[PHPBB3] Latest topics in phpBB3

Josh@SWG · 11-07-2008, 04:51 AM

Recent topics in phpBB3
This tutorial/phpbb hack will allow you display recent topics from your forum OUTSIDE of your phpBB3 root folder. The file however MUST still be on the same server!

At current this tutorial is for mysql databases only. This tutorial does not use phpBB3's DBAL in order to improve load times.

1. Create a new file called recent-topics.php
Paste the below code into your new file:

PHP Code:


			
<?



// change to the path to your forum

$path = './demoforum/';



// amount of topics to show

$amount = 5;



// forum ids to NOT show topics forum, separated by commas

$exclude = '';



// ------ no need to edit below ------ //



require_once("{$path}config.php");



$conid = mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpasswd);

$db    = mysql_select_db($dbname, $conid);



unset($dbpasswd);



$sql_where = 'WHERE `forum_id` > -1 '; 



if($exclude != '') 

{     

    $exclude_forums = explode(',', $exclude); 

    foreach ($exclude_forums as $id) 

    { 

        if ($id > 0) 

        { 

            $sql_where .= ' AND `forum_id` <> ' . trim($id); 

        } 

    } 

} 



$sql = "SELECT `topic_id`, `topic_title` FROM `{$table_prefix}topics`  {$sql_where} ORDER BY `topic_time`DESC LIMIT 0, {$amount}";

$result = mysql_query($sql, $conid);



$topics_html = '';

while($topic = mysql_fetch_array($result))

{

    $topics_html .= "<a href=\"{$path}viewtopic.php?t={$topic['topic_id']}\">{$topic['topic_title']}</a><br />";

}

mysql_close($conid);



echo $topics_html;

?>

What it does...

PHP Code:


			
$path = './demoforum/';

This the path to your phpBB3 file relative to the file which will display the most recent topics

PHP Code:


			
$amount = 5;

This is the amount of topics to show

PHP Code:


			
$exclude = '';

Here you can define any forums to exclude. Topics from these forums will not show. This is a list separated by commas, e.g.:

PHP Code:


			
$exclude = '3,8,98';

The numbers are simply the forum IDs of the forums you wish to exclude. These can be obtained by looking at the URL when viewing a forum. the URL will be something like: domain.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=9 where, in this case, 9 is the forum ID

PHP Code:


			
require_once("{$path}config.php");

This line will include the contents of your phpBB3 config.php file in order to connect to the database.

PHP Code:


			
$conid = mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpasswd);

$db    = mysql_select_db($dbname, $conid);

These two lines connect to the mysql database running your server using the details from the config file.

PHP Code:


			
unset($dbpasswd);

This line unsets the database password variable for security reasons.

PHP Code:


			
$sql_where = 'WHERE `forum_id` > -1 ';

This starts the where clause of our SQL query, we make sure the forum_id is above -1 to make sure the topic has a forum associated with it.

PHP Code:


			
if($exclude != '') 

{     

    $exclude_forums = explode(',', $exclude); 

    foreach ($exclude_forums as $id) 

    { 

        if ($id > 0) 

        { 

            $sql_where .= ' AND `forum_id` <> ' . trim($id); 

        } 

    } 

}

This part then excludes any forums. Firstly an if statement is used to check if we have any excluded forums, if it's empty this step is skipped. If not we use the explode function to create an array from the list given. We then use a foreach loop to loop through all the items of this array. Each loop the current value is assigned to the variable $id. We then use an if statement to check the $id is 'valid', i.e. greater than 0. If so we add an extra part to the WHERE clause to not include topics which has this forum ID

PHP Code:


			
$sql = "SELECT `topic_id`, `topic_title` FROM `{$table_prefix}topics`  {$sql_where} ORDER BY `topic_time`DESC LIMIT 0, {$amount}";

This the SQL query we will be performing. This query will select the topic id and topic title fields from our topics database. We will order them by the time posted in descending order to get the most recent. We want to limit the results to the amount we have specified in the $amount variable.

