Posted by Timothy Foster on 25 Mar 2009 18:45, last edited by GoVegan on 09 May 2010 05:41
The forums have a hidden section that is hidden by default. This section initially contains the deleted threads section and perpage discussion section until you move things around. For one to see these sections, he/she must click on the show hidden button that is a part of the [[module ForumStart]] module. This of course makes the deleted threads viewable, something you may or may not desire.
Fortunately, there is a way to disable the show hidden button so that it does nothing making the hidden categories nearly completely hidden. To do this, all you have to do is move around a few pages and add a redirect module.
The Process
First, create a new page called forum:home and add the [[module ForumStart]] to it.
The first step is simply creating a new page under the forum: category, and for the purposes of this example, we will call it forum:home. Then, put only the [[module ForumStart]] module on the page. This makes the page look very much like the original forum:start page, and it will become the new forum main page.
Second, delete all content from the forum:start page, and put a redirect module on it.
The next step deals with the original forum home page. We want to disable that page and make it go to the new home page. We can do this with the redirect module. Put this code onto the forum:start page.
[[module Redirect destination="/forum:home"]]Now every time someone enters that page, it sends them to the forum:home page.
Finally, change all the links that lead to forum:start to go to forum:home.
This step is an additional step that can be skipped if you renamed forum:start to forum:home, and it really doesn't matter too much anyway since all pages that lead to forum:start redirect anyway. This step simply cleans up the site making it more consistent.
How it works
The link the the [[module ForumStart]] has leads back to the forum:start page no matter what. So by putting a redirect module, you can never actually see the hidden categories.
Alternate Method
There is another way, found by ErichSteinboeck, that also works with a lot less work. Simply on the forum:start page, use this code.
[[module ForumStart hidden=""]]Comparison
Each method works equally fine, but the redirect has an easy way to find the hidden categories, and the alternate doesn't. It really depends on if you as an admin ever needs a way to view the hidden categories. For the redirect method, to view the hidden categories, type forum:home/hidden/show in the URL box. The other method will not let you unless you change the code or discover the category id.
Author
Timothy Foster. Please visit his/her userPage.
ErichSteinboeck. Please visit his/her userPage.
Reference
http://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/forum:home
See my post for a simpler way to do that.
poor timothy.
I bet he has spent hours scratching his head and pulling his hair out sorting this one out, and you come a long and do it in 5 secs with really simple code.
Where the hell do you find these little things that make so much difference.
i just tested both methods.
they both seem to work :-)
> Where the hell do you find these little things
The Open Source code helps a lot to gain more insight
> both seem to work
For the redirection method there is an “easy” (if you know what you're doing) workaround: go to forum:home/hidden/true and the hidden categories are there.
Working around the hidden="" method would probably be more difficult. I guess, you'd have to somehow figure out the category ID's of the hidden categories
I simply cannot change the forum:start page. All the changes I make in it are simply anulled. Deleted. Reversed. They simply don't exist. So this is at least for me, IMPOSSIBLE.
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegan. - Paul McCartney
Yes, there seems to be some kind of safe-guard in place to prevent people from accidentally editing that page… any changes made to it are lost.
You could create another page, e.g. forum and add [[include forum:start]], followed by your CSS module. Then change any links to forum:start in your navigation to point to the new forum page instead.
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I can do that, but when I go back from the subforums, I will always get to the forum:start and not to the page I created. Therefore, I assume there is much more to do than just create another page… There are some connections between subforums and the forum main page that also should be changed, so when someone is in a subforum and clicks to Forum link, he goes to the newly created page and not to the page I want to hide.
I think that this is overprotection and it should be removed.
Also, it is very strange that Timothy COULD change this page, because at his site, this workaround actually, works…
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegan. - Paul McCartney