come on here brandon
ok.. don't really know the setup of the spotlight table.. but I'd guess there's some autoindex. (1-x)
So....
SELECT max(spotlight_id) FROM spotlight_list
vB query...
$pick_this_one = rand(0, $spotlight_id_max);
SELECT * FROM spotlight_list WHERE spotlight_id = $pick_this_one
Yup... there ya go.
or... I guess you could base it on session time or system time. (IE: total_spotlights % some_value)
yeah... i know... i needs 2 queries
OR... assumeing that vB has some "master config" table which takes all the fields/rows and dumps it into an array, you could have a config value max_spotlight. That's like 100 extra bytes and only requires to be run when a post is spotlighted.
Jack
PS: FYI to anyone.. Brandon really doesn't need the big roadmap i gave him
.. I just wanted to have some fun
edit: the perfict way to bring down cd. Add a field to the user table which is updated every page refresh to the next spotlight_id
- Would never get repeates tho