UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums UBB.threads 7 Version 7 Support Populating a forum with subforum content

OK how about this one.

I have a forum called
"Resort Talk"
Then as sub forums of that I have a forum for each resort. eg
"Thredbo"
"Perisher Blue"
"Mt Buller"
etc

These appear as forums above any topics in the Resort Talk forum.

Is there any way for those sub forums to populate the parent forum so you have an "amalgamation" of topics in Resort Talk but if you only want to see the Thredbo specific topics you go into that sub forum?

I suspect not but I had to ask.

Thanks.

I'm not sure I understand what you're wanting, so let me figure it out with the following inquery...

From what I understand is that you have subforums:
Resort Chat
-- Resort A
-- Resort B
-- Resort C

And you want information from resort A B C to populate Resort Chat; so it shows all discussions from A B C in the main index?

If that's the case, you can't really do that, BUT you could set those to be the portal items, then link directly to the CFRM page from your main site, then change the "Portal Page" wordlet to "Resort Discussion"

Thanks Gizmo - you nailed it in your summary.

Basically child or sub forums populate their own plus their parent directory thus allowing users to either keep it broad or narrow down their browsing depending on their interest.

As an example take a classifieds site promoting accomodation deals a region. I will use Australia but it could be anywhere.

I am looking for a property to stay at in Thredbo. The navigation structure takes me through:

Australia, which has a subset of say 3 states because we only have snow in 3 states.

Australia : NSW or Victoria or Tasmania

I choose NSW I then have the choice of
Thredbo, Perisher, Selwyn or Charlotte Pass

I choose Thredbo and select a property.

That is 3 levels deep.

Australia : NSW : Thredbo.

However all the properties in Thredbo can also be seen in the NSW level because they are also in NSW and they can all be seen in the Australia level because they are also there. Drilling down the navigation narrows the search and hence reduces the number of listings but also allows broad level browsing if you desire.

Same with this.

Take another forum style, say a tech one. It has major catagory for Computers.

This then has sub forums for:

Laptops

Desktops

Servers

Then in say Laptops it has sub categories of PC or Mac.

Thus at the computer level forum the discussion is on all levels and you narrow it down depending on your interest level but you don't have to jump between half a dozen different forums if you don't want to - or you can stay where it lists everything.

Just a thought.

Oh well.

This isn't currently possible - but is a nice idea.

However if you replied to a thread in the parent forum - where would that reply go? it would probably stay in the parent forum, which would mean the sub-forum would be wrong.

Well working from the experience of a classifieds system each forum would have an id and that id either would be the child of another or it would be a stand alone forum (that may or may not have children).

eg
Australia (id 1)
NSW (id 2)
Thredbo (id 3)

An id lookup table in the database indicates that 3 is a child of 2 and that 2 is a child of 1.

Hence anything posted in 3 also appears in 2 and 1. Anything posted in 2 appears in 2 and 1 but not 3.

Each thread has the forum id attached to it so the thread knows where it lives. If a thread that lives in id 3 is viewed in forum id 1 and is replied to from there it doesn't matter the thread still lives in forum id 3 and so the reply is attached to that thread and that forum (id 3).

Doesn't seem that hard really. As I said classified systems already use it and it is a simple parent child relationship in the database.

Maybe I should put this in the suggestions forum now. Feel free to move it.