[SOLVED] Figure out which posts has been read and not read

[mpharo]

When someone clicks on it, I would just do an insert into posts_read, that way when they refresh the page or revisit the site it is already there, I wouldnt deal with that insert on error update....just keep it simple, do a check and if not there make it new else make it old.

[SkyRanger]

Yeah, but thing is it will insert a new entry everytime the user clicks on the link or refreshes the page.

[mpharo]

not if it is already marked as read...

 

#start of new button

$postid = $row['oid'];

echo "<form name=\"goto_post\" method=\"post\" action=\"page.php\">"
. "<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"postid\" value=\"$postid\">";

$select=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM posts_read WHERE username='$logged' AND postid='$postid' ") or die(mysql_error());

$count=mysql_num_rows($select);

if ($count==0) {

echo "Not Read"
. "<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"postread\" value=\"not_read\">";

} else {

echo "Post Read"
. "<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"postread\" value=\"read\">";

}

echo "<input type=\"submit\" value=\"View This Post\">"
. "</form>";
#end of new button

 

page.php

 

If ($_POST[postread]=='not_read'){

$insert=mysql_query("INSERT INTO posts_read (blah blah blah) VALUES (blah blah blah) ") or die(mysql_error());

}

$select=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM tbl_thread WHERE postid='$_POST[postid]' ") or die(mysql_error());

while ($sql=mysql_fetch_array($select)){

echo "Post Name: ". $sql[postname] . "Post Body: " . $sql[postbody] . blah blah blah


}

 

a simple if statement from a passed in variable determines if you do the insert or not, it will be a lot faster to do one simple if statement than to do a sql query then return it to php then a check then another query....

[SkyRanger]

Thing is, this is what I have so far:

 

<a class=\"forummain\" href=\"officeview.php?oid=".$row['oid']."\">$outtitle</a>  ";

#start of new button

$postid = $row['oid'];

$select=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM posts_read WHERE username='$logged' AND postid='$postid' ") or die(mysql_error());

$count=mysql_num_rows($select);

if ($count==0) {

echo "<img src=\"images/new.gif\">";

} else {

echo "";

}
#end of new button

 

I will have to figure out how to make a button a link.

[mpharo]

is :

 

<a class=\"forummain\" href=\"officeview.php?oid=".$row['oid']."\">$outtitle</a>  ";

 

what a person will click on to take them to that post?

 

if so what does officeview.php look like?

[SkyRanger]

Yeah, that is what they click on.

 

Here is part of the office view:

 

$update=mysql_query("insert into posts_read values ('".$oid."','".$logged."','1')") or die(mysql_error());

$resulto1 = mysql_query( "SELECT users.*, office.* ".
"FROM users, office ".
"WHERE users.id = office.omid and oid='$oid'") or die( "Unable to select database");
                $wordnum = mysql_num_rows( $resulto1 );
while( $rowo1 = mysql_fetch_array( $resulto1 ) )
{
$o1title = $rowo1["otitle"];
$o1omsg = $rowo1["omsg"];
$o1usr = $rowo1["firstpost"];
$o1muname = htmlentities($rowo1["fname"]);
$o1date = $rowo1["odate"];
}


?>

 

The $o1 outputs are then placed into a table, so it looks clean.

[mpharo]

I assume that you have register global variables turned off? otherwise this code wont work....but in your link you would just add something like this....

 

<a class=\"forummain\" href=\"officeview.php?oid=$row['oid']&post_read=true\">$outtitle</a>  ";

 

then in your officeview.php page you would do:

 

If ($post_read){

$insert=blah blah blah

}

 

But if you dont have register globals turned off or your running php4.1 or greater you need to use the $_GET[] function to reference any of the variables passed in the url...

 

[SkyRanger]

Ok, I must be doing something wrong here:

 

I have tried:

<a class=\"forummain\" href=\"officeview.php?oid=".$row['oid']."&post_read=true\">

and

<a class=\"forummain\" href=\"officeview.php?oid=".$row['oid']."&postread=true\">

and

<a class=\"forummain\" href=\"officeview.php?oid=".$row['oid']."&post_read=1\">

and

<a class=\"forummain\" href=\"officeview.php?oid=".$row['oid']."&postread=1\">


with:
if ($post_read){
$insert=mysql_query("insert into posts_read values ('".$oid."','".$logged."','1')") or die(mysql_error());
}

and

if ($postread){
$insert=mysql_query("insert into posts_read values ('".$oid."','".$logged."','1')") or die(mysql_error());
}

 

Still inserting new entries.

