Forum Display Enhancements - Alphabetical Forum Filtering (ABC Threads Menu)

This mod add an "ABC Menu" on top of forumdisplay.php, to filter threads by theirs initial letter. It's fully customisable, as you may see in the screenshots attached.

I take a lot of caution coding 3 different locations to place it and a variable that you can use to manual placement.

There's also styling options:

- active "filtered letter" link color;
- active "filtered letter" cell background color;
- letters cells classes (only alt2 or alternating alt1/alt2);
- configurable optional message above the ABC Menu - phrased (multi language);

When the user clicks a letter in the ABC Menu, the thread results will be filtered in the default order (configured in ACP or overriden by user options in UserCP). Then, a popup menu will be displayed aside the letter to reorder the filtering (there's all options: per title, starting date, last post date, replys number, number of views, thread started username and thread rating - all in both descending+ascending orders).

The # link lists not only the threads started by numbers, but all threads not started by a letter (what includes number 0-9 and all symbols).

Stop loosing your time. Download, install and see it yourself!

Installation instructions
- Import attached product

Upgrade instructions (any version to 1.1)
1- Import attached product (set Allow overwrite = Yes)
2- Check your configs (will need to adjust colspan and positioning again)

Note about colspan

Take some time checking the colspan value. The lower you set it, better. I'm saying this because if you set 5 for a skin that need only 4, newer browsers will renderize it ignoring the excess, but older will render 1 (or more) blank columns (and you will end up with an HTML structural error, regardless what the browser renderize).

It's now adjusted as 5 by default (new installs*). If you upgraded your version, you will need to manually adjust it. This occurs because the old version automatically add + 3 to configured value. But I saw some skins this week with very different layouts for forumdisplay (they have only 2-3 columns), so I decided to remove this "+3" adjustment in code. So, if you set it 3, you will have colspan="3", and so on.

The mod auto adjusts the colspan based in your forum configurations (the colspan is increased by 1 when the forum have threadicons and/or the inlinemod column is show). When you use manual placement, a key text should be used as colspan value in your template (--abcfilter-colspan--), to benefits of this function that identify the inlinemod/threadicons columns + the colspan setting.


Version History

01/11/2009 - 1.0
- Initial release.

01/11/2009 - 1.0b
- Fixed Plugin code (see post #1908976).
- Small edit in popup menu <if> statements.

05/11/2009 - 1.1
- Fixed pagination.
- New template positions.
- 1 more fix in the <if> statements.
- Removed unnecessary template caching.
- Added session hash in URL, when present.
- Configurable No Follow parameter in links.
- Optional line break (<br>) below ABC Menu.
- Configurable # symbol (set 0-9, @, or whatever).
- Selected letter cell class now match styles automatically.
- You may still customize the colors, if you want a "highlight".
- Re-ordering results in forum footer keeps the thread list filtered.*

* This may not work with all styles (let me know).

[S]Known bugs: pagination works fine, however, page totals are not decreased after filtering.

e.g.: if you have 200 threads, divided in 10 pages (20 per page), after filtering the forum for the letter "A", if you have 35 results, you will see not only 2 pages, but all 10 (pages 3 to 10 returns the default "no threads to show" error). I do not see it as a big problems, specially because I added both Asc/Desc orders in the filtering, so you don't need to waste your time trying to find the "last page" of a filtering with 5+ pages: just inverse the order and go to page 1[/S]

IF YOU'RE USING IT, MARK AS INSTALLED. IT'S GOOD FOR YOU AND ME.

[RenatoMN]

Originally Posted by Floris

Again it's just me .. I would donate if it's a fair honest submitted contribution for free, no commercialization or monetizing on the mind, and there's a paypal link on the release or install thread in the right place.

If I did not mentioned I developed it after a mod request, you would never know it. I can say it's "a new mod, grab from the idea of a paid mod", and not "a mod based in a paid mod". I went ahead and developed a mod better than what a user requested (asking a bid), and put it here, for free. I do not like template edits, although I ever read "Instructions.txt" as I ever read the manual of anything I buy. However, I know people do not like to do it, therefore I prefer to provide a simple .xml to import.

Also, it is not the mod the user requested. It is a very different mod (far better, in my point of view). Like I said, he wants something that looks "simpler": the filtering links in forumhome (index.php), below forum titles. However, it's harder to code, because there are more forumbits than a single forumdisplay template to edit (and there're no hooks or variables I can use to append the ABC table content). And if I did only it (with no menu in forumdisplay), then people would go back index to filter other letter, and I would not have a good place to put the ordering popup menu.

Anyway, thanks for your point of view. I still think you're free to use it, or not. It's up to you. You would never see the mod acp options after the 1st time you go there (or you maybe never see it, if you're good with default options: show in all forums, no bgclass alternating, no table header message, "white over blue" selected letter cell styling), then you will not see the donate button anymore.

IMHO, a single (optional) donate button is FAR, very very very FAR from a popup asking for a donation. The fact is the mod have currently 28 installs (not counting the people using it without marking as installed), and I didn't received a single donation, then it isn't so intrusive.

What to say about search engines? Not too far, you were able to search web without seeing ads in the results pages. Today, every search tool is ad monetized. You only see the ads if you decide to search. Same way, you only see my donation button if you decide to use the mod.

If you still think the donation button is intrusive and do a) or b), I will be sad if your option is a). I prefer you do b) than not use the mod at all. Your suggestions will be helpful for me and all ppl using the mod.

Regards.

(I should update it today, with new options: usergroup settings and - maybe - the pagination fix).

[Floris]

Thanks for your point of view too. And yes, I use it. It runs on the network of 10 sites on wetalk.tv - beta testing it now to see which forums we want to include/exclude.

[Hasann]

Installed And Nominated For MOTM. It is Just Great..

[RenatoMN]

Posting just to inform you:

I fixed the pagination problem!!

I will be posting the mod today (just adding some more nice features).

[Cerbero1000]

Rated excellent and featured mod of the month!

[aztecboi2003]

So I just upload the product and that's it? Thanks.

[RenatoMN]

Originally Posted by aztecboi2003

So I just upload the product and that's it? Thanks.

Yes!

Please mark as installed if using. Thanks.

Regards,

[aztecboi2003]

Installed. Looks and works great. Thanks.

[inciarco]

Great Improvements. :up:

Pagination is Working Fine Now. :up:

One Little Maybe Bug:

When Selecting "Yes" for "Use custom style for selected letter?", and then selecting a Letter, the Colors are being applied to the Selected Letter and to the Ones located to the Left of the Selected Letter, but for the Letters to the Right the Color of the Letters are not being Applied.

Is it dessigned to work this way?

Question: For Next Update will you be Including the Usergroup Permissions? (so that we don't have to Edit the Plugin, Je Je Je)

My Best Regards.

[RenatoMN]

May you please post a screenshot (or a URL - better)?

Yes, next update, usergroup permissions
(actually, I simply forgot to include it in this version)