DJ's Dynamic Tab Content for Postbit_Legacy
 

**vBulletin 3.x version can be found here: DJ's Dynamic Tab Content for Postbit_Legacy**

Ever felt your postbit_legacy template was just too long? Or maybe you'd like to add more content to your postbit_legacy, but you don't like the cluttered look or extended length of the post, especially when most posts are only a handful of sentences? Almost every decent modification here on vB.org has the option to add a link or a display to your postbit templates, and you've likely struggled, as I have, to come up with just the info you want to display, likely excluding things you thought would look real nice, but just couldn't justify the room for.

Now I've seen several good modifications that address this problem, and all of them are pretty nice. I've seen everything from a drop-down menu that displays the content, to a box that can be opened and closed just underneath the avatar. All of them are practical in their own way, and here's one more way that I worked out using a script from Dynamic Drive's website called Tab Content Script. This cleaned up my postbit_legacy just the way I wanted, and let me add even more content then I would have originally intended. It also allowed me to organize content in whatever manner I wished. I love it and I think you will too.






Difficulty: Intermediate
A few things you should know before moving forward. The instructions for this mod are not your standard template modification instructions. It's going to presume that you've edited your postbit_legacy template before and that you're somewhat familiar with its content, with HTML and how to wrap <if condition=""> conditionals. So it's not going to be a "look for this line of code, add this under it" kind of traditional tutorial. What I'm going to do is show you the basic code, how to implement it and then let you do with it what you want. That is, after all, the reason I came up with mod in first place, and I know everyone wont have the same postbit content and/or will want to set theirs up differently.

With that said, knowledge of how to modify your templates and basic HTML coding is something every vBulletin administrator should have. I'm not a coder. I'm a complete hack. But I know enough to take some of the wealth of code snippets available on the web and attempt to use them in new and inventive ways. Administrating a vB forum is that much more satisfying as a result.


Installation
To add this to your forum requires you to upload some files, make one edit to your headinclude template and one to your postbit_legacy template. If you don't know what postbit_legacy does, it's the template that controls the look of your posts when you've chosen to have avatars and user information appear to the left hand side of your posts. If you don't use that look for your forum, but instead use the one where avatars appear above your posts, then that means you use the postbit template, and this modification wasn't designed to look right on that template. (Though we have had a few users give it a try.)

Step 1.
First things first. After downloading the Attachment 113756 file, extract the contents and upload the postbit_tabs folder in your forum's root directory (Your forum root is the folder you have physically installed vBulletin in, which means that for some folks, this isn't the same thing as your site root.)

Step 2.
Right click and download this JavaScript file from the Dynamic Drive website: tabcontent.js (You can also download it from this page.) Upload it to the postbit_tabs folder you just added to your website.

Step 3.
Now to edit your headinclude template. Go to Admin CP >>> Styles & Templates >>> Style Manager >>> <<>> >>> headinclude.

Add the following block of code to the very bottom. Remember to keep the copyright intact for legal use.
Step 4.
Now to access your postbit_legacy template, go to Admin CP >>> Styles & Templates >>> Style Manager >>> <<>> >>> Postbit Templates >>> postbit_legacy.

From here, your going to add a basic set of code from which you can then customize it. You can pretty much add it anywhere in the template, but most likely your going to want to add it just below the avatar. If that's the case, your avatar code is most likely going to look something like this:

Below that add this basic set of code. This block of code will be your physical tab content.

Now go to your forum and see if your tabs are displaying properly and your not getting any errors. You should have five dot tabs that display five different sets of information when clicked.

Final Steps
Now comes the hard part. Now you have to decide what you want to put in those places called Tab 1 Content:Block A, etc. This is where knowledge of your postbit_legacy template comes into play. Your now going to move whatever content you want in the respective tabs from their current location into the tabs. This is entirely up to you, but you can use my forum as a starting point. The following posts also have some tips to help you along the way.

