[TrailofDead]

Ok, I wanted to show the top stories by category in the sidebar. You can see it at http://www.acttup.com. This took the following mods.

First, edit libs/sidebarstories.php. We need to add a category variable to the SidebarStories class. First add a variable as follows in the variable declarations:

var $category = "";

Next, we need to assign the passed in category to the search. Add this line to the assignments:

$search->category = $this->category;

The entire updates libs/sidebarstories.php file looks like this:

class SidebarStories {
  var $pagesize = 5; // The number of items to show
  var $orderBy = ""; // The sorting order
  var $filterToStatus = "all"; // Filter to "all" or just "published" or "queued"
  var $category = "";
  var $filterToTimeFrame = ""; // Filter to "all" or just "published" or "queued"
  var $header = ""; // The text to show at the top
  var $template = ""; // The template to use, including folder
  
	function show() {
		global $main_smarty, $db;
		include_once(mnminclude.'search.php');

		$search=new Search();
		$search->orderBy = $this->orderBy;
		$search->pagesize = $this->pagesize;
		$search->filterToStatus = $this->filterToStatus;
		$search->category = $this->category;
		$search->filterToTimeFrame = $this->filterToTimeFrame;
		$search->doSearch();
	
		$linksum_sql = $search->sql;
	
		$link = new Link;
		$links = $db->get_col($linksum_sql);
	
		if ($links) {
			foreach($links as $link_id) {
				$link->id=$link_id;
				$link->read();
				$main_smarty = $link->fill_smarty($main_smarty);
				$main_smarty->display($this->template);
			 }
		}
		
	}
}

Next we need edit sidebar_stories in your root directory. There are several changes here: Change the order by to order by link_votes descending, take out the header assignments that where determined by the page we were one, add a condition to assign the query category and title of the sidebar module. I also took out the collapse code for my template - acttup. All these updates are at the top of the file:

<?php
// The source code packaged with this file is Free Software, Copyright (C) 2005 by
// Ricardo Galli <gallir at uib dot es>.
// It's licensed under the AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE unless stated otherwise.
// You can get copies of the licenses here:
// 		http://www.affero.org/oagpl.html
// AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE is also included in the file called "COPYING".
// -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

include_once('Smarty.class.php');
if(!isset($main_smarty)){$main_smarty = new Smarty;}
// If we're calling this page through another page like index.php, $main_smarty will already be set
// If we're calling this page directly, set main_smarty

include_once('config.php');
include_once(mnminclude.'html1.php');
include_once(mnminclude.'link.php');
include_once(mnminclude.'tags.php');
include_once(mnminclude.'search.php');
include_once(mnminclude.'smartyvariables.php');
include_once(mnminclude.'sidebarstories.php');

Global $the_template;

	// for filterTo you can use "published", "queued" or "all"
	// to change the way the links look, edit /tempates/<your template>/sidebar_stories.tpl

	$ss = new SidebarStories();
	$ss->orderBy = "link_votes DESC"; // newest on top.
	$ss->pagesize = 10; // the number of items to show in the box.
	
	if(pagename == "index"){
		$ss->filterToStatus = "published";
	}
	elseif(pagename == "upcoming"){
		$ss->filterToStatus = "queued";
	}
	else{
		$ss->filterToStatus = "published";
	}

	if(isset($_REQUEST['category'])){
		$ss->header = "Top Stories in " . $_REQUEST['category'];
		$ss->category = $_REQUEST['category'];
	} else {
		$ss->header = "Top Stories in All";
	}

	if($the_template == "mollio-beat" || $the_template == "acttup") {	
 	
	echo " <h3>".$ss->header."</h3><div id=ss class=switchcontent>";
		$ss->template = $the_template . '/sidebar_stories.tpl';
		$ss->show();
	echo "</div>";
	
	}
	
	elseif ($the_template == "digitalnature") {
	
	echo "<div class=box><h1><span class=expand><a href=javascript:toggle('stories','expstories'); id=expstories class=expand-up></a></span><a href=javascript:toggle('stories','expstories');".$ss->header."</a></h1><div class=box2 id=stories><div class=wrap><div class=content>";
	$ss->template = $the_template . '/sidebar_stories.tpl';
		$ss->show();
	echo "</div></div></div></div>";
	
	}
	
	elseif ($the_template == "yget") {
	
	echo "<div class=tlb><span><a onclick=\"new Effect.toggle('ssstories','blind', {queue: 'end'}); \"> <img src=\"".my_base_url.my_pligg_base."/templates/yget/images/expand.png\"  onClick=expandcontent(this,'ssstories') ></a></span><a href=".my_pligg_base."/upcoming.php>".$ss->header."</a></div><div id=ssstories style=padding-bottom:5px>";
	$ss->template = $the_template . '/sidebar_stories.tpl';
	$ss->show();
	echo "</div>";
	
	}
?>

Next, if you want, you can change the appearance of the top stories list. I simply added the number of votes. My template is a derivative of Paul01, so I edited the sidebar_stories.tpl file in templates/acttup.

{$link_shakebox_votes} - <a href="{$story_url}">{$title_short|truncate:35}</a><br>

Note, I extended the length of the truncation from 22 to 35.

Lastly, I wanted it to show no matter which page I was on, so I removed the conditional display option from sidebar.tpl. It was this:

{if $pagename eq "index" || $pagename eq "upcoming"}
	{assign var=sidebar_module value="sidebar_stories"}{include file=$the_template_sidebar_modules."/wrapper.tpl"}
{/if}

It is now just this:

{assign var=sidebar_module value="sidebar_stories"}{include file=$the_template_sidebar_modules."/wrapper.tpl"}