Forcing users to choose a category

whu606

My original question was answered most helpfully by Lincoln here:

http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/16672/can-i-force-users-to-choose-a-category-in-vanilla-2#Item_6

but this fix no longer works with the latest version of Vanilla.

In /views/post/discussion.php (copy it from Vanilla app into your theme if you haven't yet) find this:

echo $this->Form->DropDown('CategoryID', $this->CategoryData, array('TextField' => 'Name', 'ValueField' => 'CategoryID'));

And replace with:

echo $this->Form->DropDown('CategoryID', $this->CategoryData, array('IncludeNull' => TRUE, 'TextField' => 'Name', 'ValueField' => 'CategoryID'));

The new line is slightly different:

echo $this->Form->CategoryDropDown('CategoryID', array('Value' => GetValue('CategoryID', $this->Category)));

Lincoln's fix meant that users had to explicitly choose a category, and was very helpful for our site.

Could someone tell me how to alter the new code (assuming it is possible).

Cheers as always to anyone who can help.

Todd

It looks like 2.0.18 doesn't easily support this hack.

Todd

I think you want:

echo $this->Form->CategoryDropDown('CategoryID', array('IncludeNull' => TRUE, 'Value' => GetValue('CategoryID', $this->Category)));

whu606

Todd

thanks for your quick reply.

I edited the line to the one you suggested, but it doesn't seem to have any effect.

Previously, the category box was empty, and the user couldn't post until they had explicitly chosen a category.

Thanks.

Todd

It looks like 2.0.18 doesn't easily support this hack.

whu606

OK

No worries.

It was useful because it stopped users leaving the category on the default one.

They'll just have to get used to changing it!

Thanks.

whu606

Update, in case this gets found by a search in the future...

Just discovered that the code Todd supplied works provided that the Categories option is NOT set to 'Display root categories as headings.'