Forum Pagination

[nrep]

I'm looking to set up some new IP Board based forums once 3.2 is released (guessing at a couple of months) as I'm really pleased with the way the development has gone and the integration with something as powerful as IP Content.

One niggle I've got with IP Board is the way it paginates forum listings. For example:

http://community.invisionpower.com/forum/298-ipboard/page__prune_day__100__sort_by__Z-A__sort_key__last_post__topicfilter__all__st__30

Rather than something simple like:

http://community.invisionpower.com/forum/298-p2-ipboard/

I can see the logic in why the former method has been chosen, as there are some powerful options in sorting threads... However it would be nice to have the clean URL when the sorting uses the default options (which search engines and most users would see).

There are lots of reasons for wanting this, not least for SEO purposes (although I know I'm opening a can of worms by mentioning this, as some will disagree), but it also looks much cleaner when pages are indexed.

Is this something that I can achieve with IP Board 3.2 by using a plugin or changing some options? Would it be considered for future versions of the software.

[MageLeif]

Both of those URLs link to the same thing, so it's tough to discern what you actually want. :tongue:

[nrep]

I've de-linked the URLs to make it easier to show an example - the second link is just made up to illustrate an example of a second page in a new pagination format.

[MageLeif]

Oh, I thought you were referring to the pagination bar used to navigate the board.

Anyways, it does display as the simple link for me, but only on the first page of a board. Other pages have the lengthy URL type.

+1 for removing default sort methods from the URL.

[nrep]

Yep, the first page of a forum doesn't have the large suffix, but any other pages do. As the default forum section view doesn't need any sort options in the URL, I'm sure it would be possible to code it so that pages didn't need this either (assuming the default sort order is kept).

[Matt.]

It'll be hard to do so unless they have the sort types set to a session, once you set the sort data with POST and click on page 2 the post data gets unset so your sort options are thrown out the window. Even setting them to a session may not be the best idea, but I'm sure since it's IPB it can be done.

[nrep]

It'll be hard to do so unless they have the sort types set to a session, once you set the sort data with POST and click on page 2 the post data gets unset so your sort options are thrown out the window. Even setting them to a session may not be the best idea, but I'm sure since it's IPB it can be done.

What work is if the default sort options are kept when a basic page request is made (i.e. /2/, /3/ etc... on the end of the forum URL), then the advanced sort options are only used in the URL when required (search engines and most users won't use these and they can be preveted from being indexed).

[Matt.]

Okay, I understand what you're saying. I didn't notice that once you click page 2 all the other options are added. Of course IPB can set defaults that would not be required for the pagination, that would be easy.

So they can easily do something like:

http://community.invisionpower.com/forum/298/p2/

What I was saying is that if you chose assortment options, and wanted to view the next page with your chosen assortment options, the way IPB is set up it would be required to have that data stored in the url because it fetches that information though $_GET data. Since that is how it is set up, I understand why they have the links displayed that way, but like I said, it could be changed through adding that data to a session to remove the links, otherwise that information IS required for that feature to work. Sorry for not immediately understanding. I get where you're coming from, and I get where IPB is coming from.

[nrep]

Has anyone tried to achieve this sort of pagination using a custom plugin? I'd really like to try and custom code this if possible (just for the default sort options - I don't mind extra strings for custom sorts).