Post 2 has a Basic Breakdown of what the tabs do, a tutorial on how to add more tabs, default snippets of code that you can move into the tabs containers as well some snippets from common hacks.

Post 3 has some links to other sites that have implemented this hack to give you an idea of what can be done with it. And it has some additional images to use in place of the default dots.

Post 5 has Frequently Asked Questions for most problems you would encounter.




Known Bugs
There is one minor issue with the tabs that only occurs when using the AJAX quick reply and inline editing. Actually it's two issues, but I've only seen one or the other on my live site vs. my demo board. In one instance, the entire content of all your tabs displays all at once when posting/editing using AJAX. This is not a huge deal, as the only person who sees it do that is the person doing the posting/editing. And it will return to normal anytime he reloads or refreshes the page. The other instance is when after posting/editing through AJAX, no tab content appears, except the dot tabs. This is also not a huge deal as the same thing will happen here too; only the poster sees it and it will look normal anytime he returns or reloads the page. I think it's a minor trade off for the sleek look it gives your forum the rest of the time.

Upgrade Instructions
For those using the vBulletin 3.x version and who want to upgrade, follow the instructions I'll be including shortly in a subsequent post.

**This section may need a little tweaking. But it's fundamentally the same as before. I'll double check it after the sleep tabs wear off**

Basic Breakdown
Here's a basic explanation as to how the code works. This should help you to create new tabs and what can be edited in the code to your preferences.

The Tabs: Let's take a look back at the code you just added. In Step 4 you added a bunch of lines like this one. These are your tabs, the parts that people will actually click on to change the content view. In this example we're looking at the code for Tab 2.

The code in red is your TITLE. It's what will show in the Tool Tip when someone mouseovers one of the tabs. Change this to your liking. I group my tabs by categories like Contact Info, TCG Info, General Info, etc. Do what cha' like.

The code in blue just a non-breaking space added in so people have something to click on. Users will see a background image, but what they'll actually be clicking is this non-breaking space. Change this space if you want to use text for your tabs instead of images. Otherwise just leave it be. (See FAQ)

The Containers: Now lets take a look at your containers. These are the DIVs that will display your content when a new tab is clicked. Each one is marked <!-- TAB [#] CONTENT --> and correspond to each of the tabs mentioned in the block of code above.

The code in blue, the DIV, is your container, and is needed for the tabs to work. This part you would not change.

Everything on the inside is replaceable code and can be customize to look however you want. Examples of code snippets you can move into each of these tabs can be found a little further down in this post.



Creating New Tabs
Let's take a look at the Step 4 code again. Here's the code for Tab 2 again, as well as it's corresponding container.

The green code in both blocks here is what tells Tab 2 to show container 2's content. The rel of the tab is the same as the id of the container. They're both tab2{vb:raw post.postid}.

So when creating additional tabs, pick up where the numbers left off on the last tab and start again. I had you install 5 tabs, so if your using all 5 and want to add another, the rel for your new tab and id for your new container would both be tab6{vb:raw post.postid}. The next tab and container you add would be tab7{vb:raw post.postid}. Then the next tab8{vb:raw post.postid} and so on and so forth. You get the idea.



More Options
NOTE: This has since been set to false by default. Users have been reporting some login issues when this is set to true. So use at your own discretion.

This line of code sets the persistence of a clicked tab each time a user returns to that page during the same browser session. Set to true, and the last clicked tab will always display that tab on reload. Set to false, and it will show the tab with the ID selected each time. Note that each tab is unique, and having this set to true won't make much of a difference to your users view of the forum. The only tab that will ever persist is the one he/she clicked on, on a specific post in a specific thread, and only there. And only during the same browser session.


