Hey.
So... here are the changes.
- The current home page of the forum is now based on a algo (below) which shows a thread based on this SQL
$select_limit = 1;
$reply_count = 3;
$thread_array = array();
$forum_id = 30; //shell programming
$query = 'SELECT * FROM thread WHERE forumid = ' .
$forum_id .' AND visible=1 AND replycount > ' .
$reply_count . ' ORDER BY threadid DESC LIMIT ' . $select_limit;
$latest_thread = $db->query_first_slave($query);
$featured_threadid= $latest_thread['threadid'];
In other words, the home page shows one of the latest threads from the Shell Programming and Scripting forum that has a reply count of greater than 3. I will add some more logic to this later.
- The original home page is now accessible from the navbar on each page and is called "Forum" or "Forums"
https://www.unix.com/forum.php
In the future, after I fix some links anchors, I will change the above link to:
https://www.unix.com/forum/
- The stats which were at the top of the forums, are now included at the top of each search page results. This means if you view "Thanked Posts" or "Today's Posts" or "Newest Posts" or even do a keyword search, you will get the same results as before but the status will appear at the top.
The reason for this change is as follows:
The Advanced Stats on the home page caused SEO engines and analyzers to complain that there are too many links, so we need to move this off the home page. So, I moved it to the top of each search result page for now.
Also, the old home page was is very static (without the stats) so I moved that page off the home page (but make it available as /forum) and then made the home page more dynamic showing the latest busy thread.
That's about it... except for some minor changes to the editors which I will explain in another post.