invisible location

[succo]

ok, here is what i want to do:

show the archived news without having to show the actual news

could anyone confirm that, if i put the news module inside an 'invisible' location (one i'd put within a <div style="visibility:hidden"></div> inside the adv_portal template) the archived news would work just fine?

i'm asking because, as i already posted, the news strangely even if enabled don't parse at all, and i'm asking myself why

btw, would the invisible location with the 'invisible' news need to be BEFORE the actual news archive module location for it to work? or can that be everywhere in the page?

thanks

[Brian]

Why go through all of that? You could just as easily make a copy of the recent threads module, change some settings, and then you have the same thing.

[succo]

let me try, will let you know
thanks

[succo]

let me explain what i'd like to do...
i'm going to use gars as a module for showing the news, so i won't use the 'standard' news anymore... that's why i'd like the archived news to show the thread titles coming AFTER the ones listed by gars...

i thought that, in your way of doing, i could say that the 'new' archive would be based on the recentthreads, tell him to fetch not only the latest $mod_options['portal_threads_maxthreads'] threads, but $mod_options['portal_threads_maxthreads'] + my gars variable, telling the module that its parent was the gars news module, but this way the variable i put in the gars module isn't passed to the new module... i'd have to put the number manually, and of course this is not what i'd like to do

btw, as i'm quite new to php (not that much, but i am), in recentthreads how could i put a while to say to ignore the first 'mynumber' threads and display only the other ones?

thanks

[convergent]

If you want to use the GARS stuff, then your best bet is to use the GARS CMPS add-on and modify it to what you need. Here is a sample page that is using three different modified versions of that guy to give you an idea of how hacked up it can be... the last block is the standard CMPS recent threads block.

http://pdaphonehome.com/?page=treo755p

[succo]

yes, that's right what i'm going to do, but i'd like to have both the recent threads (which i can have with no problem at all) and the archived news, using the threads from my news forum just after the ones shown by the gars module, and this is impossible using the news archive module, as it needs the news module to be on the same page...

that's why i was thinking of having the gars module visible, the news module present but invisible (in the hidden div) and the archived news visible again

it would be much easier to do it the way brian says, but i have no clue on how to make the recentthreads 'jump' the threads used by gars and read the next ones

btw, really nice (and clean) style you used for the gars template in your homepage... would you mind if i use it as a base for my own template?

[Brian]

Originally Posted by succo

it would be much easier to do it the way brian says, but i have no clue on how to make the recentthreads 'jump' the threads used by gars and read the next ones

You would just need to change the LIMIT statment in the recentthreads.php file to something like this:

LIMIT 5, $mod_options[portal_threads_maxthreads]

Change 5 to the number of news posts you're displaying, and you may want to add a conditional around it so that it would only be added when viewing that particular module.

[succo]

ehm... i must confess my ignorance in mysql syntax...

thank you very much for your help, it was precious... but, is there any way to make the (modified) recentthreads read the value i put for gars limit so that if i change it in gars module it will 'jump' the correct number of threads automatically?

thanks again

[Brian]

You should be able to use a variable that looks something like this to determine the value of that setting:

$cmps_options['adv_portal_{gars_identifier}']['varname']

Also, I wasn't thinking about the hook location, but you should be able to just add a hook to the 'vba_cmps_module_recthreads_start' location that changes the $mod_options[portal_threads_maxthreads] variable to the new syntax so you don't have to make any changes to the file.

[succo]

ok, it works just nicely, now

anyway, i still haven't tried to use template hooks (i saw vB added a lot of them to the new version)

i'd have a problem with the plugin, anyway, as i'd like to use the 'modded' recentthreads side by side with the 'normal' recentthreads, so i couldn't use something as 'if page is mypagename change "$mod_options[portal_threads_maxthreads]" to "$cmps_options['adv_portal_{gars_identifier}']['varname'], $mod_options[portal_threads_maxthreads]"'
or is there any way to tell the plugin something like 'if the actual module is recentthreads act normally, else if it's the gars archive change the variable'?

again, thank you a lot for the help