Forum Display Enhancements - All Topic - Master Forums - Shows threads from multiple forums in one forum

This a complete and total upgrade to version 2.0!

New Version: 2.2

NOTE: VB 4.2.0(and over) Users DO NOT do the Manual File Edit on forumdisplay.php in the directions.

1 manual file edit is required to fix a bug where the thread count may be wrong in the master forum. Details in instructions in zip file.

You can now specify an * to denote "all forums" when creating a master forum. See instructions for details.

In addition this mod will be able to auto edit your templates if you run the standard threadbit template, otherwise there are instructions in the zip file for manual template edits if needed.

New in 2.2: Show or hide sticky threads from slave forums on the master forum.

What does this mod do? - Basically this is only the most awesomest mod ever for vBulletin. You can now view threads from other forums in "Master Forums" you designate.

For example on my site "Off Topic" is my "Master Forum" and virtually all other forums are assigned to the Master Forum offering user's the ability to browse 1 forum while seeing threads from many others.

New in version 2.0: You can now have multiple master forums.

See the screen shots for an example.

All instructions are included in the zip file.

As pointed out by phpdesk you must have at least 1 thread in your master forum for this to work.

I have tested this on VB 4.0.8 and am sure it will work on all 4.0/4.1 versions to date. There is a separate version for VB 3.x.

You can mostly ignore all posts in this thread up to post #25. Old posts are no longer relevant to this new version. (Note: post #7 is still relevant if you have only 1 master forum.)

------------------------------------------------------

Please "Mark as Installed" if you use this.
Donations always appreciated. :up:
Nominate MOTM if you LOVE it!

[Alan_SP]

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

As for usergroup permissions, users will see the thread title for every thread in every forum, but they will get a permission denied error if they try to view a thread from a forum they don't have permission to view.

Thank you for adding option to include all forums, but this is a bit of a problem, because I don't want users to know for threads in special forums, like moderators' and admins' forums. Could you code some kind of operator that would say that I want mentioned forums excluded from all forums?

I have over 300 forums, and I need to exclude just few of them and want every other included in master forum (some kind of making it What's new forum). Is it possible?

EDIT: If you could program it to respect usergroup permissions, it would be excellent.

[BirdOPrey5]

I have no plans to have it respect usergroup permissions for thread titles at this time. I really don't even know how to start that and more importantly, it's not a feature I conceivably would ever need myself.

However to specify just forums to exclude is an easy change.

In the TWO plugins, All Topic Forumdisplay Thread Count and All Topic Forumdisplay Threadid change the line:

PHP Code:

     $hook_query_where = "*/ WHERE forumid IN ($alltopics) AND sticky = 0 $prefix_filter $visiblethreads $globalignore $limitothers $datecut"; 


to

PHP Code:

     $hook_query_where = "*/ WHERE forumid NOT IN ($alltopics) AND sticky = 0 $prefix_filter $visiblethreads $globalignore $limitothers $datecut"; 


Basically adding the word "NOT" to the code.

Now when you specify a master forum the numbers after it will be EXCLUDED instead of INCLUDED in the master forum,
for example:

2|11,20,58

Will make 2 a master forum that includes threads from EVERY forum except 11, 20, and 58.

[Alan_SP]

Excellent. Just to ask you, if I want to make this available in one mod, but with both including and excluding forums. how can this be made? So I could make some master forums that include forums, and have some that exclude certain forums?

Or it should be made with two mods, based on the same code, but different plugins' names? In case of two mods, could variable names be the same, just plugin names different?

[Alan_SP]

For example, if it could be used + or - sign for including, or excluding forums instead having | sign.

So we would have something like this:

5+5,3,6,7,8
10-5,3,6,7,8

In this example forum 5 would show 5,3,6,7 and 8 forums and forum 10 would show every other forum. It would be great, and this way everything would be covered, even usergruop permissions we could manually control without problems.

[BirdOPrey5]

As it's programmed now you can either include forums or exclude forums, you can't do both. Also making a copy of the mod probably wouldn't work either because they will both try to use the same hooks at the same time.

I will only support the mod as it is written. You are free to customize it if you understand PHP and MySQL but I can't/won't support those changes.

[Alan_SP]

I don't understand it very well, but I'm looking at variables.

I think if I rename variables (not to conflict them) I probably could make this in two mods, one for including and one for excluding mods.

This is what I would rename:

alltopic_enable
alltopic_master
alltopics
alltop
masters
assforums

I think that just adding e in front of this variables (seraching and replacing) would make this two two mods (including and excluding) different enough. Do you think it is enough?

[BirdOPrey5]

As I said above I don't think it will work because two mods are still going to need to try and access the same hook at the same time.

But as I also said, feel free to experiment.

[Alan_SP]

Well, I'll try and see if it could work on my test site. If it works, I'll post here.

[Alan_SP]

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

However to specify just forums to exclude is an easy change.

In the TWO plugins, All Topic Forumdisplay Thread Count and All Topic Forumdisplay Threadid change the line:

PHP Code:

     $hook_query_where = "*/ WHERE forumid IN ($alltopics) AND sticky = 0 $prefix_filter $visiblethreads $globalignore $limitothers $datecut"; 


to

PHP Code:

     $hook_query_where = "*/ WHERE forumid NOT IN ($alltopics) AND sticky = 0 $prefix_filter $visiblethreads $globalignore $limitothers $datecut"; 


Basically adding the word "NOT" to the code.

I just tried to modify mod to enable both including and excluding type of master forums, but I found out the main problem at the moment is in this code. For some reason, when I have this NOT added, every forum becomes Master forum showing all threads. Not only specified, but every.

Do you maybe know how to make excluding type of Master forum?

[BirdOPrey5]

Yeah I see now it was more work than just changing the word to "NOT".

I am uploading a working "reversed" all topic in this post. In this version of All Topic you exclude forums from the master forum only. Forums not mentioned in all-topic settings work as normal.

Edited- Removed debug output from product file.