Display Unread Post+Comment Count instead of Total Comment Count in category sidebar?

yourfavorite

Instead of listing the number of posts/comments next to the category names in the sidebar (not super useful for active users imo), I'd rather display the number of unread posts+comments for the user. I tried looking through the $Category object in categories.php but it doesn't seem to have the info I want. Any help?

peregrine

iirc it doesn't keep track of unread post/comments on a per-category basis

it would be a major performance killer I would think to try to track this on a category basis.

from what I seem to recall it was all calculated from the userdiscussion table.

yourfavorite

A bit of a bummer UX wise, but if that's the case is there at least a way to find out if a category has unread content? I'd at least be able to visually differentiate categories with new content.

peregrine

but if that's the case is there at least a way to find out if a category has unread content?

if you look at categories controller - categories page.

you can see categories have a css class read or unread.

you would need to retrieve that and apply that to the category box panel somehow.

you would need to change the css

.PanelCategories .Read {
  background-color: red!important  
}

clone the module write plugin - might be a better way than this. but its an idea.

https://github.com/vanilla/vanilla/blob/release/2.1/applications/vanilla/views/modules/categories.php#L30

add a line like this below in cloned module.

 if ($Category->Read) $CssClass = $CssClass . " Read ";

peregrine

you could copy the categories.php

to

yourtheme/views/modules/categories.php

and change

echo Anchor(htmlspecialchars($Category->Name).$CountText, CategoryUrl($Category), 'ItemLink');

to

 if (!$Category->Read) { 
         $CountText = '<strong class="HasNew Aside" title="new comments since you last read this.">New</strong>';
         }
         echo Anchor(htmlspecialchars($Category->Name).$CountText, CategoryUrl($Category), 'ItemLink');

HasNew should alread have some css setup.

you said you didn't want counts and wanted "New"

yourfavorite

Awesome! Thanks @peregrine I'll give this a shot!