Topics Anywhere 1.11.0

• What is Topics Anywhere?
• Who made Topics Anywhere?
• Demo
• Download Topics Anywhere
• Download language files
• Install & usage instructions
• Topics Anywhere F.A.Q.
• Support, bug reports, feature requests
• install.txt (included in the distribution zip)

Topics Anywhere is a syndication script for phpBB, one of the most popular message board systems available.

With Topics Anywhere you can place links to the topics where users have posted recently from any forum on your phpBB on any page anywhere you want (no support for PHP, SSI, or whatever needed because it uses JavaScript to show the topic titles) or get those topics as a RSS feed - this is an extremely customizable addon so it can suit your needs - you even don't need to modify any files. All you need is phpBB running somewhere...

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Topics Anywhere is being written by Dennis Heeren or DtM.

Topics Anywhere was born on August 30th, 2002 as a simple syndication script showing the topic titles where users had most recently posted. I made it because I never found anything that suited my needs for syndicating our forum. And since I thought Topics Anywhere might be useful for others, I submitted it to the phpBB MOD DB to become an official MOD of phpBB. My MOD (although I prefer ADDON, since there is no need to modify any file) has been approved since October 1st, 2002. It has been downloaded at least 20000 times (rough estimate) and is one of the most popular MODs on phpBB.

Over time Topics Anywhere grew steadily to become a very customizable way to syndicate those topics. And it is still growing. For an overview of all features I suggest going to the demo (see below).

In my eyes, the strength of Topics Anywhere lies in the fact you don't need to comply to any special software requirements because it uses JavaScript to show the topic titles, that you can show those topic titles on any page you want - even cross-servers - and that is has a nice and rich feature set. As said, all you need is phpBB running somewhere...

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A demo is located at http://forum.afsvlaanderen.be/topics_anywhere_force_eng.php.

If you wonder, the demo URL topics_anywhere_force_eng.php is exactly the same as topics_anywhere.php, but because my board is in Flemish, I've made a demo one that is forced to use the English language so you can read it easier...

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You can download Topics Anywhere at the phpBB MOD DB (Syndication category): http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/catdb.php?cat=56

If it happens that the MOD DB has not the latest version of Topics Anywhere (which is 1.11.0) you can download it here (downloaded 386392 times).

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Use Topics Anywhere in your own language: download the language file of your choice...

Please note that only the English language file is included in the distribution zip.

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• How can I make the topics titles from Topics Anywhere to match the layout of my site?
• So, how do I use CSS?
• Why doesn't Topics Anywhere work on Lycos or CoolFreePages?
• Why are there no forums to choose from?
• Why are some forums missing from the list?
• How can I sort the topic titles on start date?
• I get following error: "Failed obtaining forum access control lists" when browsing to topics_anywhere.php?
• Can I show the contents of the latest post made with Topics Anywhere?
• Is it possible to use Topics Anywhere on a board using multi-byte characters (eg. Chinese - UTF-8)?

• How can I make the topics titles from Topics Anywhere to match the layout of my site?
  Topics Anywhere can use CSS classes to layout the topics titles. This is the easiest and by far most versatile way of modifying the layout of the topics titles spit out by Topics Anywhere so they perfectly match your site... Of course, since the functionality is in TA, I suggest you using it ;)
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• So, how do I use CSS?
  - Learn the basics of CSS
  - Create a css file (e.g. "topicsanywhere.css")
  - The contents should be something like this (modify to suit your needs...):

  A.topics:link {      color: #FFFFFF;      text-decoration: none;      font-size: 10px;      font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif } A.topics:active {      color: #FFFFFF;      text-decoration: none;      font-size: 10px;      font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif } A.topics:visited {      text-decoration: none;      font-size: 10px;      font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif } A.topics:hover {      color: #990000;      text-decoration: none;      font-size: 10px;      font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif } .topics {      color: #FFFFFF;      font-size: 10px;      font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif }

