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

[BlueNinjaGo]

Originally Posted by Fungsten

Works on mine except for the Custom Columns.

What's your template code? Maybe it's not right? I had to tinker with mine a little.

[Fungsten]

Originally Posted by BlueNinjaGo

What's your template code? Maybe it's not right? I had to tinker with mine a little.

This is it:

<tr>
<td class="tcat">$vbphrase[your_custom_contents]</td>
</tr>
$custom_row

[Sorky]

Hi Kerry-Anne,

I just helped a user of one of my Plug-Ins who was also using your Plug-In and they had a problem

I was able to trace the problem to your "USC Alignment Fix" (or my "Sorky03 - SubForum List Control - parse_templates" parse_template hook). I changed the execution order of yours from 5 to 6 and they both play together nicely

Similarly, I may be able to change the execution order of mine and they may also play together nicely, but as I noticed that you have two (2) parse_template hooks, I thought it worth getting your thoughts on how we can make sure this is not a recurring issue

My parse_templates code line of interest...

$vbulletin->templatecache['header'] .= $Sorky03_headerExtras;

.
Your parse_template code line of interest...

$vbulletin->templatecache['header'] = $vbulletin->templatecache['header'] . '";$spacer_open="';

.
Have you got any idea why either would affect the other?

PS: My Plug-In is here

[Scooterpig]

Thank you for a great mod, have had it running on site for quite a while now and love it.

We do have 2 issues though that I'm hoping can be sorted out please -
[list]*how do we remove the border showing around the pics
&
*is it possible to add padding to the left side of the column like the left one has

Have attached a pic to explain better and site is here for better view if interested.

Thank you..

[Vivarant01]

ok, so i've seen this question asked several times in this thread but i don't see any responses. So i'll give it yet another shot.

I would like to add UserCP, Calendar, Recent Posts, Avatar etc., to the side column. Where do i find the codes to ad these?

Even a point in the right direction would be a big help as i can't find anything

[Smitty]

Originally Posted by Vivarant01

ok, so i've seen this question asked several times in this thread but i don't see any responses. So i'll give it yet another shot.

I would like to add UserCP, Calendar, Recent Posts, Avatar etc., to the side column. Where do i find the codes to ad these?

Even a point in the right direction would be a big help as i can't find anything

Those (UserCP, Calendar, Recent Posts, etc.) are in the navbar template.

I'm not sure what you mean by avatar - The member's avatar?

Do you want to move them or duplicate them?

[Vivarant01]

thanks smitty. The avatar yes i meant members avatar. i'd like to duplicate them to the side panel, not just the links but the actual applications

[Smitty]

I can't help you with the avatar - Sounds like a CMS front page type of thing and I don't use one, but the others from the navbar you can just copy out and do a table (so they're stacked) to drop in your sidebar.

This *assumes* you're familiar with the navbar template and how the conditionals are set up and such so you can divide the components you want and the associated conditionals correctly.

[Devanand]

I was trying everything but I am geting only this even if all options are turn on:

[mikelangelo2005]

Originally Posted by mikelangelo2005

Hello,
Now I have a new problem, I hope can help me.

I put two FLASH but the bar of the Title (anuncios) appeared underneath the FLASH (check pictures)

I tried putting in start HTML of flash <tr><td class="alt1"> and the end </td></tr> and the FLASH appeared towards the right, outside the measures of the Web.

I need to put the bar "anuncios" above. www.motofanaticos.com

these are the HTML of the FLASH in usc_block_11:

<object width="230" height="400">
<param name="movie" value="images/misc/usa_casco.swf">
<embed src="images/misc/usa_casco.swf" width="230" height="400">
</embed>
</object>

And usc_block_12:

<object width="230" height="300">
<param name="movie" value="images/misc/dia_nacional_del_motociclista.swf">
<embed src="images/misc/dia_nacional_del_motociclista.swf" width="230" height="300">
</embed>
</object>

thanks

SOLVED!

With something very simple I solved a problem that already was 4 months old and nobody knew the solution here and other forums in spanish.

The column Right was outside the body of the forum (image 1) because I was using thys simbol "/" to separate texts.

Now, I changed to the symbol "/" by a comma "," and the letter "Y" and ready, Solved!! (image 2).

Greetings