Feature request: Could you change the ranking of the related items based on number of views, so tags first and then rank on views. There is a plugin views_counter which already does the counting.

i stopped using the view counter plugins when i found them to be counting twice in some circumstances. this has not been fixed as far as i am aware

That wasn't a problem with the views counter plugin, it was that you were actually calling the view multiple times via ajax

i had in the 'back of my mind' an idea that some kind of cause was found, but i forgot what it was. i don't recall the issue being ajax related. i recall that maybe firebug was involved or some other code inspector...

but whatever it was, i obviously never resolved it completely because i left both the view counter plugins i have tested disabled. maybe i will look at this again when i get a chance.

oh ok, i do not use topics on my site, so i haven't tested related-items with topics much. which version of elgg are you using?

Thank you for this useful plugin.

Would it be an idea to have a 3rd way in addition to "More items" and "Related items": A way which gives priority to "Related items" but when there are less than the [Maximum number of related items to show], then complements the list with "More items"?

regards.

it's certainly an idea, yes! ;)
there are several options like that which could be added. maybe once i get my site upgraded to 1.9+ i will look at this.

Great plugin - but I'm getting an error when clicking on a group discussion topic...

Fatal error: Call to a member function getSubtype() on a non-object in /home/content/59/8407459/html/elgg/mod/related-items/views/default/related-items/related-items.php on line 3

Any idea what he cause of this could be?

@knussear - which version of elgg are you using? that message infers that the $vars variable is not available to the related items view in that discussion context. i have tested here with the latest elgg 1.8 and i am not seeing that error.

@ura soul Same for me as @knussear on elgg 1.9

$vars array has no entity key so getSubtype() fails. 

replacing -> in /home/content/59/8407459/html/elgg/mod/related-items/views/default/related-items/related-items.php on line 3

if(in_array($vars['entity']->getSubtype(),$renderto_subtypes))

by 

if(!empty($vars['entity']) && in_array($vars['entity']->getSubtype(),$renderto_subtypes))

solves the problem, but don't know if the plugin still has its funcionality

I guess it's not coz on line 2:

$renderto_subtypes

gets no value

i still haven't upgraded my site to 1.9 here because other key plugins are not available for 1.9. therefore i haven't updated my own plugins for 1.9. i am about to start though, so i'll look at related items first.

ok, if I have enough time to migrate it, let you know

i did already upgrade this plugin to an early version of 1.9, but obviously more issues have arisen since then.. so most likely there won't be much to do.

This is what I've done to make it work. 

At the beginning of views/default/related-items/related-items.php (where the error is), added a function call to add entity to $vars, and added a new condition on if to check that entity is not empty and avoid the error:

create_vars_entity($vars);

if(!empty($vars['entity']) && in_array($vars['entity']->getSubtype(),$renderto_subtypes))

At the end of lib/related-items-lib.php the function invoked above:

function create_vars_entity(&$vars) {
   $class_types = array('ElggObject');

   if (!empty($vars['entity']) || !preg_match('/^1\.9(\.[0-9]{1,2})?$/', elgg_get_version(true))) {
      return false;
   }

   foreach ($vars as $var) {
      if (gettype($var) === 'object' && in_array(get_class($var), $class_types)) {
         $vars['entity'] = $var;
         break;
      }
   }

   return true;
}

And also added this item to language files:

'related_items:discussion' => 'discussion',

Not sure if this will imply any behaviour errors, if anyone notices some just let me know to fix'em.

looks like you are searching for the object within the $vars array, rather than calling it directly. i will look at this soon here.. the heating has broken in the house here, so programming is not so fun!

Yes, I'm copying the ElggObject that stores de elgg entity of the group_forum_topic and copy it as $vars['entity'], because in the rest of the cases its stored in $vars['entity'] so the rest of the view code does not break. 

A cleaner way would be store the var depending on the entity and use that variable along the view code, but I needed a quick fix for this, we're going on production tomorrow and gotta migrate an old 1.7 elgg to a 1.9.

Let me know if you repair your house heating and fix this issue better :)

Thanks.

oh ok, so this appears to be a bug/inconsistency with the discussion code, rather than related_items per se.
i stopped using discussions on my site, so didn't test it much. i'll look at this now.

i've tested this in 1.8 and it is working fine with no changes.. onto 1.9.

i did have a fix for this, however, my hard drive failed and i am not sure yet if i need to re-code the solution.
i will look at this again soon.
 

@ura Soul: Will this plugin be available in elgg 1.9 ??

yes, this will be released as a fixed and tested version for 1.9 and 1.10 in the near future.