Latest Discussion from sub-category not showing in parent category on home page

Klutz

I have my home page set to display all categories, and have some 2 and 3 level deep categories.

Why don't discussions in a sub-category (e.g.: "Honda") show up on the home page as the most recent discussion for the parent category (e.g.: "Cars") ?

I'm using Vanilla 2.1.6

peregrine

post a screenshot.

peregrine

http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/comment/218828/#Comment_218828

Klutz

There are many discussions in the many sub-categories of the "Jasons Jeux+" category.

peregrine

because the categories layout does not show discussions. if you mean a topic list.

you need to use Mixed Layout for the Categories Layout in dashboard/settings/homepage

Klutz

@peregrine said:
because the categories layout does not show discussions. if you mean a topic list.

I mean the discussion does not show up in the "Latest Post" column.
The "Jasons jeux" category shows a discussion ("Cadeaux de Noël") in the Latest Post column ("Plus récent"). However, the "Jasons jeux+" category does not show anything in this category. I'm assuming it has to do with the fact the the "Jasons jeux+" category contains no discussions it self, only sub-categories.

I would like posts in the sub-categories of "Jasons jeux+" to appear in the "Latest Post" column of the Category view, on the home page.

peregrine

I'm assuming it has to do with the fact the the "Jasons jeux+" category contains no discussions it self, only sub-categories.

your assumption is correct.

Klutz

@peregrine said:
your assumption is correct.

Is there a way to "fix" this behaviour?

While I understand it might be the intended behaviour, is there a way for me to get the behaviour my users and I are looking for?

peregrine

you could try latestpost plugin probably. that might be the easiest.

otherwise change your homepage view to use Mixed Layout for the Categories Layout in dashboard/settings/homepage

I haven't looked into changing it with the view you want. so I can't answer.

peregrine

I suppose you could get rid of parent category and make it flat.

or make all parents (root)categories headings and make them non postable.

in dashboard categories page.

X Display root categories as headings.

Klutz

you could try latestpost plugin probably. that might be the easiest.

Hmm... That'll add a list to the side bar, which isn't what I want...

otherwise change your homepage view to use Mixed Layout for the Categories Layout in dashboard/settings/homepage

My users are used to a more table-like view (similar to what older forums like phpBB offer), I'd really prefer to stick to the table view.

I suppose you could get rid of parent category and make it flat.

That would be a mess of posts that wouldn't make sense, since many posts assume you know what category they were posted in.

or make all parents root categories and make them non postable.

By root category, do you mean top level categories? And have them be shown as titles?

I already do this. My Category hierarchy is pretty deep. I have categories that go 4 levels deep ( / Root category (title) / Category / Sub-category / sub-sub-category ). The home page shows root categories (as titles) and categories. Any sub-categories are listed in a comma-seperated list, and sub-sub-categories are not shown at all.

peregrine

By root category, do you mean top level categories? And have them be shown as titles?

yes.

I already do this.

! don't have an answer other than some category re-arrangement on your part or use the plugin suggested to mitigate, or someone comes up with a feature request answer.

good luck

Klutz

! don't have an answer other than some category re-arrangement on your part or use the plugin suggested to mitigate, or someone comes up with a feature request answer.

I'll look into the code that fetches the Latest Post from categories to see if it'd be easy to have also look through sub-categories.

I'll also look at how I could re-arrange my categories and limit them to being 2-levels deep.

Thanks for your help!

This seems like an unfortunate limitation of Vanilla Forums

peregrine

This seems like an unfortunate limitation of Vanilla Forums

its always unfortunate when things don't show up as you want.
and its always a limitation, if WYSINWYW - what you see is not what you want.

nothing stopping you from filing a feature request on github, or perhaps it is a bug.

Klutz

The same behavior also applies to the "Unread" status of parent-categories.

A parent category only receives the "unread" CSS class if it directly contains unread messages.
If a sub-category has unread discussions, the parent category does NOT receive the "unread" CSS class.

@peregrine said:
its always unfortunate when things don't show up as you want.

The fact that it is the expected behavior of the great majority of forum software out there doesn't help either.

I'm loving Vanilla forums so far. This is one of the first weird quirks that I've found.

Klutz

I was able to get the behavior I wanted by changing 2 lines in applications/vanilla/models/class.categorymodel.php. Both lines are in the "JoinRecentChildPosts" function, which start approx. on line 390.

I changed if ($Category['DisplayAs'] == 'Categories') { to if (true || $Category['DisplayAs'] == 'Categories') {.

And if ($ChildCategory['DisplayAs'] == 'Categories') { to if (true || $ChildCategory['DisplayAs'] == 'Categories') {.

This forces Vanilla to merge the recent child posts information, even if child categories are not set to display as categories.