Automated Category Icons for the VBA News Module...

[Teck]

Heres what i would like to do:

I would like to hack something into the existing VBA Website News module to automatically show a small category icon based on what forum the news post was made in...

Heres a sample forum layout:

User Discussions:

FPS Discussions (forumid: 4)
MMO Discussions (forumid: 5)
RTS Discussions (forumid: 6)

Those 3 forums the FPS, MMO, and RTS would all show they're posts on the front page using the existing news module...


Well in the existing news modules templates i would like to do something like this:

<if condition="$forumid == 4">
 <img src="image1.jpg">
</if>
<if condition="$forumid == 5">
 <img src="image2.jpg">
</if>
<if condition="$forumid == 6">
 <img src="image3.jpg">
</if>

I think the "forumid" column from the "forum" table in the Vbulletin DB would be the best way to pull the correct forumid...

Anyways, what would I need to do to complete a hack like this? Am i approaching this the right way do you think? Any tips & advice would be greatly appreciated...

[KW802]

Where would you want the image to display? I actually have a plugin I'm using over at Cool SciFi that does exactly this. Essentially if a forum image exists then it'll be shown else the user's avatar will be shown.

[Teck]

I'm not really sure where i want to put it yet (Maybe on the left side or in the customized title bar that I've done for it)... I just know that i want to do it...

Could you maybe PM me the plug-in/details as to how i can reproduce what you've done on http://www.coolscifi.com/

[Brian]

You should be able to use about the same code you've posted, though you would want to use $news['forumid'] instead of $forumid if you're applying this change to the 'adv_portal_newsbits' template.

[Teck]

perfect! Thanks...

I really should have noticed that on my own but...