A hook for user post counts and

One of the things I was working on were making the forums more "forum-like" in light of InvisionBoard or PHPbb. These patches include the forum_user() hook on load to include the total post counts (nodes + comments) .

An example of the patch in action is available here. The theme is a modified chamleon theme, but the data is just to the left of the user posts.

The patch creates $user->post_count in which can be used from anywhere instead of just in viewing a users profile. This patch also contains mysql and postgres Indexes and a tuned SQL query that has low server load. I feel this is a very useful feature for drupal as other modules can be created such as post_roles (X post for certain roles or other status'). The forum hook module can be expanded to show the post count, or leave it to a community module. One thing I did add was the ablility to enable/disable post_counting. If this is needed, please let me know and it will be added.

Showing index usage in MySQL

mysql> explain select count(distinct n.nid)+count(distinct c.cid) as post_count FROM users as u INNER JOIN node as n ON n.uid=u.uid INNER JOIN comments as c ON c.uid=u.uid WHERE u.uid=1\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
        table: u
         type: const
possible_keys: PRIMARY
          key: PRIMARY
      key_len: 4
          ref: const
         rows: 1
        Extra: Using index
*************************** 2. row ***************************
        table: n
         type: ref
possible_keys: uid,node_count
          key: node_count
      key_len: 4
          ref: const
         rows: 8
        Extra: Using where; Using index
*************************** 3. row ***************************
        table: c
         type: ref
possible_keys: post_count
          key: post_count
      key_len: 4
          ref: const
         rows: 10
        Extra: Using where; Using index
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Query in action

mysql> select count(distinct n.nid)+count(distinct c.cid) as post_count FROM users as u INNER JOIN node as n ON n.uid=u.uid INNER JOIN comments as c ON c.uid=u.uid WHERE u.uid=1; 
+------------+
| post_count |
+------------+
|         81 |
+------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)