How is this done on AA? First few words of post showing in....

Okay, I'm sure it's something pretty simple. But, how did you guys do this.....

View attachment 530

....basically get the first few words of the post into the description area there.

I just did this description for meta and bookmarksite on showthread - vBulletin.org Forum , so I can't be too far off from being about to do what is here on AA.

Nick/Chris/Anyone?

 

vBSEO, Buy it!

 

I already have one license, but I wanted to do it on another site without spending the extra money

Anyone know of a way to do it without vBSEO?

 

I'm pretty sure it can't be done without vBSEO. If it can, I'm not sure how.

Sorry. :o

 

Actually, I'm sure it could be done fairly easily as long as the variables are available (which I don't see why they wouldn't be as it's just repeating a portion of the page they're already on).

Lynne? Wayne Luke?

 

Yeah, all you'll need to do is create a plugin that grabs the first post information and then cut it off after so many letters/words.

 

To do this would need a plugin on the fetch_threadinfo_query hook. The reason is that the post snippet is not stored as a variable but is created by joining in the post table on forumdisplay.

Something like the following might work but I haven't tested it.

PHP:

if ($vbulletin->options['threadpreview'] > 0)
{
$hook_query_fields .= " LEFT(post.pagetext," . $vbulletin->options['threadpreview'] . ") AS preview,";
$hook_query_joins .= "LEFT JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "post AS post ON(post.postid = thread.firstpostid)";
}


 

Wayne Luke, I'm going to do some reading (How to Write Plug-ins) and hopefully get it working!

By the way, any tips for a complete beginner in writing plugins?

 

How well do you know PHP?

Plugins can be simple like the one above or complex. It all depends on what you are trying to accomplish. The key thing is to remember your variable scope and to choose the right hook to take advantage of that scope. vBulletin 3.8.X has over 980 hooks (compared to 700 or so in 3.6.X) so you get a wide variety of places to tie into.

You'll need to be able to read vBulletin's PHP code to do this so that you know where a specific hook is called and the code surrounding it.

 

Is this correct? View attachment 531

Any suggestions or tips on what I should/could do?

 

Looks correct. You would put the variable $threadinfo[preview] where you want it to show in the template.

 

Got a database error when opening a thread after activating the plugin ....

Code:

Database error in vBulletin 3.8.4:

Invalid SQL:

SELECT IF(thread.visible = 2, 1, 0) AS isdeleted,


NOT ISNULL(subscribethread.subscribethreadid) AS issubscribed, emailupdate, folderid,
post.pagetext AS preview, 
thread.*

LEFT(post.pagetext,150) AS preview,
FROM thread AS thread

LEFT JOIN subscribethread AS subscribethread ON (subscribethread.threadid = thread.threadid AND subscribethread.userid = 1  AND subscribethread.canview = 1)


LEFT JOIN post AS post ON(post.postid = thread.firstpostid)

LEFT JOIN post AS post ON(post.postid = thread.firstpostid)
WHERE thread.threadid = 19;

MySQL Error   : You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'LEFT(post.pagetext,150) AS preview,
FROM thread AS thread

LEFT JOIN su' at line 8
Error Number  : 1064
Request Date  : Saturday, September 19th 2009 @ 08:09:26 AM
Error Date    : Saturday, September 19th 2009 @ 08:09:26 AM
Script        : http://www.magicthemeparks.com/mk/forum/showthread.php?t=19
Referrer      : http://www.magicthemeparks.com/mk/forum/index.php
IP Address    : 
Username      : 
Classname     : vB_Database
MySQL Version : 5.0.67-userstats-log

....what should I do? I've disabled the plugin for now.

 

Do you have any other plugins on that hook? The preview is being pulled twice it seems but my code would only add it once.

Anyway to fix the syntax error in my code, put a comma in front of left so the code looks like:

PHP:

if ($vbulletin->options['threadpreview'] > 0)
{
$hook_query_fields .= ", LEFT(post.pagetext," . $vbulletin->options['threadpreview'] . ") AS preview";
$hook_query_joins .= "LEFT JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "post AS post ON(post.postid = thread.firstpostid)";
}


</span></span>

 

Hmm.. I got it working on vBCodex though the preview is in a HTML comment.

Here is the final plugin:

PHP:

if ($vbulletin->options['threadpreview'] > 0)
{
$hook_query_fields .= ", LEFT(post.pagetext," . $vbulletin->options['threadpreview'] . ") AS preview";
$hook_query_joins .= "LEFT JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "post AS post ON(post.postid = thread.firstpostid)";
}


Also requires a single file edit at this time. You need to find this line in functions.php:

PHP:

SELECT IF(visible = 2, 1, 0) AS isdeleted,


Change it to:

PHP:

SELECT IF(thread.visible = 2, 1, 0) AS isdeleted,


Can probably get rid of the file edit if I have more time. Unfortunately, I am pressed for that at the moment.

 

This is an article on how to grab the info to put it into your meta tags. It can easily be used to do the Description box also with little modification - description for meta and bookmarksite on showthread

 

I didn't think he was talking about meta information but the description box at the top of the thread here.

 

I've made this into a little product, with a few options, one to insert a table, one to insert a fieldset etc, (using waynes plugin, thx wayne), just need to get the str_replace working on SHOWTHREAD..

I have this code:

PHP:

     {
$vbulletin->templatecache['SHOWTHREAD'] = str_replace('$navbar', '$navbar <if condition="$vboptions[threadpreview_onoff] == 1">    
Enabled Test
</if>', $vbulletin->templatecache['SHOWTHREAD']);
} 

and it didn't work, note, that isn't the exact code, but html in there wouldn't hurt would it?

it's on the parse_templates hook.

I will release the product (with waynes permission, should he grant it) if I can get the str_replace working, so that it will work on customised styles, and not just the default one.

Help?

EDIT NVM, FIXED IT!

 

Wayne, got another database error when activating the 'new' plugin.

Code:

Database error in vBulletin 3.8.4:

Invalid SQL:

SELECT IF(thread.visible = 2, 1, 0) AS isdeleted,


NOT ISNULL(subscribethread.subscribethreadid) AS issubscribed, emailupdate, folderid,
post.pagetext AS preview, 
thread.*

, LEFT(post.pagetext,150) AS preview
FROM thread AS thread

LEFT JOIN subscribethread AS subscribethread ON (subscribethread.threadid = thread.threadid AND subscribethread.userid = 1  AND subscribethread.canview = 1)


LEFT JOIN post AS post ON(post.postid = thread.firstpostid)

LEFT JOIN post AS post ON(post.postid = thread.firstpostid)
WHERE thread.threadid = 23;

MySQL Error   : Not unique table/alias: 'post'
Error Number  : 1066
Request Date  : Saturday, September 19th 2009 @ 02:29:37 PM
Error Date    : Saturday, September 19th 2009 @ 02:29:37 PM
Script        : http://www.magicthemeparks.com/mk/forum/showthread.php?t=23
Referrer      : http://www.magicthemeparks.com/mk/forum/index.php
IP Address    : XX.XX.XX.XXX
Username      : XXXXXXXXXX
Classname     : vB_Database
MySQL Version : 5.0.67-userstats-log

I've deactivated for now until I can get it working. Thanks for your help so far Wayne!

 

Mikey/Wayne,

I'll keep an eye open to see when it's working.

 

Glad you got it working!

But...don't you need a little dot in there when you're replacing $navbar with $navbar . {code} ?