Latest announcement on forum home

This is my first hack which I created out of necessity. It's is so simple, it adds "Last Announcement" in the forums home. This is done by selecting the latest thread created in a given forum to be displayed.

See the screenshot attached.

1.2 Update:
- The hack now uses the plugin system, no more code changes .

1.1 Update:
- Code is now more optimized, compatible with non-cookied and clustered boards. (Thanks for KirbyDE)

1.01 Update:
- Now it works if you use prefix in database.

Enjoy

[olli666]

Originally Posted by Mr. Bone88

I don't seem to get how this works. I have installed it twice and removed it twice. I can't seem to find where I insert my text for it to appear in the latest announcement area. Where do I go to add my text?

Thanks,
~Mr. Bone88

Please, i can't find it too :ermm:

[Shaikan]

Nice plugin.

But I would need some additional features.
-) I have a multilanguage forum. So I would need that the Announcement changes depending on the forum language (so that I can enter for each language a forum where the last topic is taken for the annoucement).
-) I want that I can change the number of topics displayed in the annoucement field.

[zeroality]

This is a cool and simple hack. Could use a bit more functionality but I'm going to try to edit that in myself. I'll post the results here if I come up with something good.

[zeroality]

Edit: Alright, I've been playing around with this. It's probably nothing remarkable but I'm pretty proud of myself as I don't know mySQL or PHP and I had to do this via trial/error and am learning my way around.

This is my first experience in actually coding something in mySQL/php - all I've ever done before was move stuff around or follow file edit instructions.

Anyway - here's what I've gotten so far:
Attachment 51050

I did all this by editing the plugin code and the template code. Here is what I have for both:

<!-- Latest Announcement -->
<table class="tborder" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" border="0" width="100%" align="center">
<thead>
	<tr>
		<td class="tcat" colspan="2"><a href="http://www.pokerealm.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=28">Latest News and Announcements</a></td>
	</tr>
</thead>
<tbody id="collapseobj_forumhome_events" style="$vbcollapse[collapseobj_forumhome_events]">
	<tr>
	<td class="thead" width="3%">&nbsp;</td>
	<td class="thead" width="97%">Recent Headlines</td>
	<tr>
	<td class="alt2" align="center"><img class="inlineimg" src="$stylevar[imgdir_statusicon]/announcement.gif" alt="News Icon"></td>
	<td class="alt2">$lns_show</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	<td class="alt1" colspan="2"><div class="smallfont">$lns2_show</div></td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	<td class="alt2" align="center"><img class="inlineimg" src="$stylevar[imgdir_statusicon]/announcement.gif" alt="News Icon"></td>
	<td class="alt2">$lnsb_show</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	<td class="alt1" colspan="2"><div class="smallfont">$lnsb2_show</div></td>
	</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<!-- /Latest Announcement -->

// ### LATEST NEWS BY TANTAWI ############################################
		$latesta = $db->query_first('SELECT title,threadid,views,replycount FROM ' . TABLE_PREFIX . 'thread WHERE 1 AND forumid = 28 ORDER BY dateline DESC  LIMIT 0 , 1');
		$lns_show = "<a href=\"showthread.php?"  . $vbulletin->session->vars['sessionurl'] . "t=$latesta[threadid]\">$latesta[title]</a>";
		$lns2_show = "<b>Replies:</b> $latesta[replycount] <b>Views:</b> $latesta[views]";
		$latesta2 = $db->query_first('SELECT title,threadid,views,replycount FROM ' . TABLE_PREFIX . 'thread WHERE 1 AND forumid = 28 ORDER BY dateline DESC  LIMIT 1 , 1');
		$lnsb_show = "<a href=\"showthread.php?"  . $vbulletin->session->vars['sessionurl'] . "t=$latesta2[threadid]\">$latesta2[title]</a>";
		$lnsb2_show = "<b>Replies:</b> $latesta2[replycount] <b>Views:</b> $latesta2[views]";

You can get an idea of how to edit the plugin once you compare my code to the original. Have fun guys.

I plan on adding a lot to this - I'm even thinking of asking someone how to trim phrases in PHP so that I can draw from the database and get the first post then trim it to 150 characters or so and display it right there under the title then a link "Read more...".

-Whoops, didn't mean to double post. I thought it would auto merge my posts.

[zeroality]

OK, I finally finished tinkering around with it and here is my finished product. If you have any questions, you can PM me. I'm not going to post it as a hack because I don't know how to write the admin CP plugin, etc. My code is probably very inefficient as well.

Attachment 51182

[mshadows]

This won't work for 3.6 - anyone have any ideas what changes I need to make to get it working? The Latest Announcement box will show but it's empty even though I have put in the correct forumid.

[tantawi]

mshadows, It works for me on on 3.6, nothing changed, you may need to rebuild threads info.

Regards.

[mshadows]

What do you mean by rebuild threads info? Sorry I'm a bit of a newbie with this kind of stuff.

[tantawi]

From your admincp, select Maintenance > Rebuild thread info.

Regards.

[RobbieZ]

Anyone got a 3.7.3 version ?