wow, how do they do that

lukeurtnowski

Hi, im creating a forum for my site and need help...
If I choose a category (Welcome) I'm taken to a list of posts in that category, http://coronadoshores.ca/community/category.php?id=1&topic=Welcome
You then click on the replies link to see the 2 replies, http://coronadoshores.ca/community/post.php?id=3
I dont like how the page seems to loose the stuff for the original post.

The effect im looking for is this, http://www.phpjabbers.com/preview/stiva-forum/
(Where the original stuff is retained after the reply link is checked, I just dont know how they did that).
I really like that effect and I want to learn how I can do it.

Thanks

phpjabbers

Hi, it's Sasho here. I am part of PHPjabbers.com / StivaSoft and will be happy to answer your question 🙂

What we basically do is this:

1) on this page http://www.phpjabbers.com/preview/stiva-forum/ you see all the posts. We have a SQL SELECT statement which using while cycle prints all the posts. (like you do at http://coronadoshores.ca/community/category.php?id=1&topic=Welcome)

2) when you click on a link to view a post (for example http://www.phpjabbers.com/preview/stiva-forum/index.php?ac=loadReply&qid=4) what we do is first to SELECT the post data and print it using pretty much the same style as we use on all posts page. Then we have another SQL SELECT and again using while cycle we print all the replies for this post

So what I suggest you should do is just print the post details on top of the replies on your post page
http://coronadoshores.ca/community/post.php?id=3
You can do like us and make both the posts list and post details pages look similar.

Hope my reply will be of help!

Regards,
Sasho

lukeurtnowski

Thank you, I bought that vacation rental script last year (plus modification) and tried to put it up (but it blew up in my face when I tried to figure out how to further customize it (i tried to use my login/register forms). I'm trying top get better at PHP and decided its best to do things the best way, was thinking of getting the knowledge base builder but im going to need to modify it (myself so I can try to understand it if i Ever need to change it). Also, I'm using the PDO thing to use prepared statements and can I use that on the script?
As far as showing the post details above the replies, the only way I know to do that is to perform another query. Heres the query to show the replies

SELECT mess.subject, mess.message_txt, mess.mess_id, mess.parent_id, mess.created, users.name
FROM messages AS mess
INNER JOIN users
ON users.id = mess.user_id
WHERE mess.parent_id = 3
GROUP BY mess.created

But cant figure out how to also select the post (attached is the messages table)
[ATTACH]5163[/ATTACH]
Thanks for your help...

messages_table.jpg