phpBB2 : Display the permalink of messages

by Ange Tuteur on June 30th 2014, 7:49 am

Forumotion

The following tutorial will allow you to display the Permalink of each message in your Forumotion forum, as in the following Versions :

phpBB3

punBB

Invision

Before making any changes, make sure that your forum meets the following conditions :
- You must be the founder of the forum and have access to the templates,
- Your forum version must be phpBB2.

Editing the viewtopic_body template

Go to Administration Panel > Display > Templates > General and open the template entitled viewtopic_body.

Locate this part of the template, which is displaying the message title and the date / time which it was posted :

Code:: <td><img src="{postrow.displayed.MINI_POST_IMG}" alt="{postrow.displayed.L_MINI_POST_ALT}" title="{postrow.displayed.L_MINI_POST_ALT}" border="0" />{L_POST_SUBJECT}: {postrow.displayed.POST_SUBJECT} <img src="{postrow.displayed.MINI_TIME_IMG}" alt="" border="0" />{postrow.displayed.POST_DATE}</td>

1. If you want to display the permalink in the message title :

Replace the part above with :

Code:: <td><img src="{postrow.displayed.MINI_POST_IMG}" alt="{postrow.displayed.L_MINI_POST_ALT}" title="{postrow.displayed.L_MINI_POST_ALT}" border="0" />{L_POST_SUBJECT}: <a href="#{postrow.displayed.U_POST_ID}">{postrow.displayed.POST_SUBJECT}</a> <img src="{postrow.displayed.MINI_TIME_IMG}" alt="" border="0" />{postrow.displayed.POST_DATE}</td>

2. If you want to display the permalink of the message in a separate link :

Replace the part above with :

Code:: <td><img src="{postrow.displayed.MINI_POST_IMG}" alt="{postrow.displayed.L_MINI_POST_ALT}" title="{postrow.displayed.L_MINI_POST_ALT}" border="0" />(<a href="#{postrow.displayed.U_POST_ID}">#</a>) {L_POST_SUBJECT}: {postrow.displayed.POST_SUBJECT} <img src="{postrow.displayed.MINI_TIME_IMG}" alt="" border="0" />{postrow.displayed.POST_DATE}</td>

Do not forget to save your changes, and publish the template by clicking the green plus " Add

".

Explanation

The purpose of our modification is simple : To make a link of the message ID and location to which it refers. This is what's commonly referred to as an Anchor. In the template, {postrow.displayed.U_POST_ID} is the message ID ; so it is inserted into the link :

Code:: <a href="#{postrow.displayed.U_POST_ID}">…</a>

This allows us to know and use the exact URL of a specific message.