Simple newsportal / thread overview to add to your board...

Okay, this isn't really a hack, since you don't have to modify any vb-files really, but I figured this was the best place to make it public anyhow. I found it rather useful myself, so I figured others might, too.

Last update: April 28th, 2003!
** Update summary: **
The bug that could occur due to MySQL stupidity has been fixed. Version 2 of the Newsportal script is now attached in this post, you can simply overwrite the newsportal.php on your site with the one from the attached zipfile to upgrade.
From now on, no more vB files need to be adjusted nor do you have to make any database changes. If you've already done all that due to the mysql-bug in a previous stage of this hack, you can just leave it like that, it won't do any harm. If you're intent on 'cleaning' your files again, let me know if you can't get it done yourself.


Q&A:
What does this 'hack' do?

http://www.kurafire.com/newsportal.php

That's a live example of the fully functional version of the Hack (version 2). I think it speaks for itself.

The amount of newsposts & threads on the right is set in a variable at the beginning.


Is this hack hard to install?
Absolutely not. You upload the newsportal.php, you add the new templates (see zipfile), and you place a link to newsportal.php wherever you want it on your site. That's it.
You don't have to modify any vB files, nor your database.


Does this hack include my style and everything?
Yes, the newsportal page will use your headinclude, header, footer and style-colors (pagebgcolor, tableouterwidth, linkcolor, etc.) and all these settings are easily configureable. You just edit the templates like you're (hopefully) used to with all the normal vB Templates.


Version 2:
The newsportal script now uses 2 queries to get the necessary information for your News posts. One for all thread info and the postid's of the starting posts, and one for the pagetext (ie. post contents) of all those postid's. You can use 2, 20 or 200 newsposts, that won't matter, it'll always be 2 queries (though I discourage using more than 20 newsposts ). ^_^

That's it, you're all done. Have fun with the newsportal! ^_^

[TECK]

no, i reffer to the full page. do an explain=1 please and let me know if it goes higher then 40.

[Floris]

Due to security and a bug in 2.2.5, that has been unset. Sorry, I can not test it. I stick with 2 queries

[KuraFire]

"Page generated in 0.8501260 seconds (17.14% PHP / 82.86% MySQL) with 14 queries "

(seems that coincidentally, the percentages check out this time, lol!)

Note that if you don't run extra queries in your Header (like me) this number will be even lower

[TECK]

looks good then

[Floris]

I just put back the db_mysql.php for testing this, and only 4 queries could be related to the hack, the rest is obviously through global and default vB. I removed the hack and let the page load, and had 10 instead of 12. So I stick to only 2 queries. maybe a few more for replacements and/or smilies etc.

[TECK]

i looked at your code kura.. the way is set now will also show to everyone the posts made in a private forum (if you have a private forum). you need to add some perms in there... just a thought.

[TECK]

Originally posted by xiphoid
I just put back the db_mysql.php for testing this, and only 4 queries could be related to the hack, the rest is obviously through global and default vB. I removed the hack and let the page load, and had 10 instead of 12. So I stick to only 2 queries. maybe a few more for replacements and/or smilies etc.

you cant have only 2 queries because for every thread it will do one. so if it shows 10 threads or posts, you will have 10 queries.. and so on...

[KuraFire]

That's nonsense.

It takes 1 query to extract the firstposts of X amount of different threads on the newsforum you specify, and 1 query to extract all the threads-overview info.

You can increase the amount of newsposts listed, but it won't affect the query count.

Nakkid, if you read post #8 in this thread, you'll see that I already commented on that.

(I'm not capable of adding permissions myself yet, still too much of a n00b for that, but I'm working on it )

[TECK]

try this for perms:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...threadid=38355

i didnt test it, i just put it togheter... let me know if it can help you out.
about the queries.. if i'm correct, for every thread,forum that is checked the script will perform a query. the more forums you have the more queries you will add, etc. goes the same way with the threads. i know element that have an impressive 108 queries on his page. over 40queries your server gets on its knees if it's a busy board..

[KuraFire]

Thanks, I'll have a look into it and see what I can work out.

:up:

[KuraFire]

Originally posted by nakkid
about the queries.. if i'm correct, for every thread,forum that is checked the script will perform a query. the more forums you have the more queries you will add, etc. goes the same way with the threads. i know element that have an impressive 108 queries on his page. over 40queries your server gets on its knees if it's a busy board..

No, that's only the case if you run two queries per output, one to select the forum and thread, one to extract the post.

However, my query (in the newsportal.php file) uses a JOIN so that it can extract as many firstposts from a single (or multiple, if you want) forum, with only 1 single query. The JOIN worked perfectly fine in phpMyAdmin, but it seems to have a random bug when put in use through vB itself. It's still just 1 query though, trust me.

[TECK]

ok. thanks for the info.

[Floris]

Kura does it like we wish all of those type of scripts were made. Efficient. Nice example for vBportal etc.

[KuraFire]

Yeah I've seen a vbPortal site that had 199 queries run.

[high]* KuraFire goes dive into adding permissions to this script, now.. [/high]

[FlyingDutchman]

Originally posted by KuraFire
Yeah I've seen a vbPortal site that had 199 queries run.

we all know that VbPortal sucks

I think your script is pretty nice man
I like VbIndex a bit more (when you edit it well ) because of it's menu...
oh, well, yours is cool too, if you don't have a high-end server