 

I have postread = 1 if read, not really sure if that matters

[marcus]

Just a suggestion, but why don't you just store it in a cookie or session?

 

Make three cookies [or] sessions: uid (being the users unique id), topic (being the topic id), time_topicid (being just time()).

 

Name the cookies/sessions after the topic id.

 

Then just go to your forums, add something:

 

if($_COOKIE['TOPICID'] || $_SESSION['TOPICID']){
echo "Read: ";
}else {
echo "Unread: ";
}

 

If the cookie/session doesn't exist while going to the topic just add it.

 

Then check the time, if the last post on that topic is greater than the time the person went to it, update the cookie/session to the new time. Within the IF statment posted above, you can add

 

$time = "SOME QUERY TO FIND THE LAST TIME POSTED ON THAT TOPIC";
if($_COOKIE['time_TOPICID'] < $time || $_SESSION['time_TOPICID'] < $time){
echo "Unread: ";
}else {
echo "Read: ";
}

 

So basically the whole code would be:

 

if($_COOKIE['TOPICID'] || $_SESSION['TOPICID']){
     if($_COOKIE['time_TOPICID'] < $time || $_SESSION['time_TOPICID'] < $time){
     echo "Unread: ";
     }else {
     echo "Read: "
     }
}else {
echo "Unread :";
}

 

NOTE: It may not work since I just thought of it now.

 

EDIT: This could also save database space

[mpharo]

with one  or 2 posts a cookie or session would work, but if you had a cookie with every one that you clicked on to mark as read, your cookie would become enormous very quickly, in your link every time you click on it your passing the same thing over and over....you need to setup 2 links one for if it is read then another if it isnt....

 

Thing is, this is what I have so far:

 

#start of new button

$postid = $row['oid'];

$select=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM posts_read WHERE username='$logged' AND postid='$postid' ") or die(mysql_error());

$count=mysql_num_rows($select);

if ($count==0) {

echo "<a class=\"forummain\" href=\"officeview.php?oid=".$row['oid']."&post_read=1\">$outtitle</a>  ";

echo "<img src=\"images/new.gif\">";

} else {

echo "<a class=\"forummain\" href=\"officeview.php?oid=".$row['oid']."\">$outtitle</a>  ";


}
#end of new button

[SkyRanger]

lol....sure....lol

 

Thanks mgallforever, it has taken me 2 weeks to get this far on this code, and thanks to mpharo I am beginning to make some progress.  One of the reasons that I am not pushing towards sessions/cookies is that I honestly do not know how to code them.  My script so far has been trial and error....allot of error for sure.

 

Yeah, that database filling up could be a problem in then end, will cross that road when I come to it, I guess.  I am a really big noob to php/mysql.  I am on my 2nd real intense script, first one I am still writting and almost done, it was a pretty simple script for hosting with whm/cpanel.  This one on the other hand is giving me headaches...lol

[mpharo]

Another reason not to use cookies for something like this, is because most browsers have a max cookie size, once you reach a point it wont allow you to write to it anymore, this is because anyone could easily write a script that continues to loop and write values in acookie until you run out of disk space....not really harmful but a very big annoyance...the entires your going to have in a database like this are going to be relitavly small, I have a MySQL database with 2 million entries, the size is less than 5MB, it is all about how the data is stored, and these values are just simple text that take up hardly any space at all for a database....MySQL dosent have a limit for a DB size, but you can notice significant performance hits when your over the 10GB range....I havent done the tests, but there are a lot of good articles out there that do great testing on this stuff...

[SkyRanger]

omg, omg....you might now see me but I am bowing mpharo, thank you so very much, you have just releaved allot of stress and allot of me beating my head off my keyboard for the last week trying to figure out how to get this to work.  Again, thank you very much.

[mpharo]

no problem, if you need anymore help you know where to get it, if this topic is solved please click the solved button at the bottom of the page...Glad I could help...

[SkyRanger]

Spoke too soon.  Just realized a problem, well not really a problem just tried something and it didn't work the way I was hoping...lol

 

Is there a way for this:

 

if ($count==0)

to also be able to read postread=0

[mpharo]

if ($count==0 AND $postread==0)

 

of if your trying to take it from your query

 

if ($count==0 AND $sql[postread]==0)

 

you can also use OR instead of AND...

 

but why?

 

[SkyRanger]

I tried something with replies.  So if somebody replies to the post it updates the posts_read table table to  mark postread=0.  I just thought about it, I could have just deleted all of the entries where postid=oid

[SkyRanger]

went with the delete, much easier to work with.  Thanks again.  Now I can finally resolve this post and never come back to it again....lol