PHP Code:


			
$result = mysql_query($sql, $conid);

This performs the above query and stores the result in a variable called $result

PHP Code:


			
$topics_html = '';

while($topic = mysql_fetch_array($result))

{

    $topics_html .= "<a href=\"{$path}viewtopic.php?t={$topic['topic_id']}\">{$topic['topic_title']}</a><br />";

}

This is where we start to create the topic list. The while loop loops around the rows returned from our query. The mysql_fetch_array function returns an array for the current row. In this case the array will have two items - the topic id and topic title for the current row. This array is stored in the variable $row.

We then create the hyperlink. We use

PHP Code:


			
$topics_html .=

in order to append each hyperlink to the current html we have created. Simply using an equals sign alone would result in the $topics_html variable being overwritten every loop leaving us with only the last fetched topic.

Putting {} around variables in a PHP stirng using double quotes allows for variable interpolation. This means the variables are replaced by their value when the string is parsed.

PHP Code:


			
mysql_close($conid);

This closes our connection to the database.

PHP Code:


			
echo $topics_html;

This line outputs the list of topics!

2. Include the file!
In order to display the topics all you need to do is include the recent-topics.php file wherever you wish. Remember though that the $path variable in the recent-topics.php file need to be relative to the location of the file you are including it in, rather than the location of recent-topics.php itself.

To include the file on your page:

PHP Code:


			
<? include('recent-topics.php'); ?>

To give an idea of how you could output this...

PHP Code:


			
<h1>Recent topics</h1>

<p>These are the most recent topics from our forum...</p>

<? include('recent-topics.php'); ?>

Save all files and upload!

Any questions or support please ask in this thread

Josh@SWG · 12-07-2008, 06:02 AM

For a demo of the result of this tutorial: http://awesomestyles.com/demoforum/recent-topics.php

Josh@SWG · 12-07-2008, 07:19 AM

You can now exclude forums

Sir HP · 12-07-2008, 09:54 AM

Originally Posted by Josh@SWG

Recent topics in phpBB3
This tutorial/phpbb hack will allow you display recent topics from your forum OUTSIDE of your phpBB3 root folder. The file however MUST still be on the same server!

At current this tutorial is for mysql databases only. This tutorial does not use phpBB3's DBAL in order to improve load times.

1. Create a new file called recent-topics.php
Paste the below code into your new file:

PHP Code:


			
<?

// change to the path to your forum
$path = './demoforum/';

// amount of topics to show
$amount = 5;

// forum ids to NOT show topics forum, separated by commas
$exclude = '';

// ------ no need to edit below ------ //

require_once("{$path}config.php");

$conid = mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpasswd);
$db    = mysql_select_db($dbname, $conid);

unset($dbpasswd);

$sql_where = 'WHERE `forum_id` > -1 '; 

if($exclude != '') 
{     
    $exclude_forums = explode(',', $exclude); 
    foreach ($exclude_forums as $id) 
    { 
        if ($id > 0) 
        { 
            $sql_where .= ' AND `forum_id` <> ' . trim($id); 
        } 
    } 
} 

$sql = "SELECT `topic_id`, `topic_title` FROM `{$table_prefix}topics`  {$sql_where} ORDER BY `topic_time`DESC LIMIT 0, {$amount}";
$result = mysql_query($sql, $conid);

$topics_html = '';
while($topic = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
    $topics_html .= "<a href=\"{$path}viewtopic.php?t={$topic['topic_id']}\">{$topic['topic_title']}</a><br />";
}
mysql_close($conid);

echo $topics_html;
?>

What it does...

PHP Code:


			
$path = './demoforum/';

This the path to your phpBB3 file relative to the file which will display the most recent topics

PHP Code:


			
$amount = 5;

This is the amount of topics to show

PHP Code:


			
$exclude = '';

Here you can define any forums to exclude. Topics from these forums will not show. This is a list separated by commas, e.g.:

PHP Code:


			
$exclude = '3,8,98';

The numbers are simply the forum IDs of the forums you wish to exclude. These can be obtained by looking at the URL when viewing a forum. the URL will be something like: domain.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=9 where, in this case, 9 is the forum ID

PHP Code:


			
require_once("{$path}config.php");

This line will include the contents of your phpBB3 config.php file in order to connect to the database.

PHP Code:


			
$conid = mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpasswd);
$db    = mysql_select_db($dbname, $conid);

These two lines connect to the mysql database running your server using the details from the config file.

