This script extern.php is used to include information about your board from pages outside the forums and to syndicate news about recent discussions via RSS. The script can display a list of recent discussions (sorted by post time or last post time), a list of active users or a collection of general board statistics. The script can be called directly via an URL (for RSS), from a PHP include command or through the use of Server Side Includes (SSI).

The scripts behavior is controlled via variables supplied in the URL to the script. The different variables are: action (what to output), show (how many topics to display), forum (the ID of the forum to poll for topics) and type (output as HTML or RSS). The only mandatory variable is action.

• action:
  • active (show most recently active topics) (HTML or RSS)
  • new (show newest topics) (HTML or RSS)
  • online (show users online) (HTML)
  • online_full (as above, but includes a full list) (HTML)
  • stats (show board statistics) (HTML)
• show: Any integer value between 1 and 50. This variables is ignored for RSS output. The default is 15.
• fid: One or more forum IDs (comma-separated). If ignored, topics from all guest-readable forums will be polled.
• type: RSS. Anything else means HTML output.

• Show the 15 most recently active topics from all forums:

  include('http://host.com/forums/extern.php?action=active');

• Show the 10 newest topics from forums with ID 5, 6 and 7:

  include('http://host.com/forums/extern.php?action=new&show=10&fid=5,6,7');

• Show users online:

  include('http://host.com/forums/extern.php?action=online');

• Show board statistics:

  include('http://host.com/forums/extern.php?action=stats');

• Show the 5 newest topics from forums with ID 11 and 22:

  <!--#include virtual="forums/extern.php?action=new&show=5&fid=11,22" -->

• Show board statistics:

  <!--#include virtual="forums/extern.php?action=stats" -->

• Output the 15 most recently active topics: http://host.com/extern.php?action=active&type=RSS
• Output the 15 newest topics from forum with ID=2: http://host.com/extern.php?action=active&type=RSS&fid=2