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

[NsT]

Originally Posted by Kerry-Anne

Yes, use template conditionals in your blocks to do this.

Hi,

Could you please give an example of the conditional?
Your help is greatly appreciated.

Tony

[DeepXP]

Hi,
I am facing this really strange issue, I am not able to get the columns display despite of following the instructions.

I had version 1.0 installed earlier but I uninstalled it and installed the latest version from scratch. (i.e. didn't run the upgrade script)

I added the sample code in block1 but still the left column doesn't get displayed. (Yes, it's been enabled in vb options)

My forum URL is: http://forums.tybcom.com

Any kind of help is appreciated.

Regards,
Deep

[xnewman]

Please, is anyone show me some simple tutorial how to use some plugins/variables in usc columns?

Thanks a lot!

[xnewman]

oups ... I meant "is anyone able to show me....."

[b65ran]

Thanks for the nice hack. I have a question though. How can you make the column floatable. What I mean is when a user will scroll down the page column will move with it.

Thanks

[peterska2]

Originally Posted by b65ran

Thanks for the nice hack. I have a question though. How can you make the column floatable. What I mean is when a user will scroll down the page column will move with it.

Thanks

It won't do that, or at least not in version 2.x I haven't got this on my wish list for 3.0 either, and it is unlikely to be put on there as there are many completely different issues for this type that are specific to that. I did release one that did this a while back which can be found in my profile. As long as it is for 3.5 or 3.6 then it will work on 3.7 (I think it is probably 3.6, but it might be older than that - I know it is a good while ago).

Originally Posted by DeepXP

Hi,
I am facing this really strange issue, I am not able to get the columns display despite of following the instructions.

I had version 1.0 installed earlier but I uninstalled it and installed the latest version from scratch. (i.e. didn't run the upgrade script)

I added the sample code in block1 but still the left column doesn't get displayed. (Yes, it's been enabled in vb options)

My forum URL is: http://forums.tybcom.com

Any kind of help is appreciated.

Regards,
Deep

Check that you have enabled the usergroup to be able to view the columns in the usergroup > edit usergroup page. By default it is disabled for all usergroups here.

[kinggori]

I love how this mod says "Not Supported" although Kerry-Anne is one of the best developers and most supportive. Thank you Kerry-Anne :-)

[vcruiser]

Display Pages For Left Column
Using this setting you can determine the pages where the left column will be displayed.
An error occurred while processing the bitfield files, the following information was returned:
Error:
1
Display Pages For Right Column
Using this setting you can determine the pages where the right column will be displayed.
An error occurred while processing the bitfield files, the following information was returned:

I have my page width set at 960 px, I don't know if that affects the install. Any ideas on how I can fix this?

[DeepXP]

Originally Posted by Kerry-Anne

Check that you have enabled the usergroup to be able to view the columns in the usergroup > edit usergroup page. By default it is disabled for all usergroups here.

Aha, You rock :up:

It worked..

Thanks
Deep

[apex944]

This zip file is corrupted.