Put a number inside the parenthesis to determine how many milliseconds you want to pass between each time the tabs automatically toggle themselves. I have not tried this option yet, and I can imagine that it would be very annoying. But I figured, why not let you try it.

vBulletin IF Conditionals can be used to show/hide whole tabs, or the specific content of tabs based on a number of parameters: Usergroup Permissions, Forum IDs, User IDs, Thread IDs, Post IDs, etc. Just wrap a conditional around a whole tab and then it's container, or wrap the content of the container in any number of fashions. To learn more about what conditionals are available here are two good resources:





Default Postbit Legacy Code Bits
Here's a few of the things that come standard in vBulletin that you might want to move to the various DIV containers.

Online Status:
Posts:
Age:
Join Date:
Biography:
Interests:
Occupation:
Infractions:
Reputation:
Instant Messengers:

Common Hack Postbit Legacy Code Bits
Here's a few code bits that you'll find in some of the more common vBulletin modifications that you might have installed that you'd like to move to the DIV containers.


vBCredits:
Countries/Region Flags (Replace 8 and 9 with whatever fields your using):
ibProArcade (With some slight additions by me):

Made Up Postbit Legacy Codes:
And here's at least one I just went ahead and made up for my forum:
Send User a PM/Email/Friend Request:

If you have more examples that I can post, possible some I overlooked or mods I don't have installed, please feel free to post them and I'll add them to this post.

Additional Live Demos
Here's some additional examples of how people have utilized the script on their forums

http://www.cogonline.net/forums/showthread.php?t=44718
http://www.glamrocktalk.com/showthre...?p=177#post177
http://jpicforum.info/lots-humor/why...road-6801.html
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=300
http://www.phinzmania.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42794
http://www.stickskills.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3392


Additional Dot Images
Here's a few additional Dot Images in different colors for your convience.

Attachment 85834 Attachment 85835 Attachment 85836 Attachment 85837 Attachment 85838 Attachment 85839 Attachment 85840 Attachment 85841 Attachment 85842 Attachment 85843 https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/attachmen...4&d=1219301486 https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/attachmen...5&d=1219301486

Upgrading from the vB3.x Version
This is actually very easy. If your still using the old version, and you want to just migrate your old code over to the new templates, just change these things in the Tab Content code you added to your two templates.

In headinclude:
Change both instances of

Code:

---

$vboptions[bburl]

---

to

Code:

---

{vb:raw vboptions.bburl}

---

In postbit_legacy:
Find each instance of

Code:

---

$post[postid]

---

in the tab code, and replace them with

Code:

---

{vb:raw post.postid}

---

Now edit your existing content code if necessary, since they also probably use new values.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

1. Some of the content of my postbit_legacy was done automatically by some modifications. How do I move that content into one of the tabs?

   Answer: Modifications that add content to your postbit automatically do so using one of your template hooks. Search your posbit_legacy template for a template hook close to the area the content you want to move is displayed and try moving it around to see if that's where it's controlled. The most common hooks to be used by modifications are:
   
   {vb:raw template_hook.postbit_userinfo_left}
   {vb:raw template_hook.postbit_userinfo_right_after_posts}
   {vb:raw template_hook.postbit_userinfo_right}
   

2. I have a lot of content that uses the template hooks, so everything ends up in one place. I can't split it up. How do I move the content where I want it to go?

   Answer: What you can try to do is check each of your modifications plugins that use the postbit's template hook. The easiest way to do this is to go through your Plugin Manager and peruse each of your product's plugins. Look for the plugins that use the postbit_display_complete hook. Disable them one at a time, each time checking to see if something disappears from your forum's postbits. You've likely found the right plugin.
   
   Now the next part is trickier. In some cases, the plugin calls a template to display it's information. So in those cases, you can turn the plugin off and look for the template it calls and copy and paste that template information into your postbit_legacy template instead. For instance, DownloadsII postbit information is controlled via the downloads_postbit_display_complete plugin. And all that plugin says is:
   
   

   PHP Code:

   ---

   global $vbulletin;
if ($vbulletin->options['ecshowmemberinfo'])
{
 eval('$template_hook[postbit_userinfo_right_after_posts] .= " ' . fetch_template('downloads_memberinfo_postbit') . '";');
} 


   ---

   Notice the fetch_template part calls a template called downloads_memberinfo_postbit. That's the template you can go into and copy and paste what's in there into your postbit_legacy, in turn turning this plugin off.
   
