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I have just realised I'm a moron (don't all applaud at once). You don't need a list of unread posts, you just need a list of posts that have been read during a particular visit which starts off as blank and gets added to everytime a post is read. To be marked as unread/new a post would have to not only be newer than the last visit time but also NOT appear in the list of posts read during that visit. Since the list of posts read during a particular visit is unlikely to be more than a few dozen even on a large forum it could be done through the database or an array. When a member leaves the list of read posts is simply reset to nothing. The fact that there are hundreds or thousands of unread posts since somebody's last visit won't make a blind bit of difference because it is only read posts that are being listed. I think this is the idea FrankH had only it took me till now to realise it.

I would have thought this would be something very difficult to implement. The reason being that, as far as I can tell, PunBB is totally indifferent as to whether a topic has been read; it is only concerned with whether or not the topic is dated after the users last visit. To distinguish whether a particular user has read a particular topic would seem to require a whole raft full of new code/tables/fields.

Having the time of last visit updated during a visit would cause the opposite problem. Imagine there are 10 new topics since last visit. You read one topic and then the timestamp is updated. The result is it would now appear that there were no new topics since last visit. That would be a lot worse than the current situation.

Go Skipton, Go.

You can cheat. Take one of your sites pages, remove the middle content and replace it with the relevant parts of main.tpl. You will also have to tinker with the head and body to include the relevant bits from main.tpl. Now rename the page main.tpl and put it in the include/template folder. Finally copy the relevant parts of your sites style sheet to whichever PunBB style sheet you will be using (or vice versa). You may have to rename some items in the stylesheet to remove conflicts.

A final wrinke which I have started to use is to put the admin interface on a different template largely because it is more sensitive to restrictions on the amount of space available to it and there is no good reason why the admin interface has look like the rest of your site.

Files can be obtained here

http://www.post21.co.uk/punlogin/MainSiteLogin.zip

Any chance of vertical navigation. The current horizontal menu could get rather messy with say a dozen items on it.

Good. I would rather see a simple portal system build around PunBB with modules being developed for the portal. They would essentially be standalone scripts which simply utilised PunBB's membership and other database tables and, where appropriate, included PunBB files. I am not at all convinced that such things as file uploading, image galleries and even private messaging need to be embedded in a bbs sytems, they simply need to work with it. One thing I would like to see though is an idiot proof (and I speak as an highly trained idiot) way of utilising PunBB's membership system outside of PunBB.

My own view, for what its worth, is that I would like to see Rickards efforts directed to making PunBB as perfect as it possibly can be within the original design parameters. There is also the question of reputation to consider. If PunBB carries on as it is now with each new version being a refinement of the previous version then eventually it will become the automatic first choice for anybody looking for a fast, light, reliable and easily customized board. If it keeps chopping and changing it will never establish itself. Thats not to say that nothing new should be added but the additions should be improvements and enhancements to the existing functionaility and not new features. As usual I have slipped slightly off topic, but maybe thats because I have yet to see a mod which I actually had any use for.

It's OK Louis. I got it. Nobody told me that there were problems passing parameters/arguments using a local address. I have now made a new version of extern.php which is externlocal.php which includes a function called show_pun. To use it locally I can just do this

include('../punbb/externlocal.php');
show_pun('active',12);
show_pun('new', 5);
show_pun('online');
show_pun('stats');

The only benefits of doing it this way is that local addresses can be used and if you want to show several bits of information from PunBB you only have to include the file once. If you only want to show active topics then Rickards PunBB.org code would seem to be neater.

Note to self. File can be simplified; why would anybody want to use an RSS feed on the same site that houses the forum.

JohnS. This could be the neatest solution for you. I will post the file as soon as I have finished tinkering.

Firebird is also the name of the open source version of Interbase and they used the name first. The situation was getting a bit confusing.

Wonderful. Thanks for that.

while (braindead)
{
    pester_rickard();
}

In that case no, nothing in phpinfo refers to the Zend Optimizer.

I am not sure, phpinfo says something about zend extension and shows this

This program makes use of the Zend Scripting Language Engine:
Zend Engine v1.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2003 Zend Technologies

Is that what you mean. I can use extern perfectly provided I use the url rather than a relative (or absolute) address. Strangely, I did get it working once with a relative address by using require instead of include.

JohnS I think has a slightly different problem because he has trouble even with url's.

EDIT

Read the article you referred to. using @include resolves  the problems when using a url but it doesn't help with relative addressing and I don't really want to have to use a url to include a local file.

I think I will start a new topic "Need help with extern.php" because I am interested in getting some answers as well.

EDIT

New topic started Extern Problems in Troubleshooting Forum