Recent Recs Block?

You'll have to write out the entire query. I'm guessing _RECQUERY used to be _STORYQUERY, which is actually just code that points to the story query (since it's used so often).

Something like...

<?php
if(!defined("_CHARSET")) exit( );
$count = 0;
$content = "";
$use_tpl = isset($blocks['rec']['tpl']) && $blocks['rec']['tpl'] ? true : false;
if(isset($blocks['rec']['num'])) $numupdated = $blocks['rec']['num'];
else $numupdated = 1;
$result5 = dbquery("SELECT * FROM ".TABLEPREFIX."fanfiction_recommendations WHERE validated > 0 ORDER BY date DESC LIMIT $numupdated");
while($recs = dbassoc($result5))
{
if(!isset($blocks['rec']['allowtags'])) $recs['summary'] = strip_tags($recs['summary']);
$recs['summary'] = truncate_text(stripslashes($recs['summary']), (!empty($blocks['rec']['sumlength']) ? $blocks['rec']['sumlength'] : 75));
if(!$use_tpl) $content .= "<div class='recentrec'>".title_link($recs)." <br />".stripslashes($recss['summary'])."</div>";
else {
$tpl->newBlock("recblock");
                        // not sure the next line is necessary
include(_BASEDIR."includes/storyblock.php");
}

}
if($use_tpl && dbnumrows($result5) >0) $tpl->gotoBlock("_ROOT");
unset($updated, $result5);
?>

Totally untested. Keep in mind you'll have to edit some of the other files as well, most especially to add {rec_title} and {rec_content} to skins.

Oh, this is definitely more progress than I managed to make in one week:)

I'm getting the block to display (not pretty, but that's not a so important at this stage, naturally). But there's a glitch somewhere, probably because the script is taking a wrong turn. It's assuming it should link to something on *my* domain. But the recs are elsewhere, of course. So, it displays the right title and author, but links to an empty story *scratches head*.

First, there's a typo:

if(!$use_tpl) $content .= "<div class='recentrec'>".title_link($recs)." <br />".stripslashes($recss['summary'])."</div>";

Should be:

if(!$use_tpl) $content .= "<div class='recentrec'>".title_link($recs)." <br />".stripslashes($recs['summary'])."</div>";

Can I see it on your site? Without knowing what it's doing, it's hard to fix it. I'm guessing it's the way the link's being built, which is different with stories than with recs.

You don't want to use title_link.  That's for stories on site.  You need to build the link url there using the data in $recs.

I've played around with title_link, because I thought that was the problem, but I haven't gotten it to work yet.

Like I said, without seeing it working I can't be sure what's happening. (My test site isn't really working right now.)

Something like...

<?php
if(!defined("_CHARSET")) exit( );
$count = 0;
$content = "";
$use_tpl = isset($blocks['rec']['tpl']) && $blocks['rec']['tpl'] ? true : false;
if(isset($blocks['rec']['num'])) $numupdated = $blocks['rec']['num'];
else $numupdated = 1;
$result5 = dbquery("SELECT * FROM ".TABLEPREFIX."fanfiction_recommendations WHERE validated > 0 ORDER BY date DESC LIMIT $numupdated");
while($recs = dbassoc($result5))
{
if(!isset($blocks['rec']['allowtags'])) $recs['summary'] = strip_tags($recs['summary']);
$recs['summary'] = truncate_text(stripslashes($recs['summary']), (!empty($blocks['rec']['sumlength']) ? $blocks['rec']['sumlength'] : 75));
if(!$use_tpl) $content .= "<div class='recentrec'><a href=""".$recs['url'"]."">". stripslashes($recs['title']) ."</a><br />".stripslashes($recs['summary'])."</div>";
else {
$tpl->newBlock("recblock");
                        // not sure the next line is necessary
include(_BASEDIR."includes/storyblock.php");
}

}
if($use_tpl && dbnumrows($result5) >0) $tpl->gotoBlock("_ROOT");
unset($updated, $result5);
?>

Wohoo! This is working, thank you so much! Looks good so far:) With a bit of copy and pasting, I managed to get the reccer's name in there as well:

<?php
if(!defined("_CHARSET")) exit( );
$count = 0;
$content = "";
$use_tpl = isset($blocks['rec']['tpl']) && $blocks['rec']['tpl'] ? true : false;
if(isset($blocks['rec']['num'])) $numupdated = $blocks['rec']['num'];
else $numupdated = 1;
$result5 = dbquery("SELECT * FROM ".TABLEPREFIX."fanfiction_recommendations WHERE validated > 0 ORDER BY date DESC LIMIT $numupdated");
while($recs = dbassoc($result5))
{
if(!isset($blocks['rec']['allowtags'])) $recs['summary'] = strip_tags($recs['summary']);
$recs['summary'] = truncate_text(stripslashes($recs['summary']), (!empty($blocks['rec']['sumlength']) ? $blocks['rec']['sumlength'] : 75));
if(!$use_tpl) $content .= "<div class='recentrec'><a href=""".$recs['url'"]."">". stripslashes($recs['title']) ."</a> "._BY." <a href="'"._BASEDIR."viewuser.php?uid=".$recs['uid'"]."'>".stripslashes($recs['recname'])."</a><br />".stripslashes($recs['summary'])."</div>";
else {
$tpl->newBlock("recblock");
                        // not sure the next line is necessary
include(_BASEDIR."includes/storyblock.php");
}

}
if($use_tpl && dbnumrows($result5) >0) $tpl->gotoBlock("_ROOT");
unset($updated, $result5);
?>

You probably want to change

include(_BASEDIR."includes/storyblock.php");

to

include(_BASEDIR."modules/recommendations/recsblock.php");