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

[greenchicken]

how do I run 160x160 on each side without users having to scroll over to view the whole page @ 1024x768?

Thanks, excellent mod (clicked installed)

[Tigratrus]

Has anyone figured out a way/plugin/block to display latest vBlog posts in the side column? vBlog entries are damn near invisible and this would seem to be the ideal way to address that? I now there's a way to do it in CMPS, but has anyone translated that into USC?

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide!

James and Susan

[birdie]

I got a problem - I have Logicain web templates installed and can not get USC to display on them.

If I check all pages in AdminCP>USC options, it will display on the Logicain pages; BUT I have vBadvanced as the home page and I do not want USC to display there, so can not check all pages ...

...is there a way around this?

[Tigratrus]

We faced something similar with trying to get USC showing up on Photoplog, but not wanting it on some other pages.

What I did was open the plugin "Ultimate Side Columns Processing" on the global_start hook location (ACP -> Plugins & Products -> Plugin Manager) and add a conditional to show the right column (we're just using the right column, not the left) like so:

if(THIS_SCRIPT == 'image')
{
eval('$usc_right = "' . fetch_template('usc_sidecolumn_right') . '";');
}

So you'd need to find the THIS_SCRIPT value for Logicain Templates and then put a conditional in to that plugin to tell it to show whichever column you want for that THIS_SCRIPT value. Then you don't need to select "All Pages" and you can still pick and choose the other areas where you want it show up.

HTH!

James and Susan

[The Wise One]

Originally Posted by bessler73

Installed this some time ago and didn't think there was a problem till I checked the server error logs. Was getting a Fatal error: Cannot use assign-op operators with overloaded objects nor string offsets. Turns out this plugin also doesn't like the misc.php the error was steming from misc.php?do=bbcode. I went and found where you put in the fix for profile.php and added !='misc' for that one as well. Most likely a temp fix and look forward to a new update on this plugin.

im running into this problem as well. i am having difficulty tracking down where to apply the fix you mention. would you mind posting the work around or pming it to me? id appreciate it.

[Finster]

I went to the vB plugin product manager, then to USC, and all the cool admin control panel stuff shown in Kerry-Anne's screen shots are not there, so where are they hiding?

[The Wise One]

Originally Posted by The Wise One

im running into this problem as well. i am having difficulty tracking down where to apply the fix you mention. would you mind posting the work around or pming it to me? id appreciate it.

never mind. i finally found it.

[treyb]

It will not work on my profile.php pages at all, http://dixietalk.com/forum/profile.php

[The Wise One]

its excluded from profile.php pages due to a fatal error that the developer hasnt fixed properly yet. temp fix was to exclude the columns from profile.php. same problem occurs with misc.php.

[treyb]

Thanks, for the info!