How did they do that

[lukeurtnowski]

Hi, im creating a forum for my site and need help…
If I choose a category (Welcome) I’m taken to a list of posts in that category, http://coronadoshores.ca/community/category.php?id=1&topic=Welcome
You then click on the replies link to see the 2 replies, http://coronadoshores.ca/community/post.php?id=3
I dont like how the page seems to loose the stuff for the original post.
The effect im looking for is this, http://www.phpjabbers.com/preview/stiva-forum/
(Where the original stuff is retained after the reply link is checked, I just dont know how they did that).
I really like that effect and I want to learn how I can do it.

Thanks

[StarLion]

The same way they did it in the first place?

qid=3 identifies the question; so you can query the information for the original post in the same way.

[lukeurtnowski]

the query that I use, http://coronadoshores.ca/community/post.php?id=3
is

SELECT mess.subject, mess.message_txt, mess.mess_id, mess.parent_id, mess.created, users.name
FROM messages AS mess
INNER JOIN `users` 
ON users.id =  mess.user_id
WHERE mess.parent_id = 3
GROUP BY mess.created

The query I use on, http://coronadoshores.ca/community/category.php?id=1&topic=Welcome
is

SELECT mess.subject, mess.message_txt, mess.mess_id, mess.parent_id, mess.created, users.name,
COUNT(rply.parent_id) AS replies
FROM messages AS mess
INNER JOIN `users` 
ON users.id =  mess.user_id
LEFT OUTER JOIN messages AS rply
ON rply.parent_id = mess.mess_id
WHERE mess.topic_id = 1
AND mess.parent_id IS NULL
GROUP BY mess.mess_id

(left joins are confusing to me), because I dont want to have 2 queries I think ill need 1.

The screenshot is the messages table of which the message im looking for has a parent_id of NULL and a topic_id of 1,
Here the query i think i need to add the original post to with a left join of some kind

[StarLion]

Left joins are simply saying “I want everything from table A, regardless of if there is matching data in table B. But if there is matching data in table B, i want that too.”

(Right joins are the same, but invert A and B)

Inner joins are: Show me things where there is matching data in A and B.

The way generally forums work is that they seperate the logic of ‘parent’ from ‘topic’. All posts simply belong to a singular topic (thread, whatever), and so all messages in a given thread can be referenced as SELECT stuff FROM posts WHERE thread = somethreadid ORDER BY DATE (since noone can post into a thread before the original post in the thread because that’s how linear time works in our dimension of understanding.)