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

[Tauhid]

you are the best! I will reply back with my sites link with the menu setup once I am done.

[UKBusinessLive]

Originally Posted by Tauhid

you are the best! I will reply back with my sites link with the menu setup once I am done.

Thanks, You can replace the yellow with your sites Green, Its just that i didn't get much time to copy your hex colors.

You've got a great site, hope the menu's work for you

Don't forget to click installed if your happy

Take care

[Tauhid]

thanks for this great hack, my members are absolutely loving it. no complaints so far. even in the cell phone, this seems like a better navigation system. I would recommend vbulletin to adapt this feature in the near future for their default menus. love it!

[UKBusinessLive]

Originally Posted by Tauhid

thanks for this great hack, my members are absolutely loving it. no complaints so far. even in the cell phone, this seems like a better navigation system. I would recommend vbulletin to adapt this feature in the near future for their default menus. love it!

Thanks It does look great on your site, have added your site to my demo list on the first post. Thanks

[Powlo]

Installed

I would recommend this to anyone that wants to add a dropdown menu, its dead easy to use and pure genius how it works.

Great work UKBL! :up:

[UKBusinessLive]

Originally Posted by Powlo

Installed

I would recommend this to anyone that wants to add a dropdown menu, its dead easy to use and pure genius how it works.

Great work UKBL! :up:

Thanks Powlo,

Glad you enjoyed it

[Powlo]

One thing though... How can i center the tabs on the page? They are currently left justified which looks great on a 100% width style but not so great if its a fixed width style with a full width header.

Hope that made sense.

[UKBusinessLive]

Originally Posted by Powlo

One thing though... How can i center the tabs on the page? They are currently left justified which looks great on a 100% width style but not so great if its a fixed width style with a full width header.

Hope that made sense.

Its best not to center the tabs as thios will mess up on different screen resolutions, I did a menu for a guy who wanted his tabs centrered and in Firefox he was showing two rows of tabs.

I will tell you how to do it but you need to tell me which one your using the blue or the black, then you can test it yourself

[Powlo]

It was the blue that ive used. Thanks UKBL

[a marked man 70]

i am using the black one and i must say it is a brilliant hack.

but i would also like to know how to center the tabs as when you look at my site, www.uwclan.co.uk, you can see a space on the right hand side. if i put another tab in there to attempt to fill the space on the right, it goes on a new line underneath on the left hand side, under the first one.

so i would like to get it so the spacing on either sid of the first and last tab is the same.
many thanks