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.

[inciarco]

Originally Posted by 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)

(Click the Image for Full Size)



I've set Red Color for the Text Option; as you can see, the Letters from A to T are in Red and from U to Z are in the Normal Color (Black in this case).

My Best Regards.

[inciarco]

On the First Version the Colors where Being Displayed only for the Selected Letter, (I've Just Confirmed that on the Board where I have Installed the Previous Version).

My Best Regards.

[RenatoMN]

Thanks for reporting. I really found some problems in the code.
But, strangely, it was working fine for me...

Try this version attached.
If works, I will add the selectable groups setting and send as v1.2.

[inciarco]

Originally Posted by RenatoMN

Thanks for reporting. I really found some problems in the code.
But, strangely, it was working fine for me...

Try this version attached.
If works, I will add the selectable groups setting and send as v1.2.

The Attached Version Works Fine, Renato. :up:

Now the Color Format is Applied Only to the Selected Letter. :up:

One Detail I noticed since the beginning is that the Sticky Threads are not Filtered, but are Sorted when Choosing a Sorting Option; Perhaps would be nice for Future Versions to Include an Option for the Admin to Choose if Filter should be Applied (or Not) to the Sticky Threads too, (with a Long List of Sticky Threads this would help a lot to Clear the Forum Display Page).

Great Mod, I Hope it Gets Soon on the MOTM Poll. :up:

My Best Regards; I'll wait for the Next Version to Update my Main Boards.

[RenatoMN]

@inciarco,

Thanks for the suggestion, very cool!!

I have no control over the stickies db query (it's the only query without hooks in forumdisplay.php), therefore I can't filter them by letter.

However, I can hide them from page 2+ (or hide them in all pages) when filtering for a letter.

If you have too many sticky threads that mess your thread listing, maybe they should not be stickies, but only highlighted with a Prefix or a [tag] in the title (the tag will make them appear when filtering for symbols/numbers (clicking #)).

But now (with this new attached file) you may simply set to hide all sticky threads when filtering for a letter (only from page 2 or in all pages)!

Regards.

[RenatoMN]

Cool!!

You didn't even downloaded the last attached file and I already got around the lack of hooks for sticky threads!

This is the first function of the mod that handles an internal forumdisplay.php variable [S]($limitothers)[/S] ($prefix_filter). I do not like to do it, but I LOVED the result

NEW version attached.

[S]Obs: need some test to confirm that users not allowed to see threads started by others see them when filtering by letter, but I think I coded right [/S]

[inciarco]

Originally Posted by RenatoMN

@inciarco,

Thanks for the suggestion, very cool!!

I have no control over the stickies db query (it's the only query without hooks in forumdisplay.php), therefore I can't filter them by letter.

However, I can hide them from page 2+ (or hide them in all pages) when filtering for a letter.

If you have too many sticky threads that mess your thread listing, maybe they should not be stickies, but only highlighted with a Prefix or a [tag] in the title (the tag will make them appear when filtering for symbols/numbers (clicking #)).

But now (with this new attached file) you may simply set to hide all sticky threads when filtering for a letter (only from page 2 or in all pages)!

Regards.

Originally Posted by RenatoMN

Cool!!

You didn't even downloaded the last attached file and I already got around the lack of hooks for sticky threads!

This is the first function of the mod that handles an internal forumdisplay.php variable [S]($limitothers)[/S] ($prefix_filter). I do not like to do it, but I LOVED the result

NEW version attached.

[S]Obs: need some test to confirm that users not allowed to see threads started by others see them when filtering by letter, but I think I coded right [/S]

I've Tested the Latest Version Attached on Post 37, and is Working Great, Renato. :up:

It's Hiding the Sticky Threads from the Second Page on. :up:

It's Filtering and Sorting the Sticky Threads with the "Filter Sticky Threads?" Option Set to "Yes", and when Set to No it Sort them but Present them All on the First Page. (Great Feature). :up:

It's Very Nice the Option to Set the # Text as Desired. :up:

And of Course the rel="nofollow" Parameter as You Describe on the ACP Mod Option, is Very Important to Keep it not to have Duplicate Content. :up:

I Loved the New Features, Renato, Congratulations for this Great Mod and Thank You Again For Sharing it. :up:

I Hope You Can Include the Usergroup Permissions Option on the ACP Mod's Options.

My Best Regards.

[1up_dave]

How possible would it be to port this over to work on categories? I'd really like to at least attempt it.

[libabom]

Hi,

I use this add on. It is pretty successful except Turkish characters. When I click on Y; İ and Ü are also displayed. When I click on C; both C and Ç are displayed. How can I resolve this? Any ideas?
Edit/Delete Message

[mykkal]

strange that nobody ever thought of it. Even I didn't...but this actually helps to make many things easy to find.

Dope mod!