List threads by subject instead of by date

[d3mia7]

I need some way to list threads in a few of my boards by subject instead of by date.  Some areas of my YaBB site are for general discussion but I'm also building a few forums for reviews (like book reviews, movie reviews, etc).  I want to be able to sort JUST those forums by subject instead of by last post.

I have a feeling this could be a very useful mod for YaBB... it lets it be more than just a chat board.  I'm trying to see how many creative uses I can find for YaBB overall.

[Anguz]

d3mia7, you were a step ahead... I came here to post this same request and there was yours lol

there's forum where we're gonna post newspaper/magazine articles, but sorting them by reply time is very inconvenient, cause a few months old article could be at the top if someone replies with a comment, also I may not necesarily post the articles in the correct order, so even if I block them and are never replied to, they wouldn't be in the right order

sorting the topics in that forum by subject, I can name the topics with this format "yyyy-mm-dd souce article-name"... this would be soooo useful...

I have another forum in that same webpage that is used like a blog or diary and members can reply to each post, but you see, I need to keep the topics in the right order too, no matter when they're replied to

in the Modify Forums area in Admin, there could be a drop-menu for each forum to select the sort-by criteria, last-post or subject

there could also be another drop-menu to choose if that forum will be sorted in ascending or descending order... I know this option is in the admin area, but it affects every forum, not chosen ones

thanks in advance

[A.M.A.]

you mean something like InvisionBoard has.


cheer

[Anguz]

I visited an InvisionBoard forum to check it out, but I can't tell as a visitor, maybe as an admin you do have that option...

in any case, I think you got the idea of what's needed... any of you know if it'd be something hard to implement?

[old dan]

I haven't looked at the code so don't quote me but it shouldn't be too hard. The sort would probably be the easiest. It would be in the mysql statement, right now it's (I think) SORT BY date. To sort by subject you would change it to SORT BY subject (duh).

The hardest part would be mananging the boards. I would start by making a field in the boards table called sortby. Then use 1 for sort by date, 2 for subject. You would then have to add a field to the board admin form. After you have made that and set the boards sortby you need to go in and set the mysql query. I'm guessing here again but I think the board info is retrieved first so you would have the sortby field already filled out from that query. then before the query to get the messages do an if like

if (sortby == 1)
$sortorder = "date"
else if (sortby == 2)
$sortorder = "subject"
else
error;

and that should pretty much do it.