[SOLVED] Shoutbox...

in your index.tpl

{shoutbox_title}  for the title of the block if you are not using your own customised headings

{shoutbox_content} for the content itself

put them in whatever divs you are using to match the other blocks

and include this

$blocks["shoutbox"]["status"] = '2';  (for index only, 1 for every page, 0 to disable)
in your variables if necessary

hope that helps

Thanks! I figured it would be something so simple and I was over analyzing everything 🙂

Okay now i am really confused. I took my own advice  from the above post and tried to add a shoutbox to my test site and all is good.

Now i have tried to add it to my new site, (both running 3.2) and i cant get the damn thing to work.

http://www.pretendercentre.com/missingpieces/index.php?skin=Pretender2

version 3.2
no mods yet
no bridges

have included this in my variables.php
$blocks["shoutbox"]["status"] = '1';

this in my index.tpl
<div id="featured">
      <div class="blocktitle">&nbsp;</div>
      <div class="blockcontent">{shoutbox_content}</div>
    </div><br />
(havent set the shout div up yet properly in css so just borowing the featured div)

and it is initialised and set to index only in the blocks

any clue why this might not be showing up???

i know it must be some dumb thing i am doing, i have chekced and checked and checked a hundred times, copied the coding from the test site  ( http://www.pretendercentre.com/missingtest/index.php) where it is working just fine and now am totally baffled!  😕

thanks jacci

I think you need to clear out your cache on your browser. I could see the shoutbox on your home page and I even put a remark in it.

barb

Hey barb, cleared the cache out, didnt even think that might have been the problem, but it still isnt showing up.

I did see your comment on the test site ( http://www.pretendercentre.com/missingtest/index.php), and that one is working just fine. thanks.
That one actually went in fine no trouble at all, but it is not much good to me cos it is not my live site, ( http://www.pretendercentre.com/missingpieces/index.php) just the test one i run upgrades on first and play with skins.

It is my live site that i cant get it working on. I use Opera, and i checked in ie7 as well, and it is a no show.

One thing i thought of as a possibility, is the test site was a new 3.2 install, whereas the live site is an upgrade to 3.2 from 3.1

sorry if the two sites is confusign. the fact i can get it working on one and not the other is very strage.

oops. I guess I just clicked on the first link I saw.

In anycase, when I did a View page source I noticed this (this is in Pretender 1 & Pretender 2 layouts):

<div id="featured">
       <div class="blocktitle">&nbsp;</div>
       <div class="blockcontent"><div class='featuredstory'><a href=""javascript:if(confirm('Warning:" The following piece of fiction has been rated R by the author.')) location = 'viewstory.php?sid=101&amp;warning=1'">Seven Years</a> by <a href=""viewuser.php?uid=13">Sezzie</a>" R<br />She was sitting there in Jarod's house, wearing Jarod's clothes, drinking a...<br /><br /></div><div class='featuredstory'><a href=""viewstory.php?sid=1772">The" Best of the Centre</a> by <a href=""viewuser.php?uid=91">Mareen</a>" PG<br />Who's cutting the DSA`S?<br /><br /></div><div class='featuredstory'><a href=""javascript:if(confirm('Warning:" The following piece of fiction has been rated R by the author.')) location = 'viewstory.php?sid=2378&amp;warning=1'">My Name Is Ishmael</a> by <a href=""viewuser.php?uid=155">R" Schultz</a> R<br />Miss Parker has spent a passionate night with Jarod, and her entire universe...<br /><br /></div><div class='featuredstory'><a href=""viewstory.php?sid=3323">Paper" Snowflakes</a> by <a href=""viewuser.php?uid=244">Oriana" Lemke</a> PG 13<br />A twist of fate leads two characters on an unexpected Christmas vacation. <br /><br /></div><div class='featuredstory'><a href=""javascript:if(confirm('Warning:" The following piece of fiction has been rated R by the author.')) location = 'viewstory.php?sid=3599&amp;warning=1'">Her Aquitaine</a> by <a href=""viewuser.php?uid=282">Elliott" Silver</a> R<br />In 1122, Eleanor of Aquitaine was born; by age 30, she had become queen of France...<br /><br /></div><div class='featuredstory'><a href=""javascript:if(confirm('Warning:" The following piece of fiction has been rated NC 18 by the author.')) location = 'viewstory.php?sid=3601&amp;warning=4'">The Lacemaker</a> by <a href=""viewuser.php?uid=282">Elliott" Silver</a> NC 18<br />In no way could he have them both.<br /><br /></div><div class='featuredstory'><a href=""javascript:if(confirm('Warning:" The following piece of fiction has been rated R by the author.')) location = 'viewstory.php?sid=4744&amp;warning=1'">I'm Learning</a> by <a href=""viewuser.php?uid=432">AtlantianDream</a>" R<br />Miss Parker and Jarod find themselves raising a family while the peices of the...<br /><br /></div><div class='featuredstory'><a href=""viewstory.php?sid=4849">Pretty" Broken Things</a> by <a href=""viewuser.php?uid=7">Blade" Mistress</a> PG<br />Jarod's locked up in a cell, and everyone knows how that ends up. Everyone except...<br /><br /></div><div class='featuredstory'><a href=""viewstory.php?sid=5040">Conflict" Zero</a> by <a href=""viewuser.php?uid=516">KatieQ</a>" PG 13<br />Corporate Takeover gets a new meaning. The Centre is under attack by a rival...<br /><br /></div></div>

