Forum Home Enhancements - UKBL ~ Quality Drop Down Menu System

UKBL ~ Quality Drop Down Menu System

You wanted Drop down Menu's that were easy to install and edit, Well now you've got it

Live Demo

http://www.aboxcafe.com/index.php

http://www.wheelsbd.com/

Compatible with almost ALL Browsers.

Hi Guys, i've had so many messages about My "Easy Menu Tabs" and when was i going to do Dropdown Tabs, Well i've listened and now i can happily add UKBL ~ Quality Drop Down menu's to our list of modifications.

This is just so easy to edit and install, as long as you feel confident with a few simple edits and uploading a graphics file to your images directory or even your photobucket account, if you don't want to mess about uploading to your server.

UKBL ~ Quality Drop Downs sit quite happily on top of your forums accessable from all pages of the forum



They look like any bog standard Menu Nav bar but when you hover the mouse over it you'll see the dropdowns, I've uploaded a test version to my forum, Take a look for yourselves http://www.ukbusinesslive.co.uk/forum

I've left the Top White Easy Men Bar in place also so you can compare both of them.

When you go over the menu bar the dropdowns should appear like in the picture below



See how the chosen links are highlighted

So now we come to the installation stage.

Download the dropdown.zip file below and open the VBOrg_Menu.txt file in notepad or any other text editor, as we need to edit a few files.

The first one we need to edit is the url of our Graphic File, So to cut a long story short we'll upload our graphic file to our Photobucket account, or any other account or image directory on your server, So firstly find

	/*"""""""" (MAIN) Container Edit Picture URL Here :-) """"""""*/	
	#qm0	
	{	
		padding:5px;
		background-image:url(http://i475.photobucket.com/albums/rr114/ukbusinesslive/center_tile_blue.gif);
		border-width:1px;
		border-style:solid;
		border-color:#eeeeee;
	}

and this is the line we need to edit, so that it gives us a nice gradiant blue acdcross the menu bar

background-image:url(http://i475.photobucket.com/albums/rr114/ukbusinesslive/center_tile_blue.gif);

Just replace the url within the brackets ( ) and thats it

Then we go and do the menu edits, You don't want your members click on your forum menu and ending up on my site :erm: So what we need to do now is change the menu links for yours, It take about 15 min's but its not hard to do, so lets do it.....

First find where our menu starts, This will be right at the bottom of the code, The HTML part of this and the first bit we need to change starts from here...

 <li><a class="qmparent" href="javascript:void(0)">MY CONTROL PANEL</a>

		<ul>
		<li><a href="http://www.ukbusinesslive.co.uk/forum/profile.php?do=editavatar" title="Edit Avatar">Edit Avatar</a></li>
		<li><a href="http://www.ukbusinesslive.co.uk/forum/profile.php?do=editsignature" title="Edit Signature">Edit Signature</a></li>
		<li><a href="http://www.ukbusinesslive.co.uk/forum/profile.php?do=editoptions" title="Edit Options">Edit Options</a></li>
		<li><span class="qmdivider qmdividerx" ></span></li>
		<li><a href="http://www.ukbusinesslive.co.uk/forum/subscription.php?do=viewsubscription" title="List Subscriptions">List Subscriptions</a></li>
		</ul></li>

Basically each tab is made up of a block like what you see above, You have the Main Tab Description which looks like this

<li><a class="qmparent" href="javascript:void(0)">MY CONTROL PANEL</a>

and you have all the sub links underneath and they look like this...

<li><a href="http://www.ukbusinesslive.co.uk/forum/profile.php?do=editavatar" title="Edit Avatar">Edit Avatar</a></li>

and its this one which we need to edit, basically if you want to keep the same link, all you need to do is to chasnge my url http://www.ukbusinesslive.co.uk/forum to your forums URL, and thats it, your link should work for your site.

If you want to change the link altogether and put your own, then replace the full URL with one that you want and don't forget to edit the end part "Edit Avatar" as that is the title thats shown on the dropdown.

When you've finished all your editing, we need to upload this whole code to your Header Template of the Style that your Currantly using on your forum, So once you've saved your edited code, Just copy and paste directly to your Header, Go right to the end and click paste, save the template and thats it, The Graphic File which you need to upload to your server or image host is also in the zip file.

