Release 0.1 Mark Forum Read/Mark All Read from database hack

Here's the hack I worked on this week, in rough and not too pretty form. I'll be beautifying it soon.

You can download an rtf with all the code changes listed at http://murmurs.com/codechanges.rtf. Also in that file is the table creation statement.

Attached is a zip of all the changed files. Comments are included, but not consistant yet.

You can see this in action at http://tony.murmurs.com. Only two forums, but still.

I'll pretty up the code this weekend and make better install instructions.

This is way beta, so if there are any problems just post. Don't put this on a production board yet

Ethan

[ethank]

Originally posted by Christine
Yes, it should be interesting. I just checked and I have just under 400 users on line right now so I will wait for it to slow down a bit and load it up. I will let you know.

Yeah, as on the index.php load, if it sees they don't have a markread set it adds it. You might want to close the board for 5 or so minutes to let people clear out, add the hack then open it.

Ethan

[Christine]

Yes - I saw that. I opened a thread in the "how do I" forum on doing a forced logout of the database connection but apparently there is no script that will do that but there were a couple of workarounds offered.

I will play with it.


BTW - can you take a look at this question on the MFR hack?

http://vbulletin.com/forum/showthrea...threadid=31721

[Trillian]

I just want to say I installed this hack and (except for a few screw-ups on my part) it worked great!

Now I'm not a huge fan of EZBoard, but we are in the middle of a transition from EZB, so I'm trying to consider the needs of my users.

For those who aren't familiar with EZB, after a user reads a message, it still acts like it is "unread" UNTIL the user declares the forum as "Mark Read".

Hence, my question: How can I tweak it so a user can view a thread, and it still appears as "unread" until they manually declare it as "Mark Read"?

I know not all of us hackers want that feature, but I think my users would like that familiarity with EZB.

Any input would be appreciated.

And ethank, thanks again... this hack is great!

[ethank]

Thats a function in vbulletin, it uses cookies for the unread vs. read. The down arrow indicates its unread in the database.

I do want to fix it so it uses the time the user loaded the forum instead of when they click the link, that way if messages are posted when they're reading, they don't get marked. Of course you can fix that if you turn caching off.

Ethan

[ethank]

Originally posted by Christine
Yes - I saw that. I opened a thread in the "how do I" forum on doing a forced logout of the database connection but apparently there is no script that will do that but there were a couple of workarounds offered.

I will play with it.


BTW - can you take a look at this question on the MFR hack?

http://vbulletin.com/forum/showthrea...threadid=31721

He's talking about the Mark Forum Read that uses two cookies that vbulletin 2.2 has I believe, not the database mark read hack.

Ethan

[Christine]

He's talking about the Mark Forum Read that uses two cookies that vbulletin 2.2 has I believe, not the database mark read hack

I am having the same problem in my test region where this hack is implemented. It still times out and marks forums as read based on the cookie as opposed to letting me manually set it.

Other than increasing the cookie timeout, is there something else that I can do to stop it from timing the lightbulb out?

[ethank]

It shouldn't even use the cookie if you're logged in and you put this hack on.

Ethan

[Christine]

My bad - it is working properly. I need to pay attention to the fact that it is logging me out everytime I change between the production and test boards.

DOH!

I will update that other thread as well with a link to this hack.

[Trillian]

I'm still pretty pleased with this hack

But I would like to tweak it a bit but I do not know how.

I have my "Mark Forum Read" added to my "Forum Display" template so that the user can click on it while looking in the forum. FWIW, this is the code I used:

PHP Code:

<a href="member.php?s=$session[sessionhash]&action=markforumread&forumid=$foruminfo[forumid]">Mark Forum Read</a> 


What I would like to make it do is when the user clicks on that link, it not only marks that forum read, but it jumps the user to that forum's parent forum. The logic being (and EZB did this too)... if you've finished reading the forum, then you probably don't want to look at it anymore! Cut out an extra click for the user and bring them back up a level. I hope that makes sense.

I assume this would have to be tweaked in the member.php file, but I'm not exactly sure how to do that.

Any suggestions?

[ethank]

Originally posted by Trillian
I'm still pretty pleased with this hack

But I would like to tweak it a bit but I do not know how.

I have my "Mark Forum Read" added to my "Forum Display" template so that the user can click on it while looking in the forum. FWIW, this is the code I used:

PHP Code:

<a href="member.php?s=$session[sessionhash]&action=markforumread&forumid=$foruminfo[forumid]">Mark Forum Read</a> 


What I would like to make it do is when the user clicks on that link, it not only marks that forum read, but it jumps the user to that forum's parent forum. The logic being (and EZB did this too)... if you've finished reading the forum, then you probably don't want to look at it anymore! Cut out an extra click for the user and bring them back up a level. I hope that makes sense.

I assume this would have to be tweaked in the member.php file, but I'm not exactly sure how to do that.

Any suggestions?

Good idea, but I don't know if the functionality change will piss users off

I'm going to be reupping instructions today to reflect the 2.2 release, so I might add that and a new timestamp code.

Ethan