I actually only started knitting earlier this year, so at the most, 2 months ago… the reason… Sackboy. I found a knitting pattern by Alan Dart to make your own Sackboy, so after demanding my mum teach me how to knit, I got busy and knitted a Sackboy, who now lives with Spirit. But he was getting cold at night so she demanded I knit him some winter warmers.

So, I’ve knitted him a little body warmer (or gillet if you’re posh) and a little bobble hat, complete with pompom. I used 4mm needles and some Palette Collection yarn Series 019/219 (www.paletteyarn.com available from Hobbycraft in the UK, although it does look like the exact wool I used is now discountinued).

Cast on 60 stitches (thumb method)

1st Row: K2P2 to end
2nd Row: K2P2 to end
3rd Row: Repeat 1st
4th Row: Repeat 2nd

5th to 7th Rows: Knit

6th to 13th Rows: Stocking stitch beginning with knit

14th Row: (K2 K2Tog K2) Repeat to end (50 stitches)
15th Row: Purl
16th Row: Knit
17th Row: Purl
18th Row: (K2 K2Tog K1) Repeat to end (40 stitches)
19th Row: Purl
20th Row: (K1 K2Tog K1) Repeat to end (30 stitches)
21st Row: (P1 P2Tog) Repeat to end (20 stitches)
22nd Row: (K2Tog) Repeat to end (10 stitches)

Thread yarn through stiches and tie off, stitch up to make a beanie hat.

There you have it,a nice little beanie hat… pompom is optional And in a Blue Peter stylee, here’s one I made earlier…

Beanie with pompom for Sackboy

I should just add… the gillet… went slightly wrong, so I’m working on another one.

I should perhap also state that because this involves editing a system file, you will have to carry out a similar modifcation the next time you upgrade your vBulletin installation. This mod was done on the codebase for version 3.7.4 with no patches applied.

So, on to the modification.

Locate the file includes\functions_editor.php, and go down to line 558. It should read:-


$smilies = $vbulletin->db->query_read_slave("
SELECT smilieid, smilietext, smiliepath, smilie.title,
imagecategory.title AS category
FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "smilie AS smilie
LEFT JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "imagecategory AS imagecategory USING(imagecategoryid)
ORDER BY imagecategory.displayorder, imagecategory.title, smilie.displayorder
");


All we’re going to do, is to add a condition to this SQL statement that will allow you to manage which smilies are visible to users in the editor. To do this, add the following where clause to the SQL.


WHERE (smilie.displayorder<>0) and (imagecategory.displayorder<>0)


If you’re unfamiliar with SQL, then this is what your code should look like after you’ve made the change.


$smilies = $vbulletin->db->query_read_slave("
SELECT smilieid, smilietext, smiliepath, smilie.title,
imagecategory.title AS category
FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "smilie AS smilie
LEFT JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "imagecategory AS imagecategory USING(imagecategoryid)
WHERE (smilie.displayorder<>0) and (imagecategory.displayorder<>0)
ORDER BY imagecategory.displayorder, imagecategory.title, smilie.displayorder
");


Simple enough, no?

Now, assuming everything is fine, to hide a smilie (or whole category of smilies), set the display order of the item you want to hide to 0, and hey presto, they won’t appear in the editor, but posts that use older smilies will still be able to use them.

And that as they say, is that