How do we edit the date of merged posts so that they appear how we'd like them to?

[Deborah Engelmajer]

I would like to merge two posts. When I do so, they appear in order of date. Am I able to change the date of a certain post so that is the one that becomes the main post body? (rather than a comment near the end)

[Luuuk]

Not possible out of box. Change Post Date plugin also could be problematic because:

"Be careful when changing date from a post. You can have issues when merging/splitting posts if you set a date and it broke the logical sequence of posts ID of the topic."

[I was the one who reported problems with merged posts appearing out of order and it was found out that was due to posts IDs.]

 

[Como]

@Deborah Engelmajer I suppose what you need is a method to sticky/pin the post, and not have its date changed. Perhaps that would avoid the potential problems flagged by @Luuuk

Or, a work around (of sorts), is to create some a dummy post per day (on an admin forum) - or however many you might need for your purposes - and use one these which predates the others you wish to merge. Then quote the out-of-sequence post in your dummy (merged) post so that it appears as the thread opening post. Obviously, you will have the wrong member listed as the thread starter, but the posts will appear in the order you require and you will be quoting the post you need as the seed post. Just make sure you have plenty of dummy posts for when you need them.

The above works going forward. If you need to do this retroactively, find a useless old thread (by and admin from an admin forum) and strip out the first post to edit and use as your seed post.

Edit: Further, by using an admin post to quote your seed post like this, you can an add an explanation of what you have done and why.

Edited March 28, 2023 by Como

[Deborah Engelmajer]

Thank you!

[Como]

I just found this:

But it is incompatible with Invision 4.7 and the author appears to have been inactive for well over 2 years. I would not have thought it would be that difficult for someone to recode, and at nearly 300 downloads for the original version, it is probably worth the effort.

Perhaps you could try approaching one of Marketplace developers here to see what they would charge.