I customized our installation of osTicket to have a default topic listed on the Open Ticket screen (instead of the default being 'Select One'). This is on 1.6ST.

MySQL

ALTER TABLE ost_help_topic ADD COLUMN isdefault TINYINT(1) UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT 0 AFTER isactive;

/include/client/open.inc.php

The block containing the Help Topic (~Line 49) should look like this.

<tr>

<th>Help Topic:</th>

<td>

<select name="topicId">

<option value="" selected >Select One</option>

<?

//$services = db_query('SELECT topic_id,topic FROM '.TOPIC_TABLE.' WHERE isactive=1 ORDER BY topic');

$services = db_query('SELECT topic_id,topic,isdefault FROM '.TOPIC_TABLE.' WHERE isactive=1 ORDER BY topic');

if($services && db_num_rows($services)) {

//while (list($topicId,$topic) = db_fetch_row($services)){

while (list($topicId,$topic,$isdefault) = db_fetch_row($services)){

//$selected = ($info==$topicId)?'selected':'';

if ($info==$topicId) $selected = 'selected';

else if ($isdefault) $selected = 'selected';

else $selected = ""; ?>

<option value="<?=$topicId?>"<?=$selected?>><?=$topic?></option>

<?

}

}else{?>

<option value="0" >General Inquiry</option>

<?}?>

</select>

 <font class="error">* <?=$errors?></font>

</td>

</tr>

/include/staff/topic.inc.php

Add a new block between "Auto Response" and "New Ticket Priority" (~Line 46).

<tr>

<th nowrap>Make Default</th>

<td>

<input type="checkbox" name="isdefault" value=1 <?=$info? 'checked': ''?> >

   (<i>Makes this the default help topic on ticket open page</i>)

</td>

</tr>

/include/staff/helptopics.inc.php

Revise the SQL at the top (note the addition of topic.isdefault) like this...

$sql='SELECT topic_id,isactive,topic.noautoresp,topic.isdefault,topic.dept_id,topic,dept_name,priority_desc,topic.created,topic.updated FROM '.TOPIC_TABLE.' topic '.

' LEFT JOIN '.DEPT_TABLE.' dept ON dept.dept_id=topic.dept_id '.

' LEFT JOIN '.TICKET_PRIORITY_TABLE.' pri ON pri.priority_id=topic.priority_id ';

$services=db_query($sql.' ORDER BY topic');

...and add a Table Header for the Default column (~Line 21).

Default

/include/class.topic.php

Modify the load() function like this (~Line 51)...

$this->autoresp=$info?false;

$this->default_topic=$info?true;

$this->info=$info;

...and modify the save() function to add this section to make sure that only one item is set default (~Line 126)...

if ($vars) {

$sql='UPDATE '.TOPIC_TABLE.' SET isdefault = 0'; db_query($sql);

$sql='UPDATE '.TOPIC_TABLE.' SET isdefault = 1 WHERE topic_id = '.$id; db_query($sql);

}

...and lastly, the if(!$errors) item needs to be updated (~Line 140).

',isactive='.db_input($vars).

',isdefault='.db_input($vars).

',noautoresp='.db_input(isset($vars)?1);