threads/posts re-order

[I, Brian]

How would I look to reorganise the "therads" category and the "posts" category so that they are reversed?

Also the "posts" cateogry and the "views" category?

I think reversing them from the current default will make boards look far busier. This is a big issue for the smaller forums.

Would anyone be interested in creating a mod file for allowing both to be reversed? Or would I simply need to swap around a couple of statements on a couple of files?

[I, Brian]

Not akers on this idea?

If not, would anyone be so kind as to illustrate which peice of code I need to edit to reverse the columns? I presume it wouldn't be hard to do, but I don't know php so I wouldn't understand which values to modify. Any pointers would be gratefully welcomed.

[Aquilo]

it's hard to understand what your asking.

it sounds like your asking for something that's built into YaBB allready, you can make posts so that the newest ones are first going back and the threads might be the same.
look in Admin under:
Forum Preferences and Settings
or
Installed 'Mods' Settings and Options

you should find that in there! is this what you mean by reversed??
Aquilo

[I, Brian]

Here's what I mean -

YaBB SE is constructed from tables and columns. The tallies for post count and thread count are both representated in columns.

I'm asking if there is a way to swap around those two columns so:

Current layout:

Topics Posts
55 ...... 215
17 ...... 171
34 ...... 239


Proposed change:

Posts Topics
215 ... 55
171 ... 17
239 ... 34      


My argument is that the mojority of people in the West will process information from left to right. So that a casual glance at the posting and topic totals in the second mehtod would "fool" the brain into thinking the forum is actually much bigger than it iactually is.

I know people will immediately argue that they are too macho to be fooled by any form of information illusion - but I know this works on me and figure it therefore applies much more widely. Therefore to make my small but growing forums more attractive to visitors I want to utilise this method as a marketing strategy - because as trends go, people are generally more likely to join a large forum than a small forum.

I'm speaking general trends here, btw,

Does that make what I'm asking a little clearer?

And would this be easy to implement?

[Daniel Hofverberg]

That can't be hard to implement, although I haven't actually looked at the code much yet...  

Give me a day or two - If no one has helped you by then, I will try to figure out how to accomplish that.

[I, Brian]

Thanks, Daniel - that's a very much appreciated offer.

[Grudge]

May not be a huge help as I don't have the code on this computer but I'll try.

Basically... on my forum I deleted off a whole column (the view column) etc which is basically the same idea as what you want to do.

The file you will need to use is messageindex.php (and boardindex.php to edit the catorgories later)
Now do a search for 48%. This will take you to the part of the code that outputs the top line of the message index table. Basically, the table is drawn by drawing the header first and then looping through each message drawing each row. To swap two columns you basically just need to cut and paste the code to be the other way around. Each seperate column will be surronded with a <td></td> tags. Just select the column you want to move cut and paste it to where you want it to go. You will need to do this for BOTH the header and the loop section. I know this sounds complicated as I have no code to show you at the moment but trust me, once you get down to the section you will easily be able to see what is going on

[Daniel Hofverberg]

Thanks, Daniel - that's a very much appreciated offer.

Okay, I have managed to implement this and tested it on my forum (You can see it at www.familyties-tv.com/forum/, so you can see that I have understood you correctly).

First, to switch Topics and Posts on board index, open BoardIndex.php. Search for:

Code Select Expand


<td class="titlebg" width="6%" align="center"><b>' . $txt[330] . '</b></td>
<td class="titlebg" width="6%" align="center"><b>' . $txt[21] . '</b></td>


Replace that with:

Code Select Expand


<td class="titlebg" width="6%" align="center"><b>' . $txt[21] . '</b></td>
<td class="titlebg" width="6%" align="center"><b>' . $txt[330] . '</b></td>


Then, later in the same script, search for:

Code Select Expand

               
<td class="windowbg" valign="middle" align="center" width="6%">
' . $row_board['numTopics'] . '
</td>
<td class="windowbg" valign="middle" align="center" width="6%">
'. $row_board['numPosts'] . '
</td>


Replace that with:

