By the end of this article, you should be able to confidently create a basic action on your forum.

What is an action?

An action is a page off the base of your forum. It is comprised of two files, one is a source file, and the second is a template file.

/index.php

First of all, we need to define the action along with the source file name and function.

Find

'xmlhttp' => array('Xml.php', 'XMLhttpMain'),

Add After

	// Your Custom Action
	'youraction' => array('YourAction.php', 'YourActionMain'),

The array that defines actions inside index.php is alphabetically ordered, to keep everything organized, it is smart to label what the code you added was for, and also keep it alphabetically labeled.

'action-in-url' => array('Source-File.php', 'FunctionToCall'),

Source File

The source file is the base foundation of the action, it loads the template along with anything else the action might need, such as permissions or additional functions.

Create a file in ./Sources named "YourAction.php".

./Sources/YourAction.php

Add

<?php

if (!defined('SMF'))
	die('Hack Attempt...');

function YourActionMain()
{

	// Globalize what we need...
	global $context, $scripturl, $txt;

	// Load our template
	loadTemplate('YourAction');

	// Define a page title
	$context['page_title'] = $txt['page_title'];

	// Define our link tree
	$context['linktree'][] = array(
  		'url' => $scripturl. '?action=youraction',
 		'name' => $txt['your_action'],
	);

}

?>

Notes: first of all, we make sure we are accessing the source file via SMF so that people can not directly access the file. Then, we globalize the variables we need for the main function, load our template, define our page title and our link tree item

Template File

The template file is everything that you see when you go to ?action=youraction, it is defined to the action by the actions source file.

Go to ./Themes/default and create a file named "YourAction.template.php".

Once created, complete the following edit.

./Themes/default/YourAction.template.php

Add

<?php

function template_main()
{

	// Globalize what we need...
	global $txt;

	// Catbg header
	echo '<div class="cat_bar">
   			<h3 class="catbg">', $txt['your_action'], '</h3>
	</div>';

	// Windowbg2 Content
	echo '<div class="windowbg2">
  			<span class="topslice"><span></span></span>
  		  		<div class="content">Your Page Content</div>
  			<span class="botslice"><span></span></span>
	</div><br />';

}

?>

Language Strings

The language strings define text in both the template file, and the source file so they can be edited more easily and also translated to other languages more easily.

./Themes/default/languages/Modifications.english.php

Add Before End

// Your Action Language Strings
$txt['your_action'] = 'Your Action';
$txt['page_title'] = 'This is your page title';

./Themes/default/languages/Who.english.php

Add Before End

// Your Action Who String
$txt['whoall_youraction'] = 'Viewing <a href="' . $scripturl . '?action=youraction">Your Action</a>.';

The edit you make in Who.english.php defines the action for the ?action=who page. So people can see what action you are on.

Also remember to clear your forums cache or the text strings will not show up.

Another optional edit would be to add a navigation tab for it. Take a peak at the document on adding tabs to do that.

Alternative methods

Add a custom action using integration_hooks