Existing Topics Check

This hack will allow you and your members to check for existing topics, or similar ones, of the thread you plan to create when at newthread.php.

This should help to prevent double topics that often appear from newbish members who neglect to use the search feature.

It uses the exact functions as the "similar threads" feature, therefore has the same accuracy.

Tested to work on:

• vBulletin 3 RC2
• Internet Explorer 6 (with Javascript enabled)
• Mozilla Firebird 0.7 / Mozilla 1.5 (with Javascript enabled)

------------------------------------------------

Tweak #1

If you would like the find icon to show upon typing in the input box, and then disappear if the input box is empty upon change, please do the following:


In the template newthread, find:

function showFind(object)
{
  if(object.value != '')
  {
    document.findicon.src = "$stylevar[imgdir_button]/findicon_on.gif";
    document.findicon.style.cursor = "pointer";
  }
  else
  {
    document.findicon.src = "$stylevar[imgdir_button]/findicon_off.gif";
    document.findicon.style.cursor = "default";
  }
}

Replace it with:

function showFind()
{
    document.findicon.src = "$stylevar[imgdir_button]/findicon_on.gif";
    document.findicon.style.cursor = "pointer";
}

function hideFind(object)
{
  if(object.value == '')
  {
    document.findicon.src = "$stylevar[imgdir_button]/findicon_off.gif";
    document.findicon.style.cursor = "default";
  }
}

In the same template, find:

<td><input type="text" class="bginput" name="subject" onChange="showFind(this)" value="$subject" size="40" maxlength="85" tabindex="1" /></td>

Replace it with:

<td><input type="text" class="bginput" name="subject" onchange="hideFind(object)" onkeypress="showFind()" value="$subject" size="40" maxlength="85" tabindex="1" /></td>

------------------------------------------------

Attached is a screenshot.

Inside the zip are English, German, and French installation instructions. Please be aware I used a software translator for the German and French docs.

Enjoy.

[TheRayden]

Nice work. With the ammount of new people we usually receive this is going to be very usefull.

[msimplay]

do i need automatic similar topics search on to use this ?

[chrisvonc]

Velocd, working great! Thank you for releasing this hack. It was one of my favorites along with the similar topic hack for vB2.X and this helps greatly reduce the amount of double posting. I am suprised it was not added to v3. Looks to be working much stronger in vB3 than its earlier release.

As my site is geared toward non-technical people, there is a good chance a lot of them wont pick up on the search button so I just expanded the idea for the "on" gif from Tweak #1 to make it stand out a bit more for them once they typed their subject.

One thing I did notice, if you use the IE Auto-Complete feature, if you select something from one of it's entries, it doesnt toggle the search icon to ON. Not a big deal but if it can be fixed easily, I would certainly be interested in applying the fix.

Thanks again!

Chris

[Eternal2u]

anything to give me an excuse to say them spamming +++++es knew there was a thread for there specific thread already...

Thanks...

**Clicks Install**

[Polo]

Nice hack Velocd thanks and buro9, you rock those fixes were cool

[Justice]

Does this hack still work for posters with search disabled? I want only certain users to be able to use the search (to save CPU), but I'd like for everyone to use this ideally.

[docvader]

Chrisvonc, how did you add the text next to the box again? It's a great idea, but I'm not very good at writing this code stuff.

Thanks.

[alkatraz]

I've just installed this on vb3.03, works great

[zurih]

installed on 3.0.5, works perfect!
thanks!

[AN-net]

installed on 3.0.7 and it works great. also modified mine so it only gets topics within the last 5 months(my forum policy is dont bump threads older than 5 months).