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

[MoJo Smirnoff]

followed instructions (black dropdown) and am getting 'Internet Explorer can not open the site" error. Remove the code and site is ok again. Did anyone get that error and if so, what was the resolution?

this seems to simple to mess up, but apparently I did!!

[MoJo Smirnoff]

ok, default code works on my site, will just edit it from there and see what happens lol

[UKBusinessLive]

Originally Posted by MoJo Smirnoff

ok, default code works on my site, will just edit it from there and see what happens lol

Without looking at your code i can't advise, Its not an error i've come accross, Let me know how your getting on

You gotta admit, this is definately the fun part !!

[shinng]

not sure what i'm doing wrong, but there seems to be an issue with the way i uploaded onto my ftp client. i can load my forum just fine and the new menu is there, however, if i move my cursor over any part of the new menu, it goes to a blank screen. again, the forum loads fine and the new menu is there, but everytime i place a cursor over it, the screen goes blank. any idea what i am doing wrong?

[MoJo Smirnoff]

Originally Posted by UKBusinessLive

Without looking at your code i can't advise, Its not an error i've come accross, Let me know how your getting on

You gotta admit, this is definately the fun part !!

oh it was an error in copying and pasting. I am all good now...i think! www.mojogamers.com is the site. Only 2 small issues i need to sort. One is when minimizing the site into a smaller window the tabs get all scrunched up and on multiple lines. The second is getting rid of that litte space between the top of the tabs and the bottom of my header image.

And yes, you are right. The fun part is getting it how you want it and figuring it all out. It's been a while since I have done anything on my board....apparently it's not exactly like riding a bike!

[UKBusinessLive]

Originally Posted by MoJo Smirnoff

oh it was an error in copying and pasting. I am all good now...i think! www.mojogamers.com is the site. Only 2 small issues i need to sort. One is when minimizing the site into a smaller window the tabs get all scrunched up and on multiple lines. The second is getting rid of that litte space between the top of the tabs and the bottom of my header image.

And yes, you are right. The fun part is getting it how you want it and figuring it all out. It's been a while since I have done anything on my board....apparently it's not exactly like riding a bike!

Well done Buddy Its fun all the way, But honestly alot of members ask why don't i do my mods as plugins - WHAT!! and spoil the fun The best part of adding a mod is doing the edits on the templates and seeing a great result on your forum.

That menu looks brilliant on your site, even you have to admit that your pretty chuffed with yourself

[MoJo Smirnoff]

lol yes, I am! It's always more satisfying when you have to work a little to get it done. But..it's not 100% yet, got those 2 things to sort out and i will be FULLY content

[UKBusinessLive]

Originally Posted by MoJo Smirnoff

lol yes, I am! It's always more satisfying when you have to work a little to get it done. But..it's not 100% yet, got those 2 things to sort out and i will be FULLY content

Nice one, The little space which you refer to is the border around the menu bar, experiment with the css part of the code and reduce it down to 1 pixel or less, I don't think you can get rid of it completely. Not sure where it is off the top of my head, but its there, trust me

The last issue "One is when minimizing the site into a smaller window the tabs get all scrunched up " May be a browser problem?? although i'm not 100% have you tried it in another browser to check?? I've not heard about this before, but i'll look into it for you

EDIT: Just looked at your site and minimized the window and i see the menu tabs on top of each other, Thats OK its meant to do that, Its all part of the "fitting" the screen or menubar in whatever screen resolution you use. Its like when you add 20 or 30 tabs, they'll sit one under the other in a double row menu tab.

[shinng]

any help with my issue? spent hours trying to play around with it and it's still doing the same thing. so frustrating. although i'd love to implement this mod, i just might have to let go...

[UKBusinessLive]

Originally Posted by shinng

any help with my issue? spent hours trying to play around with it and it's still doing the same thing. so frustrating. although i'd love to implement this mod, i just might have to let go...

Sorry Buddy, I got a bit carried away

PM a link to your forum and let me take a look, Hopefully we'll get it sorted