Shorten MyBB big numbers to Facebook-like letters

@andrewjs18 asked me: "is it possible to shorten threads and posts counters to something more readable by displaying a letter for big numbers, much like Facebook and other companies do?". Yes. Thanks to MyBB's customizability, it is possible. Unfortunately there are not hooks available to easily tweak in this little but handy functionality, so we will use Patches to sneak in our code. Before diving into the tutorial, make sure you have downloaded and installed Patches.

MyBB 1.6 and 1.8 are supported, although the search patterns for every patch has been taken from MyBB 1.8.12. You may need to use different search patterns for older versions of MyBB.

This tutorial will apply to every number displayed within the MyBB environment, it is not limited to post and thread counters.

The final result:

1. Add the converter function

Within your ACP, go to Plugins > Patches, add, save and apply a new patch with the following configuration:

File: inc/functions.php
Title: my_number_shorten
Search pattern

function my_number_format($number) 

Insert before

// Shortens a number and attaches K, M, B, etc. accordingly @https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4371059/shorten-long-numbers-to-k-m-b
function my_number_shorten($number, $precision = 1, $divisors = null) {

    // Setup default $divisors if not provided
    if (!isset($divisors)) {
        $divisors = array(
            pow(1000, 1) => 'k', // Thousand
            pow(1000, 2) => 'm', // Million
            pow(1000, 3) => 'b', // Billion
            pow(1000, 4) => 't', // Trillion
        );    
    }

    // Loop through each $divisor and find the
    // lowest amount that matches
    foreach ($divisors as $divisor => $shorthand) {
        if (abs($number) < ($divisor * 1000)) {
            // We found a match!
            break;
        }
    }

    // We found our match, or there were no matches.
    // Either way, use the last defined value for $divisor.
    return 0 + number_format($number / $divisor, $precision) . $shorthand;
} 

2. Modify my_number_format

Time to alter the actual MyBB's custom number formatting function. Add, save and apply 2 new patches with the following configurations:

File: inc/functions.php
Title: my_number_format's edit 1
Search pattern

return number_format((double)$number, $decimals, $mybb->settings['decpoint'], $mybb->settings['thousandssep']); 

Insert before

if ($number > 999) {
    return my_number_shorten($number);
} 

File: inc/functions.php
Title: my_number_format's edit 2
Search pattern

return number_format($number, 0, $mybb->settings['decpoint'], $mybb->settings['thousandssep']); 

Insert before

if ($number > 999) {
    return my_number_shorten($number);
} 

3. Enjoy!

All big numbers will be now converted to the corresponding shorthand version. You can edit the letter attached to thousands, millions, billions or trillions in the my_number_shorten() function. The crucial part is:

$divisors = array(
    pow(1000, 1) => 'k', // Thousand
    pow(1000, 2) => 'm', // Million
    pow(1000, 3) => 'b', // Billion
    pow(1000, 4) => 't', // Trillion
); 

By default, lowercase letters are used but you can use whatever you want.

Nice work sir
You really post a wonderful tutorial

Is working fine for me, but it is not working for show thread view.

How can I make it work for the showthread, I will be happy if you can help me sir
By the way this is a wonderful tutorial

As I told you on the community forums already, if variables are not sanitized with my_number_format this won't work. This is the case for {$thread['views']} in showthread. You either have to alter the core and add something like:

$thread['views'] = my_number_format($thread['views']); 

Before the showthread template is eval'd, or you use PHP in templates and format it directly in your showthread template:

<?php echo my_number_format($thread['views']) ?>

@Shade
please enlighten me more sir
i can't understand your reply sir

If you can't understand such simple instructions, desist or invest a couple of hours into learning PHP basis. It doesn't get any more simple than that I'm afraid.

Bro this is my forum https://wapforum.com.ng
Am a friendly type sir, and Am From Nigeria.

if you check my forum, you will see that the view is the only problem am having.

the two codes you just post now, have tried it, rather it just stop my forum from showing

I can't help further because I don't know how to make it simpler.