     </div><br />
<div id="featured">
       <div class="blocktitle">&nbsp;</div>
       <div class="blockcontent"></div>
     </div><br />

You have 2 div ids that are listed as "featured", maybe if you changed one to shoutbox? Because Featured Stories appears twice on your page.

Yeah i have borrowed that div for the moment becasue i havent had a chance to set up a shout div

I have now amended the css (no real styling yet but shout has its own div) and set up a shout div for pretender2 skin.

I have replicated the coding on the test site which seems to be working jsut fine, i dont understand what i have done differently here.

<div id="featured">
       <div class="blocktitle">&nbsp;</div>
       <div class="blockcontent">{featured_content}</div>
     </div><br />
<div id="shout">
       <div class="blocktitle">Shout</div>
       <div class="blockcontent">{shoutbox_content}</div>
     </div><br />
<div id="online">
       <div class="blocktitle">&nbsp;</div>
       <div class="blockcontent">{online_content}</div>
     </div> <br />

$blocks["shoutbox"]["status"] = '1';

   <div class="blocktitle">Shout</div>
       <div class="blockcontent">{shoutbox_content}</div>
     </div><br />

Remove the word 'shout' from the <div class="blocktitle">Shout</div> part... leave it as <div class="blocktitle">&nbsp;</div> Because on your skin I only see the word "Shout" and not box. (Try looking in the header.tpl just to make sure there isn't something over there overriding your variables).

It is very very strange 'casue i have this coded identically on the other site and it works fine. same header, same index, same variables

<!-- START BLOCK : header -->
<html>
<body>
<div id="{page_id}" class="pagecontainer">
<div id="banner"></div>


 <div id="menu">{menu_content}</div>

<div id="submenulist">
{menu2_content}
</div>

<div id="mainpage">
<!-- END BLOCK : header -->

<!-- INCLUDE BLOCK : header -->
     <div id="welcome">{welcome}</div>
<div id="libox"><div id="ribox">
<div id="leftindex">
<div id="newstitle">{news_title}</div>
<div id="newscontainer">{news_content}</div>
<div id="newsarchive">{newsarchive}</div>     
</div>

<div id="rightindex">
<div id="stats">
       <div class="blocktitle">&nbsp;</div>
       <div class="blockcontent">{info_content}</div><br />
     </div>
<div id="categories">
       <div class="blocktitle">&nbsp;</div>
       <div class="blockcontent">{categories_content}</div><br />
    </div>
<div id="recent">
       <div class="blocktitle">&nbsp;</div>
       <div class="blockcontent">{recent_content}</div><br />
     </div>
<div id="poll">
       <div class="blocktitle">&nbsp;</div>
       <div class="blockcontent">{poll_content}</div><br />
     </div>
<div id="featured">
       <div class="blocktitle">&nbsp;</div>
       <div class="blockcontent">{featured_content}</div>
     </div><br />
<div id="shout">
       <div class="blocktitle">&nbsp;</div>
       <div class="blockcontent">{shoutbox_content}</div>
     </div><br />
<div id="online">
       <div class="blocktitle">&nbsp;</div>
       <div class="blockcontent">{online_content}</div>
     </div> <br />
<span id="skin">{skinchange_content}</span><br /><br />

<span id="rss">{rss}</span>
</div>
<div style="clear: both;">&nbsp;</div>
</div></div>
        