Code Select Expand

               
<td class="windowbg" valign="middle" align="center" width="6%">
'. $row_board['numPosts'] . '
</td>
<td class="windowbg" valign="middle" align="center" width="6%">
' . $row_board['numTopics'] . '
</td>


Then, to switch Replies and Views for each board, open MessageIndex.php. Search for:

Code Select Expand


<td class="titlebg" bgcolor="' . $color['titlebg'] . '" width="4%" align="center">
<font size="2" class="text1" color="' . $color['titletext'] . '"><b>' . $txt[110] . '</b></font></td>
<td class="titlebg" bgcolor="' . $color['titlebg'] . '" width="4%" align="center">
<font size="2" class="text1" color="' . $color['titletext'] . '"><b>' . $txt[301] . '</b></font></td>


Replace that with:

Code Select Expand


<td class="titlebg" bgcolor="' . $color['titlebg'] . '" width="4%" align="center">
<font size="2" class="text1" color="' . $color['titletext'] . '"><b>' . $txt[301] . '</b></font>
</td>
<td class="titlebg" bgcolor="' . $color['titlebg'] . '" width="4%" align="center">
<font size="2" class="text1" color="' . $color['titletext'] . '"><b>' . $txt[110] . '</b></font></td>


And finally, search for:

Code Select Expand


<td class="windowbg" valign="middle" width="4%" align="center" bgcolor="' . $color['windowbg'] . '">
<font size="2">' . $mreplies . '</font></td>
<td class="windowbg" valign="middle" width="4%" align="center" bgcolor="' . $color['windowbg'] . '">
<font size="2">' . $views . '</font></td>


And replace that with:

Code Select Expand


<td class="windowbg" valign="middle" width="4%" align="center" bgcolor="' . $color['windowbg'] . '">
<font size="2">' . $views . '</font></td>
<td class="windowbg" valign="middle" width="4%" align="center" bgcolor="' . $color['windowbg'] . '">
<font size="2">' . $mreplies . '</font></td>


(I have removed a few indentations/tabs from the code in order to make it look acceptable when posting it here, so just disregard any opening tabs or spaces)

Done! As you can see, it's just a matter of moving around a few lines, so it's not much work at all.

I'd be happy to turn it into a mod if you like, although I'm sure you can handle doing these few changes yourself...  

[Aquilo]

Ok you're asking how to change boardindex's appearance!


In Boardindex.php you'll find a line like this!

Code Select Expand


               <tr>
                  <td class="titlebg" colspan="2"><b>' . $txt[20] . '</b></td>
                  <td class="titlebg" width="6%" align="center"><b>' . $txt[330] . '</b></td>
                  <td class="titlebg" width="6%" align="center"><b>' . $txt[21] . '</b></td>
                  <td class="titlebg" width="22%" align="center"><b>' . $txt[22] . '</b></td>
               </tr>';

change to this:

Code Select Expand


               <tr>
                  <td class="titlebg" colspan="2"><b>' . $txt[20] . '</b></td>
                  <td class="titlebg" width="6%" align="center"><b>' . $txt[21] . '</b></td>
                  <td class="titlebg" width="6%" align="center"><b>' . $txt[330] . '</b></td>
                  <td class="titlebg" width="22%" align="center"><b>' . $txt[22] . '</b></td>
               </tr>';


and farther down this line displays the numbers:

Code Select Expand


                  </td>
                  <td class="windowbg" valign="middle" align="center" width="6%">
                     ' . $row_board['numTopics'] . '
                  </td>
                  <td class="windowbg" valign="middle" align="center" width="6%">
                     '. $row_board['numPosts'] . '
                  </td>


change to this:

Code Select Expand


                  </td>
                  <td class="windowbg" valign="middle" align="center" width="6%">
                     ' . $row_board['numPosts'] . '
                  </td>
                  <td class="windowbg" valign="middle" align="center" width="6%">
                     '. $row_board['numTopics'] . '
                  </td>


your all done!
Aquilo

[Aquilo]

man I'm getting old and slow  

[I, Brian]

Absolutely sincere thanks for that - you folks are the best.

Extremely grateful.  :-]