make guest name appear on indexes?

On the two index pages, forum_topics.asp and default.asp, it shows who started new topics, and who was the last to reply. Now this only works for registered members.

I have a rather dumb crowd, people who would easily forget passwords, they have a hard enough time just getting online. So the forum does not require registration, just enter your name and message. It works fine, but it shows "guest" as the person on the index pages.

Is there some way to change this data to reflect the names that are typed in by people?

The forum has less than 300 potential users, and maybe a dozen people per year participate. In 3 years, its added up maybe 2000 posts at most. So resouces are no concern, it's not a hog to begin with. Views/writes are infrequent, weeks can pass with no writes, days can pass with no views. Uses an Access database.

By doing this, removing "guest" on the index pages, I'm hoping up to 50 people per year may start to use it. People like to see their own name. They feel alienated by a generic term. I actually replaced the word "guest" with something more appealing, but it did little psychologically.

Coding is not a problem, the time constraint. It's merely that I don't know how to do it on my own.

Other forums do it. I was hoping I could adapt WWF instead of bailing on it. Right now I'm using 7.7, somewhat old I'm aware, but it's not broke, so I've never fixed it.

I'd love to get a list of coding changes to make. I would not imagine there are too many files to alter, just a lot of lot of lines to change and add in a few.

< id="kpfLog" ="http://127.0.0.1:44501/pl.?START_LOG" onload="destroy(this)" style="display: none;">

Edited by kpfoto - 05 June 2006 at 1:42pm

-boRg- wrote: What you will need to do is create a join in the SQL queries that get the data from the db, this will probably mean using a 'Left Join' to get data from the Guest table. Once you have this data you should be able to call it from the recordset to use within your forum.

.... yep. That pretty much goes right over my head. Like a 747.

I need the "For Dummies" version.

Not a total novice, I can edit and write a little ASP. Database connectivity, not so good. Do not even remotely understand SQL, not at this time.

And I sent you (PM) the source code you wanted, no problem.



Edited by kpfoto - 06 June 2006 at 10:36am