PHP Code:


			
unset($dbpasswd);

This line unsets the database password variable for security reasons.

PHP Code:


			
$sql_where = 'WHERE `forum_id` > -1 ';

This starts the where clause of our SQL query, we make sure the forum_id is above -1 to make sure the topic has a forum associated with it.

PHP Code:


			
if($exclude != '') 
{     
    $exclude_forums = explode(',', $exclude); 
    foreach ($exclude_forums as $id) 
    { 
        if ($id > 0) 
        { 
            $sql_where .= ' AND `forum_id` <> ' . trim($id); 
        } 
    } 
}

This part then excludes any forums. Firstly an if statement is used to check if we have any excluded forums, if it's empty this step is skipped. If not we use the explode function to create an array from the list given. We then use a foreach loop to loop through all the items of this array. Each loop the current value is assigned to the variable $id. We then use an if statement to check the $id is 'valid', i.e. greater than 0. If so we add an extra part to the WHERE clause to not include topics which has this forum ID

PHP Code:


			
$sql = "SELECT `topic_id`, `topic_title` FROM `{$table_prefix}topics`  {$sql_where} ORDER BY `topic_time`DESC LIMIT 0, {$amount}";

This the SQL query we will be performing. This query will select the topic id and topic title fields from our topics database. We will order them by the time posted in descending order to get the most recent. We want to limit the results to the amount we have specified in the $amount variable.

PHP Code:


			
$result = mysql_query($sql, $conid);

This performs the above query and stores the result in a variable called $result

PHP Code:


			
$topics_html = '';
while($topic = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
    $topics_html .= "<a href=\"{$path}viewtopic.php?t={$topic['topic_id']}\">{$topic['topic_title']}</a><br />";
}

This is where we start to create the topic list. The while loop loops around the rows returned from our query. The mysql_fetch_array function returns an array for the current row. In this case the array will have two items - the topic id and topic title for the current row. This array is stored in the variable $row.

We then create the hyperlink. We use

PHP Code:


			
$topics_html .=

in order to append each hyperlink to the current html we have created. Simply using an equals sign alone would result in the $topics_html variable being overwritten every loop leaving us with only the last fetched topic.

Putting {} around variables in a PHP stirng using double quotes allows for variable interpolation. This means the variables are replaced by their value when the string is parsed.

PHP Code:


			
mysql_close($conid);

This closes our connection to the database.

PHP Code:


			
echo $topics_html;

This line outputs the list of topics!

2. Include the file!
In order to display the topics all you need to do is include the recent-topics.php file wherever you wish. Remember though that the $path variable in the recent-topics.php file need to be relative to the location of the file you are including it in, rather than the location of recent-topics.php itself.

To include the file on your page:

PHP Code:


			
<? include('recent-topics.php'); ?>

To give an idea of how you could output this...

PHP Code:


			
<h1>Recent topics</h1>
<p>These are the most recent topics from our forum...</p>
<? include('recent-topics.php'); ?>

Save all files and upload!

Any questions or support please ask in this thread

I seeeeee......

Well I tried this and all I got was this appearing on my forum

Josh@SWG · 16-07-2008, 08:54 AM

des1017 · 31-07-2008, 04:49 AM

What about displaying the actual text in the post?

Such as using the posts table instead of topics table.
substr($topic['post_text'],0,20)

This outputs nothing. I noticed in the database the information is stored as BLOB

Josh@SWG · 02-08-2008, 11:35 PM

This script gets the information from the topics table whereas the post content is stored in the posts table. So you'd have to carry out another query every topic to get the post content for that topic.

Superduper · 03-08-2008, 12:05 AM

HP loving your sig its fab sorry OT

x-linked · 04-08-2008, 12:56 AM

What are the limitations of storing the file. I am having a lot of problemgs getting the result to display.

My forums: http://forums.alphabluetech.com/kjhanlon/index.php
Test Display Page: http://www.alphabluetech.com/kjhanlon/testrecent.html

Any ideas. The subdomain is different but the server and host info should be the same. Is this limited to an PHP homepage instead of HTML? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-kevin

mr. bond · 04-08-2008, 01:04 AM

Try renaming that file from .html to .php.... subdomain does not matter..

