New box under "What's going on?" which contains information from another database?

[sebbe]

I've really tried to search for help but I couldn't find anything usefull. I haven't really modified any vB pages this way before so now I'm gonna ask you experts!

I want to create another box under the "Currently Active Users". It will contain info about how many users are active in our chat.

This is how it looks:


I tried to add the code below in the forumhome template but it won't work. Anyone have any ideas of how I can make this work?

Here's the code I use for the script:

PHP Code:

<!-- Chat Stats -->
<?php
$db=mysql_connect("*****", "*****", "*****");
mysql_select_db("*****", $db);

$query   = "*****";
$result  = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error);
$row     = mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_ASSOC);
$numrows = $row['numrows'];

$query3 = "*****";
$result3 = mysql_query($query3) or die(mysql_error());

list($chattername) = mysql_fetch_array($result3);

?>

<table class="tborder" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="1" border="0" width="100%" align="center">
<tbody>
    <tr>
        <td class="thead" colspan="2">

            <a style="float:right" href="#top" onclick="return toggle_collapse('forumhome_activeusers')"><img id="collapseimg_forumhome_activeusers" src="eablue/buttons/collapse_thead.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a>
            <a href="*****" target="_blank">Currently Active Users In EA Chat</a>: <?php echo $numrows ?>
        </td>
    </tr>
</tbody>
<tbody id="collapseobj_forumhome_activeusers" style="">
    <tr>
        <td class="alt2"><a href="*****" target="_blank""><img src="chat.gif" alt="pic" border="0" height="20" width="20" /></a></td>
        <td class="alt1" width="100%">
            <div class="smallfont">

                <div style="white-space: nowrap">Most active chatter: <b><?php echo $chattername ?></b></div>
                <div>
<?php
$query2 = "*****";
$result2 = mysql_query($query2) or die(mysql_error());

while(list($name) = mysql_fetch_array($result2))
{
    echo $name . ", ";
}
?>                
                </div>

            </div>
        </td>
    </tr>
</tbody>
<?php
mysql_close();
?>
<!-- //Chat Stats -->

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

[Paul M]

You cannot put php code in templates - you need to create a plugin for the code and just put the output variable in the template.

[sebbe]

Originally Posted by Paul M

You cannot put php code in templates - you need to create a plugin for the code and just put the output variable in the template.

I see. I tried to read pages about hooks & plugins but is all that really necessary for this matter?

Isn't there any easy way to do this?

Edit: I followed this (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=82625) guide and made a plugin. It works if I place it in the index.php like Brad did in that guide but when I try to add it to the template where I want it, it just says:


Any ideas?

[sebbe]

No one? Shouldn't be too hard eh?