So easy and a great improvement to any VBulletin Forum

This is a Freebie for all you members on VB.org with my compliments

If anyone wants any custom menus made, Just PM me I'll help where i can, Just bear in mind a menu like this takes a good couple of hours or so, so a donation is more than welcomed

Oh almost Forgot guys,

If you like it, Please Click on Installed, as this really does motivate me to improving these hacks

UPDATE 09.02.09

Uploaded a New Zip File, Black Menu.Zip This is the same as this original except that its black for darker Websites and Forums, Instructions are the same as above, and comes complete with customised Graphics which will need to be uploaded to your /images/ directory.



UPDATE 23.02.09

For some of you Admins who prefer menu Buttons as opposed to a menu bar, i've made some buttons based on the above menu formate, You can install it by following the same instructions as the main install, Just upload the graphics and edit your menu links and thats it.

Experiment with the css to change colors width of boxes etc, Add more or as little as you want, the important thing is to have fun learning.



UPDATE: 26th April 2009

Centering the Menu so that it appears central

There has been much debate about trying to centralise the menu tabs, I didn't want to edit the code too much as this would make a mess of it in different browsers, However i've found that there is a way

The easiest way to center menu content is to place it inside of a center aligned table, as shown below:

<table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 align="center"><tr><td>

----[ your menu structure]----

</td></tr></table>

This way the menu tabs will appear central in all browsers.

Hope this helps :up:



Enjoy

[ArnyVee]

Thanks Theater! Worked perfectly! :up:

Well, I still am having issues with the vBAdvanced though. Gotta get some help there because the header or the navbar don't seem to be working like they are on all other pages.

[ArnyVee]

I just noticed that the "Who's Online" shows folks at an "unknown location" and showing as the link to the center_tile_blue.gif image for this mod.

Anyone noticed that as well? How do we fix that so that it shows correctly on the Who's Online page?

[Habtopia]

I dont know if you like to see how your work is used but ill supply a link anyway

http://www.habtopia.co.uk/forum/

Thats how i used the menu you provided the only issue i have is the 1px margin on the left i dont know whats causing this at all

Many thanks

Also i put it in the header template so it shows on all pages

[dekaybrown]

I just got done editing and installed this!

Way Fab mate!! BRILL!!!!

Works like a champ, Love it.

KUDOS & Cheers.

[dealcafe]

I love love this. It was exactly what I was looking for. I really would like it to be where the nav bar is though and I have tried removing the existing <!-- nav buttons bar --> code etc and putting the code in there, which shows up but then the javascript is disabled it shows # instead. Is there a idiots version for how to do that?:erm:

[dekaybrown]

I have a slight problem, the background does not show up, tried it on multiple URL, nothing.

Went to a CSS instructional site, followed all directions, nada.

[theparentpack]

Looks like I removed too much. That fixed it, thanks so much!

Originally Posted by Theater

The navbar template contains more than just the navigational links. If you wipe it completely out you're also removing the Notice condition and more; like the Ad Location call for the ad_navbar_below template for example.

You'll need to use some basic coding search skills to see where what you want to remove begins and where it ends. For example if you just want to take off the bar below the breadcrumb navigation and login/member box, you would look at the template code and find:

<!-- nav buttons bar -->

then search down and find:

<!-- / nav buttons bar -->

..and snip out everything between.

I would recommend reverting your navbar template back to default. Copy the code to Notepad so you can have a better view of the whole template, snip out carefully what you don't want, and paste in what's left into the template in the AdminCP page and Save.

[high]* Theater takes the twitchy bunny and flees...[/high]

[dekaybrown]

OK so just exactly how do I get to the navbar to edit it???

Would love to tinker with the navbar, but cannot seem to access it???

[TheLastSuperman]

Originally Posted by dekaybrown

OK so just exactly how do I get to the navbar to edit it???

Would love to tinker with the navbar, but cannot seem to access it???

AdminCP --> Styles & Templates --> (Choose the Style) --> Navigation & Breadcrumb Templates --> Navbar

NOW, copy the original & paste into notepad++ before you start, if any problems paste over your modified template for the fix.

IF you have vboptimise installed and the option to flush cache beofre changes show up then flush the cache to show the changes, then refresh your other page w/ your forum on it to see any changes.

S-MAN

[dekaybrown]

Still confused?