Also, don't use the full URL when including, only use the relative URL IE

<?php include('http://mysite.com/file.php'); ?>
Use....
<?php include('./file.php'); ?>

11-07-2008, 04:51 AM	#1
Josh@SWG Forum admin Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Hampshire Posts: 816 Credits: 1,520,460,678	Latest topics in phpBB3 Recent topics in phpBB3 This tutorial/phpbb hack will allow you display recent topics from your forum OUTSIDE of your phpBB3 root folder. The file however MUST still be on the same server! At current this tutorial is for mysql databases only. This tutorial does not use phpBB3's DBAL in order to improve load times. 1. Create a new file called recent-topics.php Paste the below code into your new file: PHP Code: <? // change to the path to your forum $path = './demoforum/'; // amount of topics to show $amount = 5; // forum ids to NOT show topics forum, separated by commas $exclude = ''; // ------ no need to edit below ------ // require_once("{$path}config.php"); $conid = mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpasswd); $db = mysql_select_db($dbname, $conid); unset($dbpasswd); $sql_where = 'WHERE `forum_id` > -1 '; if($exclude != '') { $exclude_forums = explode(',', $exclude); foreach ($exclude_forums as $id) { if ($id > 0) { $sql_where .= ' AND `forum_id` <> ' . trim($id); } } } $sql = "SELECT `topic_id`, `topic_title` FROM `{$table_prefix}topics` {$sql_where} ORDER BY `topic_time`DESC LIMIT 0, {$amount}"; $result = mysql_query($sql, $conid); $topics_html = ''; while($topic = mysql_fetch_array($result)) { $topics_html .= "<a href=\"{$path}viewtopic.php?t={$topic['topic_id']}\">{$topic['topic_title']}</a><br />"; } mysql_close($conid); echo $topics_html; ?> What it does... PHP Code: `$path = './demoforum/';` This the path to your phpBB3 file relative to the file which will display the most recent topics PHP Code: `$amount = 5;` This is the amount of topics to show PHP Code: `$exclude = '';` Here you can define any forums to exclude. Topics from these forums will not show. This is a list separated by commas, e.g.: PHP Code: `$exclude = '3,8,98';` The numbers are simply the forum IDs of the forums you wish to exclude. These can be obtained by looking at the URL when viewing a forum. the URL will be something like: domain.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=9 where, in this case, 9 is the forum ID PHP Code: `require_once("{$path}config.php");` This line will include the contents of your phpBB3 config.php file in order to connect to the database. PHP Code: `$conid = mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpasswd); $db = mysql_select_db($dbname, $conid);` These two lines connect to the mysql database running your server using the details from the config file. PHP Code: `unset($dbpasswd);` This line unsets the database password variable for security reasons. PHP Code: $sql_where = 'WHERE `forum_id` > -1 '; This starts the where clause of our SQL query, we make sure the forum_id is above -1 to make sure the topic has a forum associated with it. PHP Code: if($exclude != '') { $exclude_forums = explode(',', $exclude); foreach ($exclude_forums as $id) { if ($id > 0) { $sql_where .= ' AND `forum_id` <> ' . trim($id); } } } This part then excludes any forums. Firstly an if statement is used to check if we have any excluded forums, if it's empty this step is skipped. If not we use the explode function to create an array from the list given. We then use a foreach loop to loop through all the items of this array. Each loop the current value is assigned to the variable $id. We then use an if statement to check the $id is 'valid', i.e. greater than 0. If so we add an extra part to the WHERE clause to not include topics which has this forum ID PHP Code: $sql = "SELECT `topic_id`, `topic_title` FROM `{$table_prefix}topics` {$sql_where} ORDER BY `topic_time`DESC LIMIT 0, {$amount}"; This the SQL query we will be performing. This query will select the topic id and topic title fields from our topics database. We will order them by the time posted in descending order to get the most recent. We want to limit the results to the amount we have specified in the $amount variable. PHP Code: `$result = mysql_query($sql, $conid);` This performs the above query and stores the result in a variable called $result PHP Code: `$topics_html = ''; while($topic = mysql_fetch_array($result)) { $topics_html .= "<a href=\"{$path}viewtopic.php?t={$topic['topic_id']}\">{$topic['topic_title']}</a><br />"; }` This is where we start to create the topic list. The while loop loops around the rows returned from our query. The mysql_fetch_array function returns an array for the current row. In this case the array will have two items - the topic id and topic title for the current row. This array is stored in the variable $row. We then create the hyperlink. We use PHP Code: `$topics_html .=` in order to append each hyperlink to the current html we have created. Simply using an equals sign alone would result in the $topics_html variable being overwritten every loop leaving us with only the last fetched topic. Putting {} around variables in a PHP stirng using double quotes allows for variable interpolation. This means the variables are replaced by their value when the string is parsed. PHP Code: `mysql_close($conid);` This closes our connection to the database. PHP Code: `echo $topics_html;` This line outputs the list of topics! 2. Include the file! In order to display the topics all you need to do is include the recent-topics.php file wherever you wish. Remember though that the $path variable in the recent-topics.php file need to be relative to the location of the file you are including it in, rather than the location of recent-topics.php itself. To include the file on your page: PHP Code: `<? include('recent-topics.php'); ?>` To give an idea of how you could output this... PHP Code: `<h1>Recent topics</h1> <p>These are the most recent topics from our forum...</p> <? include('recent-topics.php'); ?>` Save all files and upload! Any questions or support please ask in this thread Last edited by Josh@SWG; 12-07-2008 at 07:30 AM.

