Display count of unread posts in welcome box

This modification is no longer available or supported.

* This hack only works if you use the new database thread marking system, if you don't, then you probably should be. *

With the new marking system I have found a simple count of the new posts since your last visit to be less informative and useful than it used to be - esp as the GetNew function now excludes threads you have read, but includes threads from before your last visit. Therefore I decided to try a new system that counts the actual number of posts that are still considered unread by you, and will show up in a GetNew search.

In fact this hack gives you two options (with a new setting in the vBulletin Options > General Settings). If set to yes, it will only count the unread posts since your last visit, if set to no it will count all posts considered unread. This setting reflects the divider in the GetNew display.

To install this hack simply download the xml file to your pc and then import it into vbulletin as a product - then alter the ACP setting to your preferred option (the default is 'no' (i.e. all unread posts).

Note: This hack injects the result direct into the navbar template during page construction, thus avoiding the need for a template edit. This requires that a certain text combination exists in your template. This will be fine for most boards that use a navbar based on the vB default, but you should bear this in mind if you have a totally custom navbar.



History:

v1.01 : First Release.
v1.02 : Minor changes, no update necessary.

[havefun]

[high]* havefun klicked install
[/high]

works fine, thx again

[RZ500]

I have one question, where do I need to edit to change the info in Sapnish?

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by RZ500

I have one question, where do I need to edit to change the info in Sapnish?

You will need to edit the actual plugin, unless you want to wait for the phrased version (Probably later this week, I'm slowly going though my hacks).

[weaver]

Paul - how can I change this so my RSS forums aren't included in the search for new posts for this plugin? I have the opt out extension installed for new posts and "get daily" searches, but it would be nice if I could opt them out of this one as well.

[Paul M]

You would have to edit the code (or turn off the search permission for that forum).

[weaver]

Originally Posted by Paul M

You would have to edit the code (or turn off the search permission for that forum).

I turned the search engine permission off for those forums through the forum manager but it hasn't affected the new post count in the welcome panel.

Can you offer some guidance on how I would edit the code to exclude those forums? I'm guessing it's a conditional statement with the forum ids but I don't know how to construct it or where to place it.

[SpanishHarlem]

ok what have I done wrong? lol it show's how many new posts twice.

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by weaver

I turned the search engine permission off for those forums through the forum manager but it hasn't affected the new post count in the welcome panel.

Did you actually go into forum permissions screens, it's not the search indexing option in the normal forum edit screen.

Originally Posted by weaver

Can you offer some guidance on how I would edit the code to exclude those forums? I'm guessing it's a conditional statement with the forum ids but I don't know how to construct it or where to place it.

When I have the time, I'm rather busy atm.

[weaver]

Originally Posted by Paul M

Did you actually go into forum permissions screens, it's not the search indexing option in the normal forum edit screen.

Yes, the opt out option is working fine but just not with the number of posts showing up in the welcome panel.

Originally Posted by Paul M

When I have the time, I'm rather busy atm.

Okay.

I did try to add an exclude line with the forum numbers after each of the search commands in your plugin, but that didn't change the number of posts being counted.

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by weaver

Yes, the opt out option is working fine but just not with the number of posts showing up in the welcome panel.

I still don't think you are altering the correct thing, as it does affect the count.

ACP > Forums & Moderators > Forum Permissions

Find the forum in question, and edit the permissions for each usergroup, setting "Can Search Forums" to 'No'.