me headaches with this one for a WHILE. I finally got really fed up and kept tinkering until I found some solutions! Here is what I did, you can find a zip of the last10 files I changed here if you want to see them:
http://frugal-moms.com/last10NSfix.zip

Note: I am using vBulletin 2.0.3, getting ready to install 2.2, will let you know if there are any problems!

In last10.php (I called mine active.php):

1) Getting rid of that funky town text!

I took all style tags (such as style=\"font-family:$f; font-size:$fs; color:$tc;\") out of the table tags (mostly td) and put them in font tags right after those tags.

For example:

echo("<td style=\"font-family:$f; font-size:$fs; color:$tc;\" align=\"center\"><b>Last Poster</b></td>\n");

I changed to this:

echo("<td align=\"center\"><font style=\"font-family:$f; font-size:$fs; color:$tc;\"><b>Last Poster</b></td></font>\n");

2) Getting rid of the jagged table edges on the right side:

I added an extra td cell at the end of each row so that the full length of the table rows (particularly the colored ones) would show up correctly in Netscape. There are two places that need this- in the top bar that defines each field and then again in the column that actually displays them- thread title, replies, etc. Here is where to find them:

a) In top bar (the one that says Thread Title, Last Poster, etc)- which has displays your $hc color (right after the "Replies" column around line 50). Replace this:

[CODE]echo("</tr>\n");[CODE]

with this:

echo("<td bgcolor=\"$hc\">&nbsp;</td></tr>\n");

b) Directly beneath the top bar, in the row that displays the actual title of the thread, # of replies where your $hc2 color is. In the echo tag above "// are we showing the last post?" around line 228 replace this:

echo("</tr>");

with this:
[CODE]echo("<td bgcolor=\"$hc2\">&nbsp;</td></tr>");[CODE]

3) Sprucing up the table:

a) Message text tables- I hardcoded the colspan in line 231, replacing this:

echo("<tr $twt bgcolor=\"$bc\"><td colspan=\"$cols\" style=\"font-family:$f; font-size:$fs; color:$tc;\" align=\"left\">\n");

with colspan=5 so that the message tables were all the same length (you can make it as wide as you like):

echo("<tr $twt bgcolor=\"$bc\"><td colspan=5><font style=\"font-family:$f; font-size:$fs; color:$tc;\" align=\"left\">\n");

b)Getting the dark lines to show up around the table-I added an extra table in my shtml page with the background color I wanted. I dropped the include tags into the middle of this table:

<table width="600" bgcolor="000080" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td>
<!--#include file="last10.php"--></td></tr></table>

It's late- I hope I remembered everything I did, LOL. Feel free to use my upload files as a template or something to compare too. You can see the results here:

http://frugal-moms.com/boards/active5.shtml

I use this script to show forums within certain categories since I have so many boards. It comes in handy, and I'm glad that our Netscape uses can finally see this page correctly. I would still love to have the page show up to match the user-selected style of the boards rather than hardcoded, but I'm not sure how to make that work-yet!
Kim

[Mobile]

when i reply to a thread, i get the last post as my 'post subject' anyone got the same problem?

-Mobile

[tweak]

Woot Nice

[LuBi]

This hack worked great quick install also. Another great one!

Suprascene.com - See it here

[inetd]

The given script under vb2.2.1 works? And whether it can show messages only from the defined category?

[Steve_S]

Originally posted by inetd
The given script under vb2.2.1 works?

Yes see:

http://www.geekvillage.com/last_25_posts.html

And whether it can show messages only from the defined category?

just set up the config file to use the forums you want in a given cat. Each Forum has a unique id and you would specify them each like this:

$includeforums = "1,2,3,4"; // if you only want to include certain forums, put their ids here. separate more than one with commas, NO SPACES! e.g. 1,2,3,4

[inetd]

error:
Fatal error: Failed opening required 'http://boltalka.com.ua/admin/config.php' (include_path='.:') in /boltalka/last10.php on line 13

[petemay]

Originally posted by jarvis
Rostor,

I, too, was getting your exact same error. I went round and round for days wondering what the heck was going on in my little NT world.

I have found that IIS appears to have problems with filtering or parsing included files. The IIS include is looking for a txt or HTML file, and thus I could not get it working with a plain SHTM(L) include statement.

What I did as a work around, is I set up my SHTM pages to be parsed by the PHP Isapi filter versus the ssinc.dll that is default. Basically my homepage is now PHP parsed, but still mostly HTML-based. Have I confused you yet?