   In other cases, the plugin might reference a PHP file, in which case you'd have to go to that file and search for the code to duplicate. Another case might have the postibit code worked right into the plugin itself. In all cases though, provided you can find the HTML code used, you can just disable that one plugin and post the HTML code wherever you want (and however you want it to look) in your postbit_legacy template, removing any extraneous code inherent to PHP, like escaped quotations \"

3. Can I use text or different images for the tabs?

   Answer: Absolutely. If you want different images, all you have to do is replace the two images in the postbit_tabs folder. If you want text instead, type what you want to appear in place of the &nbsp; in between the <li></li> tags. Just remember to remove the references to background images in the CSS file.
   

4. Can I use different images for different tabs?

   Answer: Yes, but you would need to add the image code for each image to the posbit_legacy template. Replace each of the &nbsp; in between the <li></li> tags with the images of your choice. You may also need to remove the references to the background images in the CSS file. Note, though, that this has some limitations. For example, all your images would look the same all the time. Though they would be different from each other, they would not change when clicked on or deselected.
   

5. I've made the template edits, but the tabs don't show. They just stretch out underneath each other like a list.

   Answer: This is because your CSS file can't be found. Are you sure you uploaded the postbit_tabs folder to your forum root? Your forum root is the folder you have physically installed vBulletin. For a lot of us, this is the same as our site root, but for those of us who have installed vBulletin in a subfolder, (such as a folder named forums) then that's where our postbit_tabs folder should be located. Also check to make sure your FTP client didn't drop any files during transfer by re-uploading the files.
   

6. I've made the template edits, but when I click the tabs, nothing happens or the forum just jumps to the top of the page.

   Answer: This is because your Javascript file can't be found. Are you sure you uploaded the postbit_tabs folder to your forum root? Your forum root is the folder you have physically installed vBulletin. For a lot of us, this is the same as our site root, but for those of us who have installed vBulletin in a subfolder, (such as a folder named forums) then that's where our postbit_tabs folder should be located. Also check to make sure your FTP client didn't drop any files during transfer by re-uploading the files.
   

7. My forum doesn't display those little boxes.

   Then you probably don't have the CSS code for .info on your forum. It's a commonly used CSS class name in many styles, but not all have it, or have different names. First take a moment to look at your forum and see if you don't have a box style somewhere that's being used and just use it's class (presuming it has one) rather than .info. Alternatively, you can use the following code, but change the color codes to match your forum:
   

   PHP Code:

   ---

   /* Info Boxes CSS */
.info {
font-size:10px;
font-face:Arial;
color: #CCCCCC;
padding-left: 3px;
padding-right: 3px;
padding-top: 3px;
padding-bottom: 3px;
background-color: #181818;
border-top: 1px solid #000000;
border-right: 2px solid #000000;
border-left: 1px solid #000000;
border-bottom: 2px solid #000000;
margin-bottom: 3px;
} 


   ---

   Remember that this goes in your Additional CSS Definitions way down at the bottom of your Main CSS controls in the Style Manager.

Tagged, Bit too complicated for me,lol

Will get a friend to try to install this for me later when more have seen if it works correctly on v4.0.2

cheers

Got it working myself and a great addition, if possible can you help with a little addition for me ?

I have :

The RED text, how would i put this in my code so it shows that text only in red ?

Also to have a space between each answer ?

Also when it shows in the postbit_legacy, where my answer is for CLAN URL, Can this be made clickable so people can click the clan URL and be directed to that site in another page ?

