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

[Chadi]

True, but that did not fix the extra line break at the start of the right side column (top) as shown in the picture.

Also, not sure why you assume I use IE. I'm using Firefox, occasionally Opera.

I used to use your old right side column only hack for 3.6 which never caused that extra break on top.

edit: $vbgallery code (from Photoposts's Vbgallery) no longer works on forumhome either after using USC

[Chadi]

I fixed the extra line break

<td valign="top">
<br />
<if condition="$vboptions[usc_collapse_right]">

Removed the <br /> from that code in the usc_sidecolumn_right template.

Just need to get the photo gallery code working.

[Janfri]

Excellent work, thank you very much!

[meolangthang]

Hi,

Someone here can explain me why in Ultimate Side Columns Options, the Display pages for right and left columns options show "An error occurred while processing the bitfield files, the following information was returned:" ???

[Chance4Today]

For some reason I probably don't know how to make it work but would like the custom another catagory on the side column. I have tried a few times and nothing is showing up as in the screen shots up there for the custom template. Is there a code that I need to use for this to show up?

Love this though I have been wanting a two column forums! thanks for all your work!

www.soberodaat.com/forums

[Chance4Today]

Chadi thanks for putting that code up there I copied and paste and it show me how to make the categories now I do like your bible verse things also just don't know how to do that java thinngggieee I am a newbie as ya can see if I can't even figure out how to code columns. LOL

[slmoney]

[QUOTE=Kerry-Anne;1518091]It's making a comeback in 2.2 - I sorta forgot about it in 2.1


AWESOME! Thanks for the heads up! I can't wait!

[Chadi]

I'm trying to pull some of the info from the What's Going On forumhome area to one of the blocks in the right side column (also on the forumhome strictly). The problem is that it is not giving the output at all for a simple request:

$activeusers

Is there something else that must be done in the backend to allow this to output correctly?

[Chadi]

Originally Posted by Chance4Today

Chadi thanks for putting that code up there I copied and paste and it show me how to make the categories now I do like your bible verse things also just don't know how to do that java thinngggieee I am a newbie as ya can see if I can't even figure out how to code columns. LOL

Glad I could help at all, without knowing it

Just copy/paste the <script>...</script> codes as you wish. They're free from heartlights.org

[Chadi]

Further clarification, not even this hack is able to pull the poll info in the USC block

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...=155170&page=2

So basically so far I've noticed USC does not pull info for:
- the poll hack above
- latest gallery posts (vbgallery)
- forum stats

They used to work fine in the 3.6 version of your right-side forumhome only hack. The reason I switched
is because that older hack had endless W3C errors.