<!-- INCLUDE BLOCK : footer -->

variables

<?php
$blocks["categories"]['tpl'] = 0;
$blocks["categories"]["status"] = 2;
$blocks["categories"]["template"] = "{link} [{count}]";
$blocks["categories"]["columns"] = 0;
$blocks["featured"]["status"] =  '2';
$blocks["info"]["status"] = 2;
$blocks["info"]["contents"] = 0;
$blocks["menu"]["status"] = '1';
// We're going to reserve key 5 for the "account info" link, but only add it if they're logged in.
$blocks["menu"]["content"] = array (
    0 => 'home',
1 => 'search',
2 => 'browse',
3 => 'art_link',
4 => 'credit_link',
6 => 'contactus',
7 => 'adminarea',
8 => 'login',
9 => 'logout'
);
// Now we'll sort the menu links so they show in the order we want.
ksort($blocks['menu']['content']);

$blocks["menu"]["style"] = 0;
$blocks["footermenu"] = array(
"title" => "", 
"status" => "1", 
"file" => "menu/menu.php", 
"style" => 1, 
"content" => array (
0 => 'help', 
1 => 'rules', 
2 => 'contactus',
3 => 'tos',
        4 => 'lost_link'
)
);

/*This is the "browse by" menu.*/

$blocks["menu2"] = array(
"title" => "Browse by: ", 
"status" => "1", 
"file" => "menu/menu.php", 
"style" => 0, 
"content" => array (
0 => 'authors',
1 => 'titles',
2 => 'catslink',
3 => 'recent',
4 => 'charslink', 
5 => 'series', 
6 => 'ratings',
7 => 'members',
        8 => 'challenges',
9 => 'tens'
)
);
$blocks["login"]["status"] = 1;
unset($blocks["login"]["template"]);
$blocks["login"]["form"] = 1; // Long form with register and lostpassword options
$blocks["random"]["status"] = 2;
$blocks["recent"]["status"] = 2;
$blocks["recent"]["status"] = 1;
$blocks['recent']['num'] = 10;
$blocks["skinchange"]["status"] = '1';
$blocks["news"]["status"] = 2;
$blocks['news']['num'] = 10;
$blocks["shoutbox"]["status"] = '1';
/*$new = "<img src="'".$skindir."/images/new.gif'" alt='"._NEW."' style='margin: 2px 2px;'>"; */
$star = "<img src="'".$skindir."/images/star.gif'" alt='"._STAR."' style='margin: 2px 6px;'>";
$halfstar = "<img src="'".$skindir."/images/halfstar.gif'" alt='"._HALFSTAR."' style='margin: 2px 2px;'>";
$featured = "<img src="'".$skindir."/images/featured.gif'" alt='"._FEATURED."' style='margin: 2px 6px;'>";
$retired = "<img src="'".$skindir."/images/retired.gif'" alt='"._RETIRED."' style='margin: 2px 6px;'>";
if(isset($blocks['poll']['status'])) $blocks['poll']['bar'] = $skindir."/images/369_bar.jpg";
$displayprofile = 1;
?>

since the coding works on one and not the other, the only thing i can think of is perhpas the fact that the test site (where it works) was a 3.2 install and the live site (where it doestn) was a 3.1 ==> 3.2 upgrade...

or i am just missing smt really dumb i just cant see???
ps. have spent two weeks rebuilding entire site after SMF, Coppermine and an efic was hacked  😥 pretty much destroying me.. so i am at the stage now of not seeing forest for the trees i think with all the rebuilding and learnign mysql commands ..... and apologise for any uber dumbness i am most likely exhibiting

Maybe the problem is both efiction copies are sitting in the same domain? I seem to recall two copies can't run exactly in the same place because of cookies, I think. It's been a while ago since that was mentioned. And my brain it tired from working tonight. If they were running on separate subdomains that might fix the problem. But I'm just guessing at this point maybe someone better versed in this can help.

barb

Maybe your shoutbox isn't activated. You can have everything be right, but if the shoutbox isn't activated, it won't work... It's easy to miss if you activated it on one site, but you didn't on the other... just a thought. Go to the Blocks page and check.

That woudl likely be just the kind of stupid thing i would to as well.

But this time i have actually checked the easiest thing (insteaad of going to the harest thing first as i usually do)  and set that to index only then  active about a million times and nothing works.

For now i am admitting defeat, shoutbox is low priority, just at the point it is really bugging me cos i cant get it to work. Perhaps barb is right, it might be becasue i am running efic more thna once on the same domain (although they are in their own folders) i have disabled the shout in the other one but didnt make any difference.

thanks anyway for all your help and suggestions

FINALLY got the shoutbox working on my live site.

After struggling with how i can make this work on one installation and then do exactly the same thing on my live site and it not work has been driving me crazy. Was looking through the tables this morning and noticed the url that shoudl say shoutbox/shoutbox.php was blank in my blocks table. Corrected the link and now it is working jsut fine.

Woot! Congrats. 🙂 I'm glad that you got it solved. Thanks for posting the update solution so that others can benefit from it.