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! ^_^

[Ryangel]

Originally posted by KuraFire
The newest edition of the zip (first post attachment - clear your cache!)
has permissions support built-in, so users will only see what they're
allowed to see.

hmm i just downloaded it on 9 July 2002. Has it been updated?
Maybe it doesnt work because the file is not in the root directory .... I did link the path to global correctly though...

[KuraFire]

I think you need to re-download it then...

I don't know if it'll work outside the root of the vB. I've not tested it there and so far only heard that others couldn't get it to work outside of the root, so... :/

[Automated]

nice mod/hack/addition whatever this would be classed as!

[high]* Automated clicks install [/high]

[dgmayor]

Here's a question for ya. Is there a way to have it call the templates from a style other than the Default? Maybe by way of passing a variable in the url or something?

Reason being, is that I want to pull my news from a forum and have it display on my site, and it needs to match the site. But the thing is, it's not the "main" portion of the site.

Basically my site breaks down like this:

Index
|---Portion 1 (Guild/clan page for Game #1)
| |--Forum Category 1
|---Portion 2 (Guild/clan page for Game #2)
| |--Forum Category 2
|---Portion 3 (Guild/clan page for Game #3)
| |--Forum Category 3
|
|--Forum Home

If that makes sense. Basically each category has a different style, and thus the news will need to pull form different forums from different categories and output in different styles. Now if I have to have 3 seperate copies of newsportal.php for each mini site, then fine, but how can I have it pull from different headers? I suppose if I had 3 seperate copies of newsportal, I could hardcode 3 different template names that each contained 3 different styles, but I'm sure there can be an easier way to do this?

[KuraFire]

you mean, you want it to _overrule_ the Style set that the User has picked?

[dgmayor]

Well, I don't allow users to select styles on my board. Each category ties into a site with its own layout, thus each category has its own layout that blends it into the site.

www.lmalla.com and click on the Everquest logo for an example (It's the only one I have public atm). Click on forums and you'll see what I mean. When you click on forums, you're looking at a category under forumdisplay, not forumhome.

Also the news on that page is with your hack, though I have the style hardcoded in the templates atm.

[KuraFire]

hmkay, well, it's quite easy to get a page to use a different style.

1) install freddie's User's Style in Post hack;
2) set the variable $changestyle with a styleid of choice _before_ including global.php in the file

you can pass the variable through the URL also...

So then you can send people from each category to see it in that cat's style. But note that each of them will still see the exact same _content_, just not in the same style

[ForKmaN]

Does this work for 2.3.0?

Coz I cant find this in newthread.php:

PHP Code:

'1')"); 


[KuraFire]

Actually, you can do it without the newthread.php modification and the mysql database modification. Instead, you can use this hack WITHOUT MODIFYING ANYTHING to your site. Just open newsportal.php from the hack, and use this query at the start:

PHP Code:

SELECT thread.threadid as tid, thread.title as ttitle, 
thread.replycount as treply, thread.postusername as user, 
thread.postuserid as userid, thread.dateline as dateline, 
post.pagetext as pagetext, MIN(p.postid) as postid 
FROM thread 
LEFT JOIN post USING (threadid) 
WHERE forumid=$newsforum 
GROUP BY thread.threadid 
ORDER BY thread.threadid DESC 
LIMIT $newslimit 


That should work fine, and you don't have to modify any files or your database anymore, with that query.

[Robink]

^What you posted is another bugfix? Or it fixes the same bug? Or is it not related to the random post bug?

Or am I confused!

[Sharg]

04-14-03 at 10:05 AM KuraFire said this in Post #84
Actually, you can do it without the newthread.php modification and the mysql database modification. Instead, you can use this hack WITHOUT MODIFYING ANYTHING to your site. Just open newsportal.php from the hack, and use this query at the start:

PHP Code:

SELECT thread.threadid as tid, thread.title as ttitle, 
thread.replycount as treply, thread.postusername as user, 
thread.postuserid as userid, thread.dateline as dateline, 
post.pagetext as pagetext, MIN(p.postid) as postid 
FROM thread 
LEFT JOIN post USING (threadid) 
WHERE forumid=$newsforum 
GROUP BY thread.threadid 
ORDER BY thread.threadid DESC 
LIMIT $newslimit 


That should work fine, and you don't have to modify any files or your database anymore, with that query.

Hello, what do you mean exactly when you say to run this query at the start of the file ? Should we siply copy past this, and where ?

Thanks in advance,
Shart

[Robink]

I think he means we replace the existing query :s

[KuraFire]

Yeah, there's a query VERY much like that one at the start of newsportal.php, just replace it with the one you see above

[Robink]

What will this new query do? Fix the bug?

[KuraFire]

Yes.