Miscellaneous Hacks - Sidebar Anywhere (Formerly Sidebar for Activity Stream) by BOP5

Brought to you by BirdOPrey5
www.Qapla.com

Version 2.2.0

The new Activity Stream for VB 4.2.0 is very nice but it feels like it is missing something- and what it is missing is a sidebar. Ideally at some point VB will release a custom sidebar built just for the Activity Stream but until then this quick mod will let you use the built in forum sidebar on the Activity Stream.

As of version 2.0 besides just working on the Activity Stream the mod can now add a sidebar to ANY vBulletin page including forums, threads, groups, albums, who's online, forum leaders, and more. In fact you can easily add the sidebar even to custom pages from custom mods.

New Features

• Now works on ANY vBulletin Page (except blogs which have their own sidebar)
• Option to align sidebar with page content or top of page
• Option to Disable Sidebar Collapse Option (By Usergroup in 2.1.0)
• Collapsed sidebar state now "remembered" on different pages
• Option to enable Sidebar by Usergroup
• Option to disable Sidebar by Forum (if enabled for forums/threads)
• Option to disable Sidebar in specific styles
• Options to disable sidebars if mobile devices detected*

NOTE: To enable mobile device detection options you must install the Mobile Browser Detector mod.

Live Demo: Qapla.com Activity Stream

You can enable or disable the Sidebar Anywhere independently of the forum sidebar but they will both display the same content (blocks.)

NEW - If you need to have different blocks on different pages check out this add-on.

You must have at least 1 block setup and active for the sidebar to show.

Unlike most of my other mods this mod is enabled by default upon installation. Be default it is setup to show only on the Activity Stream and register.php pages.

I am aware there is already a mod out there "Everywhere Sidebar" by another coder. This is completely different code and I made this because my "Staff Online Sideblock" mod did not work on Sidebar Everywhere but it does work on this mod.

This mod requires at least VB 4.2.0 to work on the Activity Stream but should work on older VB 4.x.x versions on other pages.

Full view of admin cp options: http://www.qapla.com/mods/ss/sidebar...tings_full.jpg.

The old version Zip file Sidebar for Activity Stream by BOP5 v11.zip works only on the Activity Stream.

PLEASE READ THE INSTRUCTIONS INCLUDED WITH THIS MOD- THEY ANSWER MOST OF THE QUESTIONS ABOUT HOW TO USE IT.

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Please "Mark as Installed" if you use this.
Donations always appreciated. :up:
Nominate MOTM if you LOVE it!

[Guardian Hope]

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

Has the version of PHP changed on your server? If so, what are you on now?

Hey BirdOPrey5: first, excellent mod, it works but I'm having a few problems that just seemed to randomly crop up out of nowhere.

While every Forum Block works one does not: Activity Stream.

I have attached two images: the first is of the forum home showing both "Activity Stream" and "Trending Hashtags" working.

The second image shows forum display except "Activity Stream" is only display a user's Avatar and the time of their last action.

The strange thing was this used to work fine and nothing on the board has actually changed (no new plugins, etc.). It just stopped working. On the server side PHP is still the same version (5.5.26).

I was hoping you would have some suggestions before we switch from using "Activity Stream" to "Latest Forum Posts" which does display correctly.

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. This is on vBulletin 4.2.2 PL4.

[squidsk]

Since you're using php 5.5 you should upgrade your vbulletin to 4.2.3 since 4.2.2 is not compatible with php 5.5 and see if that fixes things.

[Guardian Hope]

Originally Posted by squidsk

Since you're using php 5.5 you should upgrade your vbulletin to 4.2.3 since 4.2.2 is not compatible with php 5.5 and see if that fixes things.

It's on the to do list schedule as the site is still definitely in development. I wasn't aware that PHP 5.5 and vBulletin 4.2.2PL4 weren't technically compatible.

I will definitely give this a try tonight when there is no activity. Especially since I also heard it technically "officially" supports MariaDB which is what we use across all our networks for MySQL.

Are there any major template changes in 4.2.3 or is it all just back-end? Believe me when I say it took months to style our style so I don't want to lose it in one night.

(You'll have to forgive me, my last experiences with vBulletin were from the 3.x days so I still have a lot of catching up to do).

[squidsk]

Since MariaDB is a drop in replacement for mysql as long as your version of mariadb corresponds to the supported version of mysql it won't be a problem. I don't think there are major template changes in 4.2.3 mostly just php compatibility fixes and a few other things.

[Guardian Hope]

Originally Posted by squidsk

Since MariaDB is a drop in replacement for mysql as long as your version of mariadb corresponds to the supported version of mysql it won't be a problem. I don't think there are major template changes in 4.2.3 mostly just php compatibility fixes and a few other things.

I completed the upgrade to vBulletin 4.2.3 (completed without any issues) but the Sidebar Anywhere still displays the Activity Stream incorrectly (with just the avatar and action date).

[squidsk]

Originally Posted by Guardian Hope

I completed the upgrade to vBulletin 4.2.3 (completed without any issues) but the Sidebar Anywhere still displays the Activity Stream incorrectly (with just the avatar and action date).

It's hard to tell from an image, it would be easier with a link to the site, but that looks more like a style issue than anything else. Possibly you colored the text of forumhome a particular color but the text is not colored the same color on other pages, hence why the text appears not to be there. Have you tried viewing it in on an unmodified default style to see if that fixes the problem.

[Guardian Hope]

Originally Posted by squidsk

It's hard to tell from an image, it would be easier with a link to the site, but that looks more like a style issue than anything else. Possibly you colored the text of forumhome a particular color but the text is not colored the same color on other pages, hence why the text appears not to be there. Have you tried viewing it in on an unmodified default style to see if that fixes the problem.

Head on over: https://vanguardcommand.org/forums/

And it appears to only affect forumdisplay. Activity Stream displays the boxes just fine.

I thought about the style too but even highlighting doesn't display the text.

I did also try to switch to the vBulletin default style and it behaves in the same as it does with the primary style of the forum.

Like I said, it was sort of strange. It just suddenly stopped working even though nothing had actually changed (well, now we're running 4.2.3 but it was doing it on 4.2.2PL4).

[squidsk]

Try disabling your installed plugins one at a time and see if disabling one of them causes the problem to disappear.

[Guardian Hope]

Originally Posted by squidsk

Try disabling your installed plugins one at a time and see if disabling one of them causes the problem to disappear.

Did that; even disabled all of them except BOPS' plugin and the Activity Stream doesn't work on forum display whether in vBulletin Default or the Customized Theme.

[nick-harper]

It doesn't work for me either on 4.2.2