Latest Topics - Combine "Show New Posts" with "Goto New Post"

[Tom M]

Here's a simple modification that combines the ability to let users know when there are new posts and to quickly get to them.

Basically, what this does is cause threads with new posts to be displayed in bold. When a thread has new posts clicking the thread title will take the use to the new posts. If the thread is not in bold then clicking the title will take the user to the first post in the thread. While I'm not normally an advocate of using different behaviors when clicking the "same" thing this one seems pretty intuitive.

See the screen shots for more information.

In the adv_portal_latesttopicbits template find

            <span class="smallfont"><strong><a href="$vboptions[bburl]/showthread.php?t=$thread[threadid]" title="<if condition="$thread[preview]">$thread[preview]

</if>$vbphrase[by] $thread[postusername] <if condition="$vba_options['portal_threads_showdate']">$thread[postdate] $thread[posttime]</if>">$thread[title]</a></strong></span>

Replace with

            <span class="smallfont"><a href="$vboptions[bburl]/showthread.php?t=$thread[threadid]<if condition="$show['gotonewpost']">&amp;goto=newpost</if>" title="<if condition="$thread[preview]">$thread[preview]

</if>$vbphrase[by] $thread[postusername] <if condition="$vba_options['portal_threads_showdate']">$thread[postdate] $thread[posttime]</if>"><if condition="$show['gotonewpost']"><strong>$thread[title]</strong><else />$thread[title]</if></a></span>

I found is necssary to modify the latesttopics.php module in order to get $show['gotonewpost'] to work reliably. Not sure what the issue was but this works and is a very easy change to make.

In the latesttopics module find

                $thread = process_thread_array($thread, '', $vba_options['portal_threads_showicon']);

                $getbgrow = exec_switch_bg();

Replace with

                $thread = process_thread_array($thread, '', $vba_options['portal_threads_showicon']);

                // show new posts in thread
                $show['gotonewpost'] = false;
                $lastread = $bbuserinfo['lastvisit'];
                if ($thread['lastpost'] > $lastread)
                {
                        $threadview = fetch_bbarray_cookie('thread_lastview', $thread['threadid']);

                        if ($thread['lastpost'] > $threadview)
                        {
                                $show['gotonewpost'] = true;
                        }
                }

                $getbgrow = exec_switch_bg();

[buurman]

Did the above, but still aint getting bold titles in my latest posts..


To bad, would really like to have those.. its simply a must have...

[KW802]

Tom, nice idea.