[HowTo] Break posts up from eachother

[HowTo] Break posts up from eachother?
(but still keep the top/bottom post stick to top/bottom row)

What does this one do?
When you view a thread, it shows the first row, the posts, the last row; all sticking together. What we want is a space between the posts. But not a space between the first row and the first post, the last row and the last post. We only want to make a <br> between each individual post. I was not able to do this with a template modification, so I run crying to FireFly and he thought about it for 2,8sec. and gave me the following code to accomplish my wish. *respect*

Why did you make it?
Because vB didn't came with the option by default. And I think it looks pretty damn cool. After applying it to my board I got fan mail with requests on how to do this. I ignored most of them, and now the requests start on vB.com too. So I decided to publish it here. Please note that I am NOT the author of this little code hack, and that all credits should ofcourse goto FireFly.

• Instructions:
• Open the original vBulletin file "showthread.php" and find:
  (near line 425)
  

  $postbits .= getpostbit($post);

• Replace that with:
  

  $postbits .= iif(empty($postbits), '', '<br>').getpostbit($post);

• Save the file, upload it again and see if it worked.

Done!

Version?
Tested with vBulletin 2.2.5 (final) and it works just great! (I wouldn't know about older versions for sure, but it is pretty easy to undo, so doesn't hurt to check it out)

Support!
Feel free to click 'Installed' once you got it up and running on your board!

Tweak!
There were threads where users complained about the breaking showing up the page bground color instead of the main table background color. I fixed this on my new style by putting eveything in the header & footer in 1 new main table. Please keep in mind that if you have other designs etc, this might screw it up, but it works here.. so enjoy
header - at the top add :
<center>
<table bgcolor="{pagebgcolor}" width="{tablewidth}" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tr><td>
footer - at the bottom add :
</td></tr></table></center>
Maybe it helps you too.


The Result
This is how it looks on my web site:

[-=dm=-]

actually this is the first hack ever on this board
I did a clean install.

[Floris]

Well .. I did not had the problem, and I can't see why/what is causing it. Maybe FireFly can inlight us here.

[heretic]

for those that want to spend 5 seconds on it instead of 5 minutes you can just add a <br> at the end of your postbit template


and when you upgrade, it's one less ahck to think about.

[Xanthine]

Well this one only really takes 1 minute and when you add a <br> the top post is always stuck to the top bar and the bottom one is always away from the bottom bar. This way looks better IMO.

[heretic]

not exactly... if you do it right, the top post:

[heretic]

and the bottom...all through template editing.. however, I've completely redesigned my postbit

*shrug*

[Twig Deez]

hey xiphoid;

re: my last post in the space between categories topic over on vb.com,
do you think a similar piece of code could also be used to seperate the categories on forumhome?
i want the seperation without the misalignment, or having to change td width's to realign them;
i figure i can insert an empty tr at the end of the forumhome_forumbit_level1_post template;
but i would prefer a method similar to the one utilised here.

any ideas?

[Floris]

Originally posted by heretic
for those that want to spend 5 seconds on it instead of 5 minutes you can just add a <br> at the end of your postbit template


and when you upgrade, it's one less ahck to think about.

If it takes you 5 minutes to search & replace :P hehe. Too slow.
As I mentioned, I couldn't get this to work with templates, so this is why. And someone already mentioned this, instead of just saying so, please tell me the code where you entered the <br> in your postbit template.

Originally posted by Xanthine
Well this one only really takes 1 minute and when you add a <br> the top post is always stuck to the top bar and the bottom one is always away from the bottom bar. This way looks better IMO.

Yep.

Originally posted by Twig Deez
hey xiphoid;

re: my last post in the space between categories topic over on vb.com,
do you think a similar piece of code could also be used to seperate the categories on forumhome?
i want the seperation without the misalignment, or having to change td width's to realign them;
i figure i can insert an empty tr at the end of the forumhome_forumbit_level1_post template;
but i would prefer a method similar to the one utilised here.

any ideas?

Nope, I am not the guru here Maybe you can do it by applying the same trick to $forumbits = ''; from index.php. But don't quote me on that (except when it works)

[Twig Deez]

Originally posted by xiphoid
Nope, I am not the guru here Maybe you can do it by applying the same trick to $forumbits = ''; from index.php. But don't quote me on that (except when it works)

well, i am gonna tinker with it as soon as i get home from work.

i'll let you know.

[inetd]

That is the Just another level hack.

xiphoid, please post link for this hack... I search and don't find