Documentation Mailing Lists FAQ Frequently Asked Questions v2

Topic: Discussions

If you have one slice item with many discussion items, it may be used as a message board.

You can make AA send all new discussion items posted to this particular item to an email address. If the address is a mailinglist, you can use the discussion as a message board.

• Define e-mail template

  To do so, you have to

  • go to any Alerts module (or create one, if you haven't it yet)
  • go to 'Alerts Setting' -> 'Email Templates'
  • create new e-mail template (of 'other' type), where you will use any discussion alias in Subject or Body (see: http://actionapps.org/faq/detail.shtml?x=261)
  Versions of AA prior to 2.6 uses special 'Discussion To Mail' view for e-mail definition. This is deprecated, now.
• Create a field with 'name'! "DiscussionMailList" in the slice, where the discussion items are. The 'type' of the field is unimportant.
• Fill the field in items the discussion of which you want to send by email

  The DiscussionMailList field value is a parameter list in the usual format, separated by ":" and using "#:" instead of verbatim ":". The parameters are:

  1. E-mail template ID (the one created before) prefixed by 't' character (like t21) (without the 't' letter it specifies ID of special 'Discusion to Mail' view, which is no longer used - deprecated)
  2. E-mail address to which to send new discussion comments (probably mailinglist)
  3. The remaining parameters (3rd until 9th) may be used in the view definition as aliases _#ITEMPAR3 .. _#ITEMPAR9. They help you to create only one view reusable for all items.
  
  Example: t13:our-l@list.org.cz

The program is implemented in discussion.php3, function send2mailList. It is called from filldisc.php3.

AA v2.0.0 supports discussions. The example, how the dicussions could look is on:

http://aa.ecn.cz/template/news.shtml?x=39124

Discussions are quite configurable (through views and aliases). Discussions can be easily managed in Item Manager - you can edit posted comments, Hide/Show them and Delete it.

Note, that each discussion is allways related to one item in slice.

There are some steps you have to do, if you want to add discussion to items, some of the steps depend on whether you are showing slices through slice.php3 or site.php3:

Design the Discussion

1. Switch to slice, where you want to have discussions
2. Go to 'Admin - Design Views'
3. Choose 'Discussion' in the listbox and click 'New'
4. The form for view editation should be filled with the default values (if not, you can use settings from the end of this e-mail)
5. Modify the 'HTML code of the form for posting comment' in order the form will be posted to right script:
   change the code:

   <form name=f method=post action="/apc-aa/filldisc.php3"...

   to point to directory, where your AA are installed (possibly: ...<form name=f method=post action="/aaa/filldisc.php3" ...)
6. if you want comments to be approved before displaying then add the code:

   <input type=hidden name=d_state value=1>

   after the
   tag.
7. click on Insert to create the view
8. The code below assumes the view created is number 55

Integrate into Full text View (if you are using slice.php3)

1. Go to 'Admin - Design Fulltext'
2. Select the created view in 'Show discussion' listbox
3. Now the discussions will be shown just after fulltext of item.

Integrate into Full text View (if you are using site.php3, or possibly if you are just using view.php3)

Open the view that shows the full-text, add for example:

{view.php3?vid=55&set[55]=sh_itm-{unpacked_id.....}}

Check in your site file (e.g. apc-aa/modules/site/sites/site_xxxx.php3) to see that the lines dealing with sh_item are not commented out e.g.

# Handle paging, takes from variable like scrl=24&scr_24_Go=3/
if( isset($scrl) ) { # page scroller
  $pagevar = "scr_".$scrl."_Go";
  $apc_state['p'] = $$pagevar;
}
if( ($apc_state["p"] <= 0) OR ($apc_state["p"]=='-') )
$apc_state["p"] = 1;

Integrate into Item Manager so the discussions can be edited.

1. Go to 'Admin - Design Item Manager'
2. Change the 'Item format' using _#EDITDISC alias. For example you can add new column just like:
   <td class=tabtxt><a href="_#EDITDISC">Edit</a> (_#D_APPCNT/_#D_ALLCNT)</td>
3. Possibly change 'Top HTML' for header of item manager and click OK.

Add to Listing views

typically you want the number of comments, and a link to either View or Add Commends depending on whether there are any, code if called from site.php3 might look like....

<a href="?{relargs}&i=_#SITEM_ID({switch({disc_app........})0:&add_disc=1}#disc">{switch({disc_app........})0:Add::_#D_APPCNT} Comments.</a>

Done. Discussions works.

Aliases usable for discussions

Default values for discussion view

If the default values for the view design are missing, here are some values that work:

Top HTML

HTML code for index view of the comment

Bottom HTML

Show images

Order by

View image 1

View image 2

View image 3

View image 4

HTML code of the form for posting comment

This FAQ interface was developed by Jason at Commons.ca

APC ActionApps is a free software content management system initiated by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) APC - Internet and ICTs for social justice and development