Widget : Random

What's so "Random" about this Random Widget ? The Random widget provides you with three buttons ; Random Topic, Random Forum, and Random User. Clicking any of these buttons will take you to a random topic, forum, or user on your forum.

Click to view demo

Feeling adventurous ? Want to discover long forgotten content that you never knew existed ? Then this widget is for you !

Installation

To install this widget go to Admin Panel > Modules > Forum Widgets management and create a new widget with the following settings.

Titles : Random
Use a table type : Your Choice
Paste the code below and save :

Code:

<style type="text/css">#fa_random_widget a { color:#69C; border:1px solid #69C; font-family:arial, sans-serif; font-size:12px; text-align:center; border-radius:3px; padding:3px 6px; margin:6px 3px; display:block; transition:250ms; }
#fa_random_widget a:hover { color:#FFF; background:#69C; }</style>

<div id="fa_random_widget">
<script type="text/javascript">//<![CDATA[
window.FARandomTries = 0;
window.FA.Random = function(type) {
  var perform_check = false,
      sel = { topic : '.post', forum : '.forumbg' }, link;
 
  type = typeof type != 'string' ? 'topic' : type.toLowerCase();
 
  switch (type) {
    case 'topic' :
      link = '/t'+ ( Math.floor(Math.random() * '{FORUMCOUNTOPIC}') + 1 ) + '-';
      break;

    case 'forum' :
      link = '/f' + ( Math.floor(Math.random() * '{FORUMCOUNTFORUM}') + 1 ) + '-';
      break;
     
    case 'user' :
      link = '/u' + ( Math.floor(Math.random() * '{FORUMLASTUSERLINK}'.replace('{FORUMNAMELINK}/u', '')) + 1 );
      break;

    default :
      alert(type + ' is not supported for randomization.');
      return;
  }
 
  if (perform_check) {
    if (++FARandomTries < 5) {
      if (FARandomTries == 1) {
        for (var a = document.getElementById('fa_random_widget').getElementsByTagName('A'), i = 0, j = a.length; i < j; i++) {
          a[i].href = '#';
          a[i].innerHTML = 'Please wait...';
          a[i].style.opacity = '0.5';
        }
      }
   
      jQuery.get(link + '?change_version=prosilver', function(d) {
        if ((type == 'user' && !/<title>.*? - .*?<\/title>/.test(d)) || (type != 'user' && !jQuery(sel[type], d)[0]) || new RegExp(link).test(window.location.href)) FA.Random(type);
        else window.location.href = link;
      });
    } else {
      document.getElementById('fa_random_widget').innerHTML = window.FARandomButtons + '<p style="color:red;">The request timed out. Please try again.</p>';
      window.FARandomTries = 0;
    }
  } else {
    new RegExp(link).test(window.location.href) ? FA.Random(type) : window.location.href = link;
  }
};

// Random Buttons
document.write('<a href="javascript:FA.Random(\'topic\');">Random Topic</a>');
document.write('<a href="javascript:FA.Random(\'forum\');">Random Forum</a>');
document.write('<a href="javascript:FA.Random(\'user\');">Random User</a>');

window.FARandomButtons = document.getElementById('fa_random_widget').innerHTML;
//]]></script>
</div>

Once you save the widget, go back to forum widgets management and drag the widget into the column of your choice. After this you'll be able to find all kinds of random content !

Modifications

There are a few modifications which can be made to this widget. Please read below for information on each one.

1. The Style
The style of the buttons is influenced by the CSS at the very top of the widget. Modify the CSS to change the color, size, etc.. of the buttons.

Code:

<style type="text/css">#fa_random_widget a { color:#69C; border:1px solid #69C; font-family:arial, sans-serif; font-size:12px; text-align:center; border-radius:3px; padding:3px 6px; margin:6px 3px; display:block; transition:250ms; }
#fa_random_widget a:hover { color:#FFF; background:#69C; }</style>

2. Existence / Permission Check
Sometimes you may get an error like "The topic you are trying to view does not exist" because a topic or user has been deleted. If you're getting this many times and you find it annoying, then find the perform_check variable in the widget and set its value to true. This will perform a check to make sure that the page you're trying to view exists.

Code:

  var perform_check = true,

Note : This method sends a request to the page before migrating you. If it performs 5 checks without finding a page it will timeout and ask you to try again.


3. Editing / Removing Buttons
If you want to edit or remove buttons, you can find them at the bottom of the widget.

Code:

// Random Buttons
document.write('<a href="javascript:FA.Random(\'topic\');">Random Topic</a>');
document.write('<a href="javascript:FA.Random(\'forum\');">Random Forum</a>');
document.write('<a href="javascript:FA.Random(\'user\');">Random User</a>');

Feel free to edit the text or remove the buttons that you don't want.

Those are all the notable modifications that you can make.

If you have any questions, comments, or find a bug feel free to leave a reply below. Now go on a random adventure and have fun !

Notice

Tutorial written by Ange Tuteur. Special thanks to the Beta Testers for testing this plugin. Reproduction not permitted without consent from the author.

Is it possible to show random topics from a specific subforum?

@Rhino.Freak yeah it's possible, but you'd need to create a script which will crawl that specific sub-forum so it can put all topics within that forum into an array. I don't think there's any simple way to go about it like using variables, unfortunately.