Another great plug-in Kris, thanks!
I have a few questions/suggestions that I hope you can help with…
1 - Is it possible to make this so that when a user browses the forum, going from page to page the sidebar always checks for the latest version of the post that it contains? At the moment I think the content of the sidebar only updates on a page refresh? Unfortunately content that rarely changes begins to appear stale to users (particularly active users) and so I’d like to update the topic associated with the sidebar frequently if I can. (Similarly, if the ID of the topic in the options for that page is changed, it would pick it up on the next page-view). I’m quite happy for the additional load per page/view but if you’re worried others may not be perhaps you could add a “cache post contents” option which would make it work like it does now.
2 - Is it possible to associate/pick up content from more than one topic per sidebar please? So for example on the Latests page you might want the content from topics 33,55 (and in that order). This would be great to allow different content per page while also include common info/links that you might want to appear at the bottom of every sidebar.
3 - Is it possible to expand the plugin so it can be used site-wide please? At the moment I think it can only be used on certain pages? Ideally I’d like to use this across the whole forum on all main sections/pages. (Perhaps your tags sidebar plugin could be used in conjunction with this for finer control - eg for individual tags and/or Topics - I think both combined could become a very power sidebar package!!)
4 - Is it possible to add a sidebar width option as well as a configurable cut-off/display-none point please? This isn’t a biggie as it can be done via css changes but think it would be nice to have in the options.
5 - Last but not least… could you get polls to work please? I think allowing users to vote in polls right out of the sidebar would be awesome!!! I find dynamic content like this in sidebars can make them interesting to users, and so less likely that they’ll automatically ignore them.
I think with all the above this plugin would make a very good candidate to be included in core or an official DC plugin - imo it could help people put an individual stamp on their forums and I’m sure people would use them in fun and interesting ways! 