Miscellaneous Hacks - Ultimate Side Columns 2.2

Ultimate Side Columns
By Kerry-Anne www.peterska2.co.uk

Welcome to Ultimate Side Columns 2.2 !

USC 2.2 has now been released!!!!

Introduction

Following the success of the left and right side column modifications, and building on their weaknesses, the Ultimate Side Columns system was born.

Ultimate Side Columns (USC) is your one stop shop for all your side columns needs. It is an easy to configure, all in one solution.

USC 2.0 was born through the evolution and bug fixing of USC 1.0 for vBulletin 3.6 and is for vBulletin 3.7.0 RC1 and later only. It is not supported with earlier versions and may not work with them.

Features

USC 2.0 is fully customizable, can use conditions and variables (not available in USC 1.0), has greater flexibility in where it can be omitted from (after requests received), and contains new functionality of both independently collapsible columns and user defined custom links to be displayed on a per user basis in the column location of the administrators choosing.

A maximum of 20 blocks spread over the two columns are available at this time. However, if more are required then an expansion pack will be provided. The blocks can be reordered and moved between the templates with ease through simple template edits.

USC 2.2 Change Log:
Fixed bug with profile.php?do=editattachments
Added All Pages options

USC 2.1 Change Log:
Fixed blank page caused by missing template in the XML
Added compatibility with 3.7.0 Stable/Gold
Manual Template Edit instructions added to package
Enhanced the display page choices to allow exact selection of the pages where USC is to be displayed
Added usergroup permissions in addition to the global options for viewing the left column, viewing the right column, and using the custom contents block.

USC 2.1 has additional files. You need to upload the files first BEFORE importing the product

Upgrading from USC 2.0
Upload the contents of the upload folder, except the admincp directory, then import the XML.

Go to vBOptions > USC Options and set the display pages using the new options
Go to Usergroups > Usergroup Manager and set the permissions for each usergroup as desired. By default no permissions are given to any usergroups.

Upgrading from USC 1.0

USC 2.0 has been rewritten from the ground up and therefore all the blocks have been moved from the settings into the templates. Therefore, a unique upgrade script has been provided which must be run before importing the new product. Importing the new product first will result in the loss of your existing USC contents.

The upgrade script is located in the admincp directory after uploading the USC files and is ran by pointing your browser to admincp/usc_upgrade.php

Full upgrade instructions are included in the upgrade readme file in the zip.

Installation Instructions

Download the zip, unzip it and upload the contents of the upload folder to your forum directory. Import the product, all done.

Full instructions are included in the install readme in the zip.

Support

This modification has limited support only and is therefore flagged as unsupported. Support will be given when possible although it is always preferable when users of USC support each other. This was very successful with USC 1.0 and therefore is continued with USC 2.0

If you have any other combinations of pages that you would like to see available for the column options, please post them in the support thread ensuring that you add the title "USC Page Combination Request" to your post, or use this as the first line of your post ensuring that it is in bold text. This is very specific as due to the limited nature of support and time, the support thread will only be quickly skimmed through and therefore requests may be missed if it is not clear what they are.


The screenshots attached to this post and the next one show a range of pages with a range of column combinations. They are not labeled but they are pretty self explanatory.

Enjoy USC 2.0.

Kerry-Anne


PLEASE NOTE: This modification is unsupported. You may not receive a reply right after posting. Please try and help each other out.



Problems with your side columns not showing?
For your side columns to show, you need to update your usergroup permissions from the usergroup manager for each usergroup

Problems with errors in your vBOptions?
Point your browser to admincp/index.php?do=buildbitfields then try again

[kollam003]

updated thx

[Rik Brown]

Kerry-Anne:

Just upgraded from 1.0 to 2.2 running with vb 3.7.0.

As always, a fantastic product. Works flawlessly.

Thank you very much! -- Rik

[peterska2]

Originally Posted by hornstar1337

Thanks for the update, its strange that it wouldnt work on the attachments page.

I'm completely baffled by that too - had a good argument with the code and I'm still looking into it. If it can be fixed to work correctly on that page (I found the plugin but haven't yet worked out why it isn't working) then I'll include it in 2.3 but at the moment the fix that has been put in does work, it's just not ideal. There has to be something that is clashing for some reason which is what I'm looking into but it will take a while as it is such a large file to go through (profile.php)

[DefenceTalk]

Originally Posted by Kerry-Anne

Standard forumhome variables are not global. They would need to be made into plugins in either the global_start or global_complete hook location to allow them to be used.

Things that do come up more than a couple of times are being considered for inclusion in future releases.

If people start making UCS addons then that would be really cool!

Even global_start, etc. variables do not work. I am trying to include rss feeds in the sidebars

ob_start();
require_once('rss.php');
$rss = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();

It just does not parse... its a fresh forum install with no other product installed but the USC.

Now, if you put the $rss variable in the usc_sidecolumn_right template like:
$rss
$block11
$block12
$block13
Then it works... but not when put in the block templates.

Some help would be appreciated!

Thanks

[peterska2]

Please click install to receive support. As support is limited it can only be given to those who have clicked install. In addition, support for other modifications and integrating them with USC is not something that is provided at this time. Basic integration instructions are in the readme.

[Hornstar]

I disabled it on registration pages, as I edited a phrase to improve some wording for banned email address and then the side bar was covering up part of the image verification.

However it is making my page look funny now.

Is it just me or could this be a bug?

When I disable USC altogether my registration pages look fine, so USC is making my registration pages look off in the footer.

http://www.gamerzneeds.net/forums/register.php

[peasoup]

I've been through all the readme install files and cannot get the columns to appear.

The only thing I dont understand with the install is to enable columns in the usergroup area. Where is that shown??

I had USC 1.0 working ok. I unistalled everything and started from scratch.

I've resorted to manually putting the table code in. I set a fat broder and can see the table starting and ending but no side colums.

Any help thanks.

[peterska2]

Originally Posted by hornstar1337

I disabled it on registration pages, as I edited a phrase to improve some wording for banned email address and then the side bar was covering up part of the image verification.

However it is making my page look funny now.

Is it just me or could this be a bug?

When I disable USC altogether my registration pages look fine, so USC is making my registration pages look off in the footer.

http://www.gamerzneeds.net/forums/register.php

If you have all pages unchecked and registration pages unchecked then USC will not display on any registration pages.

Originally Posted by peasoup

I've been through all the readme install files and cannot get the columns to appear.

The only thing I dont understand with the install is to enable columns in the usergroup area. Where is that shown??

I had USC 1.0 working ok. I unistalled everything and started from scratch.

I've resorted to manually putting the table code in. I set a fat broder and can see the table starting and ending but no side colums.

Any help thanks.

Ensure that you have the USC columns enabled, have set the display pages and also the usergroup permissions for the columns to be shown. If the usergroup does not have permissions to view the columns then they will not appear. If the columns are turned off or have not had display pages set then they will also not appear.

[Captain DDL]

It seems that you cannot delete your custom links, even though it says it was deleted successfully. Is this something you can reproduce, Kerry-Anne? If not, what could be causing this?

[peterska2]

I can reproduce this and it will be fixed in the next version. In the meantime, setting the display order to 0 will stop the link from being displayed.