• Registered: 2006-04-30
  • Posts: 382

Topic: Need some guidelines for a small mod

I want to write a small mod that lists all the topics from one forum alfabeticaly. A simple post is not a solution as some lists would break the limits of a mysql text field, and even if they dont in most of the cases it can be a heavy sql query that can slow things down.
It can be updated with cron or manually from the administration control panel, i think the last one is beter.

I thought about a small mod that stores these lists in textfiles and fetch them whenever they are red. Now i would like it to look like a forum post and to be acessible from a sticky link in the viewforum. There is no post-redirects in punbb so maybe this navigation solution would require a lot of hacking.

I need some guidelines... can anybody point me briefly the way to do this?

  • From: Ottawa, Canada
  • Registered: 2006-09-05
  • Posts: 308

Re: Need some guidelines for a small mod

It can be updated with cron or manually from the administration control panel, i think the last one is beter.

I'd go with an sql query. Limit the number of matches returned to speed the process up. Since your only sorting topic "subjects" this will not be as major a query as you might think.

Now i would like it to look like a forum post and to be acessible from a sticky link in the viewforum.

Why not just put a link near the "post new" link. Have it link to 'search.php?fid=<forum_id>&action="sortalpha"', then do all the work in the search.php file. This way you also have some control over the number of times a single user can make this query (there's an admin option to limit the secnds between searches).

echo "deadram"; echo; fortune;
  • Registered: 2006-04-30
  • Posts: 382

Re: Need some guidelines for a small mod

Forgot to mention that.
The whole idea is not to limit the number of results, i don't want to have pagination. I want all the forum topics to be accessible from that page.
aparently one can store any kind of data in any column ( almost ) if using sqlite.

I am using sqlite so maybe....  does anybody know the maxsize of sqlite field? Maybe a post would be enough to host the topic index, then i could make it a sticky.

  • Registered: 2006-09-04
  • Posts: 107

Re: Need some guidelines for a small mod

I'm probably missing the point all together but why not a link 'view all topics alphabetically' and then a simple query. Result something like this

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  • Registered: 2006-04-30
  • Posts: 382

Re: Need some guidelines for a small mod

yes, i though about something like that.
Lets see... did you just copy viewforum.php and removed the pagination and change the query?

6 Reply by soonotes (edited by soonotes 2007-03-02 16:37)

  • Registered: 2006-09-04
  • Posts: 107

Re: Need some guidelines for a small mod

Yes, that's all I did. Not something I have a use for but if I did probably just put a variable in the link and an if statement in the viewforum.

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