Cheers in advance

good one.. but i m too lazy do all the edits.. wanna make it a product :)

You just copy the code and put it in one the DIV containers, as I've outlined above. Same code, just in a different spot. Creating links is something easy enough to do, but you would need to look up how to make a hyperlink in HTML. Fairly simple stuff there. Try http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_links.asp


This just isn't something that is practical as a product. It would require template edits to the same templates, either way. Down the road, maybe I'll try something. But the way modifications are set to display in the postbit, there's no way to make this work around things that use the template hooks.

Sweet. Thanks. I was hoping this one would carry over.

installed + 5 Stars

goood work

thanxxx man

example : http://www.alra7ba.net/vb/showthread...213#post174213
________
CHRYSLER FLATHEAD ENGINE

This is definitely an Intermediate type modification, and necessarily so for the type of code being used. That said, it's workable, but it will take some time to understand if you've not done a lot of template editing. But if you work this out, you'll be able to do a great many thing with your template that you never realized you could, and maybe even come up with some things of your own, all without necessarily knowing anything about coding.

What exactly did you have trouble with? Anything that wasn't covered in the FAQ

Does not work. I'm pretty much advanced when it comes to coding and using Dynamic Drive stuff. Don't know why it will not work. I've tried several things.

Post your postbit_legacy code, and maybe we can find the problem.

Thanks I solved the problem. It was not the hack it was me being way too tired to install stuff lol.

This is alot. I want to install but Im afraid of making a mistake. Please make this into a product, thanks.

Had to do some messing around but finally got it working perfectly. Thanks!

I could use some help with this. I have set it up so that the basic user info is in one tab, Downloads and some other stuff is in a second tab, and I want to put the vbActivity stuff in a third tab, but I can't figure out what to put in the code. This is everything in the plugin that contains the vbactivity postbit:

I tried pasting the code from the php file, but it failed. Does anyone have a suggestion?

I don't think that will happening any time soon. As I mentioned before, even as a product, you would still be required to make template edits and be required to understand the basic code.


That would depend on what the code from the PHP file is.

Just found this and will be giving it a shot as soon as I can design how I want it to look on my forums. This is really nice and I felt should get a bump. =)

Ok, so I found some time to play with this today and ran into a few issues. Most of them are going to be things I need to fix/figure out myself as I have many mods dumping data into the postbit... that should be fun.. ugh! ;)

Anyway, I did run into one problem with the directions given here and it took me a bit to figure out.

The directions mention right clicking the tabcontent.js file and saving. You can't do that. Dynamic Drive prevents the hotlinking of their files and you get a file that doesn't work. Ultimately it saves as tabcontent.js.htm and just contains their "This is a no no" message in HTML.

So basically, you need to do what the second part of the directions say and go there and directly download it.

Finally installing this to what will be my live site, but I'm coming across a problem in 4.0.3. Basically, the headinclude code breaks the side somehow, resulting in an error that flashes in the window just long enough to be visible but not long enough to copy and select. Then the thread page loads with the templates or css or something all broken. I tried disabling other add-ons but the only thing that fixed it was reverting that one template.

Hi Jedi,
I had you install this on my site a year or so ago. It's a fantastic addition to any vb forum!!

Very professional.

As soon as I get some bucks in my paypal I'll hook up with ya to install this for me again on my vb4 site.

Hello,

I have adapted this code to work as a signature slider instead of a user info "slider". It works perfectly, I have added 5 extra signatures to a users sig placeholder. Only issue I'm having is that the buttons do not appear if using google chrome. It works perfect with IE and FF but Chrome the buttons don't show. Any ideas how I can fix this issue?

p.s.: If I can post the dynamic signature slider here let me know and I will gladly share it with you guys. (there is a signature slider mod in vbunderground but it does NOT work how they specify it there.)

EDITED:

I have come across several solutions for the issue with google chrome not displaying the buttons ; I enabled mytabs.init() and put in 10 sec intervals and the images do show rotating(but still no buttons to manually change the pic). Although we have run into another issue, we have LiveTopic installed for the forums and when in a thread that is "Live" the images do not show at all. You would have to refresh the page or edit your post to make the images viewable by you and the other users if and when they are in a "live" thread. If anyone has any feedback regarding these issues it would be greatly appreciated. Here is the modified version for signatures if anyone wants to use it go ahead, and many thanks to Digital Jedi for this very useful mod.
PS..: I have made this so that only a certain usergroups can use the sig slider and the rest their normal signatures.

