vBulletin Blog - Latest Blogs on Home Page

This will display the last 5 blogs on the home page blow the What's Going On box. See screenshot for example.

Installation is easy, just import the product and make the template edit.

Update 9/2/07: Removed the template edit from the What's going on box and added it below. With the table structure it makes more sense in this modification. If you have already installed it, apply the template edit again.

RSS_Instructions
This is an alternative method to the above that will display the last 10, this was taken from one of the admins over at vbulletin.com that originally wrote it for the latest threads and modified for this. It's display is not as clean but it will not show blogs that are hidden and I have yet to work that out for the above method.

[Blackhat]

can I get this into a sidebar instead of the bottom ?

[AzH]

<a href="http://lurkingmastermind.com/forums/blogs/evil/yesterday-s-entries-30/" target="_blank">http://lurkingmastermind.com/forums/...-s-entries-30/</a>

Problem. Entries saved as draft appear in the latest blogs table and when click naturally throw up an error message.

[Hengest]

Just installed, thanks!

Edit: How do I hide this from non members or any other user group?

[zCarot]

I made fix for private blog entries. Not good (I just cut some code form blog_functions), but works =)

PHP Code:

//Latest Blogs

require_once(DIR . '/includes/blog_functions_shared.php');

$having_or = array();
    if (!can_moderate_blog())
    {
        if ($vbulletin->userinfo['userid'])
        {
            $having_or[] = "userid = " . $vbulletin->userinfo['userid'];
            $having_or[] = "(bu.options_ignore & " . $vbulletin->bf_misc_vbblogsocnetoptions['canviewmyblog'] . " AND ignoreid IS NOT NULL)";
            $having_or[] = "(bu.options_buddy & " . $vbulletin->bf_misc_vbblogsocnetoptions['canviewmyblog'] . " AND buddyid IS NOT NULL)";
            $having_or[] = "(bu.options_everyone & " . $vbulletin->bf_misc_vbblogsocnetoptions['canviewmyblog'] . " AND (bu.options_buddy & " . $vbulletin->bf_misc_vbblogsocnetoptions['canviewmyblog'] . " OR buddyid IS NULL) AND (bu.options_ignore & " . $vbulletin->bf_misc_vbblogsocnetoptions['canviewmyblog'] . " OR ignoreid IS NULL))";
        }
        else
        {
            $having_or[] = "bu.options_everyone & " . $vbulletin->bf_misc_vbblogsocnetoptions['canviewmyblog'];
        }
    }

    $having_join = array();
    $having_select = array();
    if ($vbulletin->userinfo['userid'])
    {
        $having_join[] = "LEFT JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "userlist AS buddy ON (buddy.userid = blog.userid AND buddy.relationid = " . $vbulletin->userinfo['userid'] . " AND buddy.type = 'buddy')";
        $having_join[] = "LEFT JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "userlist AS ignored ON (ignored.userid = blog.userid AND ignored.relationid = " . $vbulletin->userinfo['userid'] . " AND ignored.type = 'ignore')";
        $having_select[] = "ignored.relationid AS ignoreid, buddy.relationid AS buddyid";
    }

$latestblogs = $db->query(" 
    SELECT blog.blogid, blog.title, blog.username, blog.dateline, blog.userid, blog.views, options_everyone, options_buddy
    " . (!empty($having_select) ? ", " . implode(", ", $having_select) : "") . "
    FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "blog as blog
    LEFT JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "blog_user as bu ON (bu.bloguserid = blog.userid)
    " . (!empty($having_join) ? implode("\r\n", $having_join) : "") . "
    WHERE blog.state='visible' AND blog.pending='0'
    " . (!empty($having_or) ? "HAVING " . implode("\r\n\tOR ", $having_or) : "") . "
    ORDER BY blog.dateline DESC 
    LIMIT 10 
"); 
while ($showblogs=$db->fetch_array($latestblogs)) 
{ 
    $showblogsprivate = false;
    if (can_moderate() AND $showblogs['userid'] != $vbulletin->userinfo['userid'])
    {
        $everyoneelsecanview = $showblogs['options_everyone'] & $vbulletin->bf_misc_vbblogsocnetoptions['canviewmyblog'];
        $buddiescanview = $showblogs['options_buddy'] & $vbulletin->bf_misc_vbblogsocnetoptions['canviewmyblog'];
        if (!$everyoneelsecanview AND (!$showblogs['buddyid'] OR !$buddiescanview))
        {
            $showblogsprivate = true;
        }
    }

    $counter++; 
    $blog_userid = $showblogs['userid'];
    $blogid = $showblogs['blogid'];
    $blog_title = $showblogs['title'];
    $blog_views = $showblogs['views'];
    $blog_username = $showblogs['username'];
    $blog_dateline = vbdate($vbulletin->options['dateformat'], $showblogs['dateline']);
   
    if ($showblogsprivate)
        $spitblogs_title .= '<img class="inlineimg" src="/images/misc/blog/key.gif" alt="Private Entry"  border="0" />'; // very bad code =)
    $spitblogs_title .= "<a href=\"blog.php?b=$blogid\">$blog_title</a>";
    $spitblogs_title .= "<br /> ";
    $spitblogs_views .= $blog_views;
    $spitblogs_views .= "<br /> ";
    $spitblogs_username .= "<a href=\"blog.php?u=$blog_userid\">$blog_username</a>";
    $spitblogs_username .= "<br /> ";
    $spitblogs_date .= $blog_dateline;
    $spitblogs_date .= "<br /> ";
    
    if ($counter < 5) 
    { 
        $spitblogs .= "<br /> "; 
    } 
    elseif ($counter == 5)
    {
        break;
    }
}
//Latest Blogs 


[imprezion]

how do I install the blogs in my homepage instead of the forum home?

[lifanovsky]

Originally Posted by zCarot

I made fix for private blog entries. Not good (I just cut some code form blog_functions), but works =)

Thanks for the Russian translation, zCarot - using it. 8)

Concerning the hack you provided - it caused troubles when I tried to use it - half of my users could access the forum. So I switched back to the original version...

Thanks for the try anyway...

[zCarot]

Originally Posted by lifanovsky

Thanks for the Russian translation, zCarot - using it. 8)

You're welcome

Originally Posted by lifanovsky

Concerning the hack you provided - it caused troubles when I tried to use it - half of my users could access the forum. So I switched back to the original version...

Thanks for the try anyway...

DB error (show it)? Or just blank page?

[BigDog56]

Very nice! Thank you, looks good!

[mmmender]

I've got a major problem with this on my forumhome. I think it may be due to the fact that my server admin recently upgraded to php5. Installing the product as-is and making the template edit as-is I get a black table where the list of recent blogs is supposed to be (see image). I tried altering both the .xml file and the template edit to replace any .php extensions with .php5 extensions but I'm still getting a black table instead of the blog data. Can you please help?

[mmmender]

I solved the problem myself. It was a style problem. I think you should mention in your read me file that people might want it to match their forums styles so, personally, I would change this:

<td class="smallfont">$spitblogs_username</td>
<td class="smallfont">$spitblogs_title</td>
<td class="smallfont">$spitblogs_views</td>
<td class="smallfont">$spitblogs_date</td>

to this:

<td class="alt2">$spitblogs_username</td>
<td class="alt1">$spitblogs_title</td>
<td class="alt1">$spitblogs_views</td>
<td class="alt1">$spitblogs_date</td>