Miscellaneous Hacks - DJ's Dynamic Tab Content for Postbit_Legacy

**As with most template edits, this modification is not version specific and will work on any vBulletin for vB3. You can find the vB4 version here.**

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.

Screenshots

Live Demo
Click any of the grey dots beneath the user's avatars.

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 Dynamic Tab Content for Postbit_Legacy.zip 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.

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="$vboptions[bburl]/postbit_tabs/tabcontent.css" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="$vboptions[bburl]/postbit_tabs/tabcontent.js">
/***********************************************
* Tab Content script v2.2- ? Dynamic Drive DHTML code library (www.dynamicdrive.com)
* This notice MUST stay intact for legal use
* Visit Dynamic Drive at http://www.dynamicdrive.com/ for full source code
***********************************************/
</script>

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:

PHP Code:

<if condition="$show['avatar']">
    <div class="smallfont">
     &nbsp;<br /><a href="member.php?$session[sessionurl]u=$post[userid]"><img src="$post[avatarurl]" $post[avwidth] $post[avheight] alt="<phrase 1="$post[username]">$vbphrase[xs_avatar]</phrase>" border="0" /></a>
    </div>
   </if> 


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

PHP Code:

<!-- BEGIN POSTBIT TABS -->
<div id="postbittabs$post[postid]" class="djdot">
 
<ul>
<li><span title="View Tab 1"><a href="#" rel="tab1$post[postid]" id="selected$post[postid]">&nbsp;</a></span></li>
<li><span title="View Tab 2"><a href="#" rel="tab2$post[postid]">&nbsp;</a></span></li>
<li><span title="View Tab 3"><a href="#" rel="tab3$post[postid]">&nbsp;</a></span></li>
<li><span title="View Tab 4"><a href="#" rel="tab4$post[postid]">&nbsp;</a></span></li>
<li><span title="View Tab 5"><a href="#" rel="tab5$post[postid]">&nbsp;</a></span></li>
</ul>
 
<br style="clear: left" />
 
</div>
 
<div class="smallfont">
 
<!--TAB 1 CONTENT -->
<div id="tab1$post[postid]" class="tabcontent">
 
<div class="info">Tab 1 Content:Block A</div>
<div class="info">Tab 1 Content:Block B</div>
<div class="info">Tab 1 Content:Block C</div>
 
</div>
 
<!-- TAB 2 CONTENT -->
<div id="tab2$post[postid]" class="tabcontent">
 
<div class="info">Tab 2 Content:Block A</div>
<div class="info">Tab 2 Content:Block B</div>
<div class="info">Tab 2 Content:Block C</div>
<div class="info">Tab 2 Content:Block D</div>
 
</div>
 
<!-- TAB 3 CONTENT -->
<div id="tab3$post[postid]" class="tabcontent">
 
<div class="info">Tab 3 Content:Block A</div>
<div class="info">Tab 3 Content:Block B</div>
<div class="info">Tab 3 Content:Block C</div>
<div class="info">Tab 3 Content:Block D</div>
<div class="info">Tab 3 Content:Block E</div>
<div class="info">Tab 3 Content:Block F</div>
 
</div>
 
<!-- TAB 4 CONTENT -->
<div id="tab4$post[postid]" class="tabcontent">
 
<div class="info">Tab 4 Content:Block A</div>
<div class="info">Tab 4 Content:Block B</div>
<div class="info">Tab 4 Content:Block C</div>
 
</div>
 
<!-- TAB 5 CONTENT -->
<div id="tab5$post[postid]" class="tabcontent">
 
<div class="info">Tab 5 Content:Block A</div>
<div class="info">Tab 5 Content:Block B</div>
<div class="info">Tab 5 Content:Block C</div>
<div class="info">Tab 5 Content:Block D</div>
<div class="info">Tab 5 Content:Block E</div>
<div class="info">Tab 5 Content:Block F</div>
<div class="info">Tab 5 Content:Block G</div>
<div class="info">Tab 5 Content:Block H</div>
<div class="info">Tab 5 Content:Block I</div>
 
</div>
 
</div>
 
 
<script type="text/javascript">
var mytabs=new ddtabcontent("postbittabs$post[postid]")
mytabs.setpersist(false)
mytabs.setselectedClassTarget("link")
mytabs.init()
</script>
 
<!-- END POSTBIT TABS --> 


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 1.00 version of this modification, please see this post for upgrade instructions.

[RedTrinity]

Originally Posted by Digital Jedi

Just look for this line:

 
mytabs.setpersist(true)

Change true to false and then see if your users stop having their login issues.

Thank you!!!

And by the way this is just what we have been looking for, as the awards and virtual pet hacks have been taking up quite a bit of postbit space with members lately.

For this reason I have nominated for MOTM Can't wait to see how it develops further!

Cheers

[g0dfather1984]

Great feature. How would I go about changing the colors of the dots? Some of my members say they can't see them due to the background color of the board.

[Digital Jedi]

Replace the two images to the images of your choosing.

[PoetJA-1975]

I nominated MOTM too - Great addition = Thanx for sharing!

Jacquii.

[TimberFloorAu]

Originally Posted by PoetJA-1975

I nominated MOTM too - Great addition = Thanx for sharing!

Jacquii.

DITTO !

[Digital Jedi]

Thanks a lot gang. Much appreciated.

[loonytune15]

Great Hack. I have been looking for something like this for ages. Any chance of creating something similiar for the whats going on box?

[The D]

Very nice. I wish I could use it on 3.6.8, but it doesn't work on my forum. Everytime I click one of the buttons, it takes me to the forum index. I didn't think that'd be a version thing, but I couldn't ever get it to work.

Nevertheless, just wanted to tell you that it's very cool, keep up the good work.

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by The D

Very nice. I wish I could use it on 3.6.8, but it doesn't work on my forum. Everytime I click one of the buttons, it takes me to the forum index. I didn't think that'd be a version thing, but I couldn't ever get it to work.

Nevertheless, just wanted to tell you that it's very cool, keep up the good work.

Version wouldn't matter at all, as the code was designed for use in general web design. Would you mind posting me your postbit_legacy template and I can tell you what's going wrong?

Originally Posted by loonytune15

Great Hack. I have been looking for something like this for ages. Any chance of creating something similiar for the whats going on box?

Not for What's Going On, but I do have a couple of other ideas in mind for later release.

[OcR Envy]

What update was made? Can we get a change log, what what?