PS..: 2 We have found that the live topic issue and the button images not appearing is exclusive to Google Chrome. In IE and FF it works PERFECT! I can provide demo link if needed.

Hey there,
I have added the header stuff to the headerinclude, I have uploaded the files about five times have attempted the postbit template edits about five times and they are still not showing up.

Below is my postbit template can anyone help in telling me where I am going wrong?

Bump incase anyone can help but haven't seen this!

Is this thread even supported anymore? It's been a month since I tried to get help.

Which is why I provided the alternate download. ;) I have, on occasion, still been able to download the JS file directly.


Could you link me an example? I haven't had a chance to see this used on a board with a side installed yet. My demo board doesn't include the suite.


Thanks, Gary. :)


Was this only with the Singnature Slider or did you have trouble with the Dynamic Postbit as well? I know I have not had any trouble with my postbit mod, but I did run into issues whenever the init was set. That particular part of the JavaScript just didn't jibe well with vBulletin.


I don't see anything wrong with your Legacy code, offhand. I would need to take a look at your site with the edits in place to see what the trouble is.

I always check back. But a month is not that unusual for me. Since my last post, my daughter was in the hospital a couple of times. Haven't had a chance to check back until now. However, my last post was in response to the problem you were having with some PHP code, which I needed to see before I could really say what was wrong. Is your last post not related to this?

Thanks for hanging around. I didn't mean to come off rude (if I did), but I am too used to developers for Drupal and Wordpress disappearing in the middle of a good add-on and never being seen again. I'll turn the add-on back on for my site and then PM you with the access info so you can see it in action. That will be later today, as I need to warn my test users first. My site isn't quite live yet, so it's still hidden.

Edit: and I hope your daughter is ok! That's a good reason for not being around, no excuses necessary.

No, I just thought I'd explain why I wasn't around and that It's not odd for that to happen from time to time. I always check back on my mods. It's just not as often as I'd like. :)

If I don't get back to you tonight (as I'll be out tonight) I'll try to get to your site within the next couple of days.

I did the template edits and nothing at all showed up.

And you're certain you edit the right skin?

I only have one skin and so yes I am certain I am editing the right skin :D

I figured it out! The copyright symbol in this line of code:

That character breaks the entire script. I figured it out on accident, because when trying to load that code addition it would cut off one character before it. I don't know if vB can't load it or if it is a language thing or what, but I've removed the little c with a circle on my own site now.

Even if the JavaScript and CSS files had been in the wrong location, you still should have something show up in the postbit. Are you sure you edited the right template? Are you using posbit_legacy or postbit on your forum?

That's an odd one. It really shouldn't have any affect on the code, being commented out and all.

Yeah, I don't know why it happened, especially since I installed it without this problem on an earlier version. Perhaps a language setting? Either way, the error I got was about an unexpected ascii thing, and I'm used to language problems, so I went looking for a rogue character and found that instead.

I'm happy now that I can finally implement this product. I'm using a lot of space-consuming mods, so this is vital if I want to keep my forum looking sleek.

I notice vB.org converts ASCII code in posts. If I type it converts it to ?. Can't even preview more than once without it converting the one in the PHP tags. I wonder what would be converting it back.

It was only with the signature slider. I never actually tried the postbit yet. Everything is working perfect in IE and FF just in google Chrome the buttons don't show that's all. Also would you by any chance know how I could have the page not to move up or down when the signature slides change. For example one member has a one of the sig larger than the others then whenever that sig is displayed the page moves by it's self. Is there any way to correct this without having the page jump around? It is really annoying specially when your trying to write a post or reply. Would appreciate any help I can get. Thanks again for the awesomeness.