Forum Topic Messages in Chronological Order
 

This forum lists topics in reverse chronological order, that is the topic with the latest message post is at the top (under the sticky Posts). This is fine.

However, WITHIN each topic the message order is also in reverse chronological order. I would like to read the Messages within a topic in the order they were posted. How do I get this forum to display Messages within a topic in chronological order? (ie. original post first)

Re: Forum Topic Messages in Chronological Order
 

n/m

[ March 26, 2004, 10:12: Message edited by: Torvak ]

Re: Forum Topic Messages in Chronological Order
 

There is unfortunately no general setting for that.

However, if you click on "Printer-friendly view of this topic " within a thread, the Messages will be shown in chronological order.
You'll miss out on picture, maps etc though.

I think the reverse order is the biggest complaint people have with this forum.

I know I do...

Re: Forum Topic Messages in Chronological Order
 

Its not being ignored. A fix is being looked into. Some things to still find out first is.. will it wipe out this database (in which case it wouldnt be worth it) and can it be offered as a default but still changeable (this way it actually quite useful once you get used to it), and how much the upgrade costs.

[ March 26, 2004, 13:33: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Forum Topic Messages in Chronological Order
 

Sorry for bringing up and old topic, this bugs me though.

I've got no idea why it should be difficult to revert to the standard oldest post first method if the backend is database driven. I've written a forum in the past (in php, mySQL back end), and all it did when looking at a topic was to get all Posts for that topic, order by date, then loop through them. The SQL looked something like this (technicalities like escaping quotes removed):

$sql = "SELECT * FROM Posts WHERE topicid="(topicid)" ORDER BY date ASC"

The you just for loop through the Posts, outputting them. There are other complications, like Posts per page, links to other things (edit, user profile, etc), but it should not be much more complex than this. Anyway, the way it is now, it looks like there is a "DESC" instead of an "ASC" in the SQL. That would be _very_ easy to fix, since the output array would be identical the other way around, the output code would not have to be changed.

Also, if this is not the case, and there's some other reason for the order, it should not be difficult to change either. I assume there will be a loop for outputting the Posts, one by one. All you'd have to do would be to reverse that loop. For example, if the current loop is :
for (x=0; x<$number_of_Posts; x++)
you'd change it to
for (x=$number_of_Posts; x>0; x--)

That should work in most cases with a bit of tweaking. Anyway, sorry for rambling on, and bringing an old post back fromn the dead. If I've made a stupid mistake in the code, it's 7am and my minds not fully operational yet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif . I know this is not a php board, but it's probably SQL based (I'm not that familiar with UltimateBB), and that php code is pretty self-explanatory. I've just ordered Dominions II btw, been playing the demo for most of the weekend. I'm still really crap though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif .

Re: Forum Topic Messages in Chronological Order
 

Yeah I am still bugged by this as well. One thing that surprised me tho was that Personal Messages on this Forums are handled just like normal topic threads *but* they use normal choronological ordering (first post first). So clearly the forum already supports this functionality for some threads? Is it not possible to make this setting for the main forum threads as well? Or perhaps trick the Forum into thinking that new Dom2 topics are personal threads so they display correctly?

Also, gandalf, I've seen you respond to this kind of comment several times and know it must be tiresome for you. Do you think it would be worthwhile to make a sticky post about this? Just state that folks in charge are aware and list progress as it comes or somesuch?