  - In above example, the first block is the class for the links, the second is for the regular text. Both times, the CSS class names are "topics", and this is what you need to put into the fields "CSS for text" and "CSS for link" on the setup form that Topics Anywhere presents you when browsing to "topics_anywhere.php". Do not fill in any CSS in those fields, nor the name of the CSS file. It has to be the name of the CSS class you want to use.
  - Take care the css file is included in the HTML file where you've put the Topics Anywhere generated code: in the <head> section add following tag: <link rel="stylesheet" href="topicsanywhere.css" type="text/css">
  - Upload it all to the correct dirs, and and should work.
  - Of course, you can also use CSS classes you already made for your website, just fill in the correct class name and make sure they're availabe on the page where you included the Topics Anywhere generated code...
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• Why doesn't Topics Anywhere work on Lycos or CoolFreePages?
  - Please check the following post I made at phpBB.com on this issue: http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=555708#555708.
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• Why are there no forums to choose from? or Why are some forums missing from the list?
  - By default Topics Anywhere will only show public forums and can only show topics from public forums. Public means that an anonymous user can see and read the forum. So, if you have no public forums, there will be no forums to choose from. Or if some forums appear to be missing in the list then those missing forums aren't public. You can change this behaviour however so Topics Anywhere will show all forums, including hidden and private forums. Therefore you need to go to the config section of "topics_anywhere.php" and change the value of the variable "$public_only" to false. You can still hide certain specific forums by using the "$hide_forums" option.
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• How can I sort the topic titles on start date?
  - Although this will never become a feature of Topics Anywhere as it doesn't fit in my vision of what Topics Anywhere should do, I'll describe how to change Topics Anywhere so it displays topic titles sorted on the time of the first post of the topic - instead of sorting on the time of the last post of the topic.
  
  You need to find following code in "topics_anywhere.php":

  ORDER BY t.topic_last_post_id DESC

  which you need to replace by this piece of code:

  ORDER BY t.topic_first_post_id DESC

  There are two occurrences of this code, you need to replace both. Save your changes and upload...
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• I get following error: "Failed obtaining forum access control lists" when browsing to topics_anywhere.php?

  Failed obtaining forum access control listsSELECT a.forum_id, a.auth_view, a.auth_mod FROM phpbb_auth_access a, phpbb_user_group ug, phpbb_groups g WHERE ug.user_id = AND a.group_id = ug.group_id AND g.group_id = ug.group_id AND ug.user_pending = 0 GROUP BY a.forum_id ORDER BY g.group_single_user DESC

  
  - This is due to an incompatibility between Topics Anywhere and the Guest Permission MOD written by Niels Chr. Denmark (http://mods.db9.dk). This MOD has modified the phpBB auth routine which causes the trouble for Topics Anywhere. So, if you have installed the Guest Permission MOD, or you are using Niels' premodded phpBB package (which has the MOD installed) then unfortunately you will not be able to use Topics Anywhere. It is not possible to use both at the same time.
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• Can I show the contents of the latest post made with Topics Anywhere?
  - This is not possible with Topics Anywhere. Also, this is not going to be a feature of Topics Anywhere. Topics Anywhere was made for syndicating topic titles, not actual posts - hence the name. However, I'm investigating on making a Posts Anywhere. ETA is not near, I'm just thinking about what I would want to make of it. For phpBB to my knowledge there is currently no MOD who will show the content of posts...
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• Is it possible to use Topics Anywhere on a board using multi-byte characters (eg. Chinese - UTF-8)?
  - Yes, but not in all circumstances. As long as you don't use "Maximum length (in characters) of topic titles" option, there should be no problem. The routine that shortens the topic titles is not able to handle multi-byte characters at the moment.
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For any support questions and everything else like bugreports or feature requests I kindly redirect you to the official release and support thread of Topics Anywhere on phpBB.com at http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=72782.

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Last update: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 13:11:53 +0100 - Pageviews: 386393 - dtm@yucom.be
Hosting kindly donated by AFS Intercultural Programs, Belgium, Flanders - http://www.afsvlaanderen.be
International: AFS Intercultural Programs Inc.: http://www.afs.org