Now that my page is PHP-parsed, I can just just the standard <? include("last10.php"); ?> statement in my code and everything works fine. I was a bit nervous about doing this as I wondered if any of my FP extensions would not function, but all seems to working well. (knock on wood)

You can view how I implemented the hack on my site at www.mhogaming.com

Hope that helps...

-Brian

Jarvis,

How did you "set up my SHTM pages to be parsed by the PHP Isapi filter versus the ssinc.dll that is default."? I'm also a hopeless IIS user and this sounds like it will work for me. I'm not familiar with PHP though. Is this an IIS configuration change, a PHP change, or a registry tweak?

Thanks

[jarvis]

How did you "set up my SHTM pages to be parsed by the PHP Isapi filter versus the ssinc.dll that is default."?

Well, I am no IIS guru by any means... But, that being said

It IS an IIS configuration change, so just go into your management console and select the 'Home Directory' tab, then hit the 'Configuration' button. From here you will see all of the available extensions. Just click on the extension(s) that you want to PHP parse. I selected .sHTML. Assuming you have the basic install of PHP, just point the executable line to \Winnt\system32\sapi\php4sapi.dll and allow all verbs.

Hopefully that helps!!

-Brian
www.mhogaming.com

[petemay]

Thanks for the additional details...

It appears that I do not have a

Winnt\system32\sapi\php4sapi.dll

in fact the 'sapi' directory does not even exist under system32?!

I figured I must have an incomplete install of PHP, so I re-installed PHP V4.0.6. Even after that install I do not have that directory or .dll??

When I run the last10.php script directly, I get several of the following 'warning' messages:

Warning: Undefined variable: fsel in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 108

Warning: Undefined variable: ftitle in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 108

Warning: Undefined variable: counter in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 172

Warning: Use of undefined constant title - assumed 'title' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 178

Warning: Use of undefined constant title - assumed 'title' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 182

Warning: Use of undefined constant lastpost - assumed 'lastpost' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 185

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 190

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 190

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 193

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 193

Warning: Use of undefined constant iconid - assumed 'iconid' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 193

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 196

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 196

Warning: Use of undefined constant iconid - assumed 'iconid' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 196
HOWDY 12:51 AM

Warning: Use of undefined constant title - assumed 'title' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 178

Warning: Use of undefined constant title - assumed 'title' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 182

Warning: Use of undefined constant lastpost - assumed 'lastpost' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 185

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 190

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 190

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 193

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 193

Warning: Use of undefined constant iconid - assumed 'iconid' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 193

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 196

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 196

Warning: Use of undefined constant iconid - assumed 'iconid' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 196
test 10:18 PM

Warning: Use of undefined constant title - assumed 'title' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 178

Warning: Use of undefined constant title - assumed 'title' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 179

Warning: Use of undefined constant lastpost - assumed 'lastpost' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 185

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 190

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 190

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 193

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 193

Warning: Use of undefined constant iconid - assumed 'iconid' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 193

Warning: Use of undefined constant iconid - assumed 'iconid' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 193

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 196

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 196

Warning: Use of undefined constant iconid - assumed 'iconid' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 196

Warning: Use of undefined constant iconid - assumed 'iconid' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 196
How do I use the makeuser... 08:55 AM

Warning: Use of undefined constant title - assumed 'title' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 178

Warning: Use of undefined constant title - assumed 'title' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 182

Warning: Use of undefined constant lastpost - assumed 'lastpost' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 185

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 190

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 190

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 193

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 193

Warning: Use of undefined constant iconid - assumed 'iconid' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 193

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 196

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 196

Warning: Use of undefined constant iconid - assumed 'iconid' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 196
just a test 08:29 AM

Warning: Use of undefined constant title - assumed 'title' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 178

Warning: Use of undefined constant title - assumed 'title' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 182

Warning: Use of undefined constant lastpost - assumed 'lastpost' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 185

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 190

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 190

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 193

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 193

Warning: Use of undefined constant iconid - assumed 'iconid' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 193

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 196

Warning: Undefined variable: postii in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 196

Warning: Use of undefined constant iconid - assumed 'iconid' in D:\My Documents\My Webs\fieldengineering\vbforum\last10.php on line 196
this is another test 03:53 PM

The process appears to be running from PHP directly, but generating all those Warning messages... as you can see in the text bolded in the quote "this is another test" is the title of one of my test posts... Seems like something is seriously misconfigured to me, but I don't know where to start to figure it out.

I'm pretty fresh to PHP - but willing to learn - no matter how painful it may be right now....

Thanks.