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

[columbusgeek]

Some people should not be even attempting to run a website/forum. Eish.

Anyhow, thanks for the writeup UKBusiness. It would be nice if it used vBulletin hooks, but given enough time and tweaking it works well.

Just out of curiosity, why did you choose to use full urls in your code?

you used <a href="http://yourpersonalwebsite.com/forum/images/image.gif">

Wouldn't <a href="/forum/images/image.gif">

Make it a bit easier for users via less editing to do? Also if somebody moves domains or changes things too much they have to redo all their links.

Just curious.

[TheLastSuperman]

Originally Posted by dekaybrown

Still confused?

Style Manager

Then choose the style

Now click the drop down box and hit edit templates then follow my original instructions regarding navigation & breadcrumb and so on.

When you've had a look there open your forum home page and view the source code... see how the navbar area of the code (near the top) kind of matches the template? Well that's where it is coming from - Check it out.

Now after your done there back up a step or two and use the drop down box when you see the styles listed to say main css (instead of edit templates) and hit "go" then google a css info site and see what the definitions mean and you can edit your styles colors, borders and so on.

S-MAN

[dekaybrown]

Thank you so much, Man I have been spending a lot of time familiarizing myself with everything this program has to offer.

WOOT WOOT! yeah, I finally found it!

BTW - I like the fact there is no VB hooks, Anyone can paste this awesome menu to the top of any web page! Great stuff.

Sorry if I wasn't just born with vast knowledge, nor went to any special schools for this, I'm learning on the fly here, and with 7000 posts in just over six weeks, the forum kicks butt!.

[TheLastSuperman]

Originally Posted by dekaybrown

Thank you so much, Man I have been spending a lot of time familiarizing myself with everything this program has to offer.

WOOT WOOT! yeah, I finally found it!

BTW - I like the fact there is no VB hooks, Anyone can paste this awesome menu to the top of any web page! Great stuff.

Sorry if I wasn't just born with vast knowledge, nor went to any special schools for this, I'm learning on the fly here, and with 7000 posts in just over six weeks, the forum kicks butt!.

Just keep experimenting! UK is one of the nicest ones on here so he will love to read all of this but always remember to make copies before you start .

[Il Pompa]

Excuse me, but how can I get the menu at the center of the page? I tried several times without success? Default is left

Another question: Is it possible to set the background of the menu transparent? It would be fantastic

[ArnyVee]

Il Pompa, you might want to check earlier in the thread because someone did get the information as to how to center it. I seem to recall that it caused problems on fixed vs fluid sites or something. But, search in the earlier pages of this thread.

Your second question would be to create a small transparent image in the same size of the blue.gif and simply upload that image rather than the blue.gif and it should do the trick for you. Good luck! :up:

[Il Pompa]

Originally Posted by ArnyVee

Il Pompa, you might want to check earlier in the thread because someone did get the information as to how to center it. I seem to recall that it caused problems on fixed vs fluid sites or something. But, search in the earlier pages of this thread.

Your second question would be to create a small transparent image in the same size of the blue.gif and simply upload that image rather than the blue.gif and it should do the trick for you. Good luck! :up:

Thank you very much. As you said, seems to center the menu create some problems. Now I'll try to understand how to create transparency :up:

Excuse me but where is blue.gif? I've installed "Dropdown" menu

[ArnyVee]

In the

/*"""""""" (MAIN) Container Edit Picture URL Here :-) """"""""*/

section of the instructions above look for.....

"background-image:url(http://http : //i475.photobucket.com...e/center_tile_blue.gif"

....you would then upload the transparent image in place of it.

[UKBusinessLive]

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:

[UKBusinessLive]

Originally Posted by TheLastSuperman

UK is one of the nicest ones on here so he will love to read all of this .

oh i do, i do