Recently Viewed (Hack in Progress)

[Logikos]

After lurking around sitepoint today, I thought I would create a hack much like they have. "Recently Viewed". The first thing I did is search vB.org to see if it was recently released, or released in the past. I did find a few request for this, but no hack has ever been acually released to the public.

So I started thinking how I can create this hack the best way possiable. The first thing that came into mind is create a new table called "recentlyviewed" with the following information.

'recentlyviewed' Table

• userid
  The userid of the user viewing the thread
  
• threadid
  The threadid of the thead the user is viewing
  
• dateline
  The date/time user viewed thread. (TIMENOW)

This means the 1 query will be added on the showthread.php page (per user). Now this method can instantly start filling the "recentlyviewed" table with large boards; Seeing as showthread.php is the mosted used file IMHO. So I thought, lets only keep 5 listing per userid.


Keep only 5 listing in database (per userid)
This would be done using the global.php file...

Scenario:
User has viewed 10 threads (according to the recentlyviewed table). Delete the oldest 5.

Conditions before sql execution:

	
SQL = count total threads where userid = userid

if (user has more the 5 viewed threads)
{
        Delete the oldest threads viewed, keeping the latest 5
}
else
{
        exit();
}

Now please note that I havn't even started coding this. I just started thinking about it and wanted to get in on paper, and also hear what a few other coders input before I start. So, if you have a better method, please explain. If not, how can I delete the oldest threads viewed, keeping the latest 5? Thanks everyone!

Also, I will publicly release this once this is finished...