You know, a lot of the new forums these days will show you the title of the most recent post and who posted it right on the front page, and it will provide short cut links so you don't have to click into the forum and then into the topic and then scroll down to the new stuff. In fact, that was one of the last hacks I added to the ubb before we finally decided it was too outdated to keep hacking up and continue using.
However, I've been kind of bemoaning the lost flexiblity with that old forum (I'm not the spiffy php guy that others might be) and really would like the quick link system for here. Now, I know it shows the most recent poster, and has a link to their profile, but let's face it, that's not what forums are really about. They're more for day to day communication rather than looking up who's who.
Then it was like Eureka! Beside the name on the front is a little graphic that looks like this <img src="http://forum.mtm2.com/templates/smartDark/images/icon_latest_reply.gif"> and believe it or not, but it's a link to the most recent post too. Here they were right under my nose all this time and I didn't even realize it.
<center><img src="http://mtm2.com/~forum/images/amazingforumdiscoveries1.gif" width="564" height="416"></center>
And they're in the specific forum lists too.
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Then of course comes the problem of linking to topics and posts. We all know that linking to a topic is easy. Just right click the topic link and save the short cut. For example
http://forum.mtm2.com/viewtopic.php?t=3159
But in some long topics, it's sometimes helpful to nail down a specfic post, which would be done like this:
http://forum.mtm2.com/viewtopic.php?p=21296#21296
To date, I've been looking at the quote button for the post id, and then manually assembling links like above. But Lo! right under my nose again it's been there all along. At the top of each post, it says "Posted" and then the date. But in front of it, to the left, is a little graphic like this: <img src="http://forum.mtm2.com/templates/smartDark/images/icon_minipost.gif">. Welp, believe it or not, but that's a link to that post. Been that way all along too :-P
<center><img src="http://mtm2.com/~forum/images/amazingforumdiscoveries2.gif" width="661" height="284"></center>
So there you have it. Quick links and post links made easy. Who'da thunk it.