End-User Options - Navbar Forumjump- Adds a DHTML "Forum Jump" menu to your Navbar

Navbar Forumjump

This mod adds a popup menu to the navbar with quick links to all your forums.



If you like this, you can show your support by Rating it, Marking it as installed, Nominating for MOTM, and/or Donating to the author. Thanks, you rock.

Why would you want to install this?

1. Increases usability for your members.
2. Decreases server resources/usage.

How does this increase usability?

In forums I often find myself clicking on the "forum home" link to see the list of forums and then choose one to visit. With this mod, you simply click the "Forum Jump" menu, and down drops a dynamic menu with all your forums (represented in correct hierarchy of parents/children, and organized by category). The user can more easily visualize the structure of your forums, and can get to where they want to go quicker. And this is a lot prettier and better placed than the forum jump at the bottom of the pages.

How does this reduce server resources?

With this mod installed, the users will go directly to the next forum they want to visit without first going to the forum home. This saves the HTTP requests associated with a pageload, as well as the database queries required to generate the page.

All Features.

• Installation is a snap, just import the XML file
• The popup menu looks identical to the other built-in vB popup menus.
• Automatically generates the menu, if you add or remove forums, that's automatically reflected in the menu.
• The menu can optionally display a small icon that links to the last post next to the forum name.
• Respects forum permissions, hidden forums, etc. If the user is not permitted to view the forum, it won't show up, just like on the forum home page.
• No template edits needed.
• Admin control panel that explains everything, and offers many configuration options:
  • Enable / disable the mod
  • Show menu to everyone or only to logged-in members.
  • Optionally specify forums to exclude from the menu.
  • Choose to display the forumjump popup on the left or the right side of the navbar.
  • Choose to display the menu as one column, or separate each category (with its sub-forums) into its own column. You may also specify how many categories to display per column.
  • You define the characters to prepend to the forum titles to show the indented hierarchy of forums
  • Options to configure CSS styles and sizes for the menu. This allows you to shrink the menu if you have many forums by reducing the font size and the cell padding in the menu.
  • You may optionally style the currently selected forum differently than the rest (with CSS).
• The mod is fully phrased, including the ACP options and descriptions.

Changes it makes

Adds one plugin and a control panel options section (and its associated phrases). The menu is attached to the navbar using a template hook.

Installation

1. Download and uncompress the zip file.
2. Import the XML product file in the Admin Control panel.
3. Visit the Options page and see if you want to change any of the default settings. (If you're using less than vB 3.6.8 you'll need to visit the options and see how to manually insert the menu into your templates.)

Changelog/History

Version 1.0.8 Bug fix (Oct. 13, 2007)

Fixed bug when using the forumjump with vBa. (See post #145)

Version 1.0.7 Bug fixes and workarounds (Sept. 18, 2007)

Integrated fix for Smoothie's problems (Post #76 and on)
Fixed display bug from post #101
Workaround for logging out display problem (post #104)
Completely separated the auto-insert code from the manual template inserting.

Version 1.0.6 New Features (Sept. 17, 2007)

Workaround for menu display problem in Opera
New option to add a relative URL to prepend to links (helps when using vBa)
New option to not auto-display menu via template hooks. Provides better compatibility for vB < 3.6.8 and when not displaying menu in the navbar template.

Version 1.0.5 Internal Development - Not released

Version 1.0.4 New features (Sept. 12, 2007)

Added optional link (icon) to the latest post in each forum
Added admin options panel help system.
Added compatibility with vB 3.6.0 to 3.6.8

Version 1.0.3 New features (Sept. 11, 2007)

All error messages output as HTML comments (better end user experience)
You may now specify how many categories are displayed per column

Version 1.0.2 Bug fix (Sept. 10, 2007)

Fixed bug introduced in Version 1.0.1
Added more error checking
Added useful error messages for debugging.

Version 1.0.1 Bug Fixes and Enhancements (Sept. 10, 2007)

Fixed a bug when URLs have session IDs in them.
Added Option to disable the menu for non-logged-in visitors
Added Option to exclude forums

Version 1.0.0 Initial Release


Screenshots



Menu with the icon link to last post enabled.

[Selene]

thanks

[jzewatsky]

Originally Posted by oly51

One more change is needed to get the "Go to Last Post" feature working with vbadvanced CMPS.
Change the first part of line 82 to:

$lastpostlink = ' <a href="../forums/showthread.php'

Again, change "/forums/" to whatever your forums directory is.
Import and overwrite.

Thanks Oly, works great!

[Analogpoint]

Originally Posted by yoyoyoyo

When I log out of my forum the "Forum Jump" is still showing on the login.php?do=logout&logouthash= link, and it is showing forums that should not be viewable by unregistered guests, such as my moderator areas:



when I go from there to the forum index.php the forumjump is not viewable, but it is on the login page

This is a problem with the vB core. The forum jump menu is showing for the same reason that the 'register' link is not showing and the 'search' dropdown is showing instead of just a link to the search page. If, after logging out, you go to the forum home page, you will get the register link, as well as just the 'search' link instead of a drop-down.

But in any case, this is *not* a problem, since the *only* way to get to that page and view the forumjump dropdown, is to actually have the privileges and then log out.

There's not much I can do about it, since at that point the vB core code tells me that the user is still a member-- ie the $show[member] variable still evaluates to true.

[Analogpoint]

For those of you who installed this with vBa, there is now a setting to add a relative URL to prepend to the links, so you don't have to hack the files.

@Smoothie. I've done some testing and I think the latest version (1.0.6) should fix your problem. Overwrite the old version with this one, then in the settings, choose not to auto-display the menu, then in your templates, add $forumjumpmenu where you want the menu to appear.

[Smoothie]

Ok, given it another shot.

[Smoothie]

works, somewhat. Link appears in header, dropdown works, but for some reason it displays under the navbar..It's installed on site, check it out.

[Analogpoint]

Originally Posted by Smoothie

works, somewhat. Link appears in header, dropdown works, but for some reason it displays under the navbar..It's installed on site, check it out.

Would you be so kind as to try this?

[Smoothie]

Originally Posted by Analogpoint

Would you be so kind as to try this?

trying now.

[Smoothie]

It's installed, but it does not work as well as 1.0.6. It throws all the other links out of wack and it's still under the navbar.

[Analogpoint]

It must be an issue with the fact that the (hidden) dhtml menu is output right beside the menu link, instead of at the bottom of the template, like with the standard menus. Would you like to try one other tweak to see if that's the problem?