12-07-2008, 06:02 AM	#2
Josh@SWG Forum admin Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Hampshire Posts: 816 Credits: 1,520,460,678	Re: Latest topics in phpBB3 For a demo of the result of this tutorial: http://awesomestyles.com/demoforum/recent-topics.php

12-07-2008, 07:19 AM	#3
Josh@SWG Forum admin Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Hampshire Posts: 816 Credits: 1,520,460,678	Re: Latest topics in phpBB3 You can now exclude forums

16-07-2008, 08:54 AM	#5
Josh@SWG Forum admin Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Hampshire Posts: 816 Credits: 1,520,460,678	Re: Latest topics in phpBB3

31-07-2008, 04:49 AM	#6
des1017 Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 1 Credits: 120	Re: Latest topics in phpBB3 What about displaying the actual text in the post? Such as using the posts table instead of topics table. substr($topic['post_text'],0,20) This outputs nothing. I noticed in the database the information is stored as BLOB

02-08-2008, 11:35 PM	#7
Josh@SWG Forum admin Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Hampshire Posts: 816 Credits: 1,520,460,678	Re: Latest topics in phpBB3 This script gets the information from the topics table whereas the post content is stored in the posts table. So you'd have to carry out another query every topic to get the post content for that topic.

03-08-2008, 12:05 AM	#8
Superduper Spelling and Grammar Queen !!! Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Between Heaven and Hell Posts: 5,478 Credits: 10,656 Tournaments Won: 1	Re: Latest topics in phpBB3 HP loving your sig its fab sorry OT __________________ NEVER EXPLAIN YOURSELF TO ANYONE BECAUSE THE PERSON WHO LIKES YOU DOESN'T NEED IT AND THE PERSON WHO DISLIKES YOU WONT BELIEVE IT

04-08-2008, 12:56 AM	#9
x-linked Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 1 Credits: 20	Re: Latest topics in phpBB3 What are the limitations of storing the file. I am having a lot of problemgs getting the result to display. My forums: http://forums.alphabluetech.com/kjhanlon/index.php Test Display Page: http://www.alphabluetech.com/kjhanlon/testrecent.html Any ideas. The subdomain is different but the server and host info should be the same. Is this limited to an PHP homepage instead of HTML? Any help would be greatly appreciated. -kevin

04-08-2008, 01:04 AM	#10
mr. bond Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Plotting Evil on FreeForums.org! Posts: 81 Credits: 24	Re: Latest topics in phpBB3 Try renaming that file from .html to .php.... subdomain does not matter.. Also, don't use the full URL when including, only use the relative URL IE <?php include('http://mysite.com/file.php'); ?> Use.... <?php include('./file.php'); ?> __________________ www.TheJamesBond.org :w00t: Last edited by mr. bond; 04-08-2008 at 01:08 AM.

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