[chiptz]

Originally Posted by Peter Ostry

I get the point of the developer but in this case the will of users and designers is definitely to see the sidebar always on all pages. Nobody in the forum actually wants or needs to close the sidebar. But users do it because they can do it, afterwards they forget the meaning of the arrow button and don't find the content they are looking for. They may interpret the button as some graphical ornament or whatever.

---

The suggestion made by chiptz does almost work but unfortunately has a side effect:
Removing the link of the open/close button in 'sidebarext_temp' does not remove it from the start page, where it remains operable. And if you close the sidebar on the start page, it isn't displayed on the subpages. There is just an empty space where the sidebar should be.

Is there something in the FORUMHOME template I could modify to force an open sidebar? Maybe I can set the variable $vboptions['sidebarposition'] permanently to 1 somehow, or is this a matter of the mod itself?

If I just manage to remove the arrow button, I may run into an unsolvable problem, because users whose sidebar is currently collapsed won't have the chance to get it open again. So one of the following methods would be best at the moment:

1) Keeping the sidebar always open, with or without the arrow button. Important is, that the sidebar stays open.

or

2) Forgetting the users sidebar status between sessions. If they really "lose" their sidebar, it should be here again after a new login.

Any hints?

My last option would be to replace the default 'ornamental' arrow button by a text button that tells the user what to do.

Sure, to have the sidebar always on on forum home page find in FORUMHOME and remove:

<a id="sidebar_button_link" href="#">
	<vb:if condition="$show['sidebarposition'] == 'left'">
	<img id="sidebar_button" src="{vb:stylevar imgdir_misc}/tab-collapsed-left.png" alt="" />
	<vb:else />
	<img id="sidebar_button" src="{vb:stylevar imgdir_misc}/tab-collapsed.png" alt="" />
	</vb:if>
</a>

BTW, one of the good reasons to remove the possibility to collapse the sidebar is if you have advertisments on the collapsible bar. You wouldn'd want to say to your advertisers that you have 1.000.000 views for his ad when in fact half of them is on a collapsed sidebar.

I do think the content of bar is loaded even if it is collapsed. You might just want to be able to put there something that you don't want users to be able to hide it. Or you can just design your site to on specific pages the layout of the page is already considered with a sidebar.