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.

Originally posted by Parker Clack
Hmm... So if they are new members that just signed up on the board or they are just visiting and they aren't registered members they will get this error if they click on the link to this page, or what?

Parker

When someone visits your forum (Registered members AND guests) they are assigned a cookie.

Without this cookie your addition to Tubes hack will not work.

So if you have his hack (with your addition) on your main page, and someone visits there who has never visited your forums they will get the error above. But his hack does work fine "without" your additions for new visitors.

This is a known problem, and has caused a lot of headaches in most of the "who's online on another page" hacks also.

tubedogg:

Since you are working on hacks how about looking over the memberlist.php file to see if you can add alpha listings instead of just by page number. That is if you click on the letter A you get those members will the last name stating with A and so forth. It can get really tedious when you have over 17,000 registered members to go through page after page by the number of the page.

Thanks again for the this hack.

Parker

Originally posted by Sportbikeworld


When someone visits your forum (Registered members AND guests) they are assigned a cookie.

Without this cookie your addition to Tubes hack will not work.

So if you have his hack (with your addition) on your main page, and someone visits there who has never visited your forums they will get the error above. But his hack does work fine "without" your additions for new visitors.

This is a known problem, and has caused a lot of headaches in most of the "who's online on another page" hacks also.

Thanks for the info. That is odd that it requires a cookie to work right.

I just found when using the option to display the message that gets posted and the person has used the vbcode in their message that it will display the code as well.

Oh, well. Thanks again for the heads up on this.

Parker

Robert and tubedogg:

I just logged off my board and then manually deleted the cookie I had for the forum from my hard drive and got back on the board. I was not cookied for the forum then and I clicked on the link to take me to the last10.php file. I did not get the cannot add header error message from the database with using the bbparsecode for the message. In fact the page came up just fine as before.

Have you tried this on your own board to see if you get the error message?

Just thought that I would let you know.

Parker

Originally posted by Parker Clack
Robert and tubedogg:

I just logged off my board and then manually deleted the cookie I had for the forum from my hard drive and got back on the board. I was not cookied for the forum then and I clicked on the link to take me to the last10.php file. I did not get the cannot add header error message from the database with using the bbparsecode for the message. In fact the page came up just fine as before.

Parker

You not only need to delete the cookie to see the error pop-up, but you also need to shut down your browser and restart it. At least that's how I got the error to pop-up with this and other hacks that require global.php

Can anyone help with a problem I'm having with this script? I keep getting "Can't select database" error every time. All of the variables are set correct, but I still get this. In the last10.php file I see the code:

"mysql_select_db($dbname) or die("Can't select database");"

This is where the error is at and the script dies there. I havn't changed anything else other than what it said to do. Why is it having troulbe at that line?

Thanks for any input.

Jeff

If you're getting that far, then all your variables are indeed set correctly. Can you try something for me? I've attached a zip file to this message - open it, edit the username, password, database host ($dbhost), and database name ($dbname) in both files (testmysql1.php and testmysql2.php) and put both files on your server where the last10.php file is, then go to testmysql1.php in a web browser, e.g. http://www.yoursite.com/path/to/testmysql1.php and tell me what happens.
Then go to testmysql2.php e.g. http://www.yoursite.com/path/to/testmysql2.php and tell me what happens.

Sorry you're having problems. Hopefully this will solve it!

Both test files now say they selected database ok when called from a browser. Now, how to fix in the other to call it ok instead of the error?

Jeff

congrats!!!
It's just maybe too big :/
I will modify that

Jeff: Hmm. I was expecting those two files to fail. What doesn't make sense is if they worked, why the other one wouldn't. Or, more succinctly, why the other one fails where it does. If it's having problems connecting, it should fail at the connect step, not at the select database step.

Here's what I suggest. Since the only thing I'm pulling from the vB files for this is username, password, db host, and database name, put these up at the top of the last10.php file as so:
Find

// let's get connected
require("last10config.php");
require("$path/config.php");

and replace it with

// let's get connected
require("last10config.php");
$servername = "localhost";
$dbusername = "dbusername";
$dbpassword = "dbpassword";
$dbname = "dbname";

and change the info to your details. That should work. If it still doesn't let me know and I'll look into it some more.

:scratching head: