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

[UKBusinessLive]

Originally Posted by PakFuse

No...

Vb 3.8.1...

I have another dropdown menu which is working but I do not wish to keep it using.... anything i need to add or delete, it takes a lot of efforts at too many places...

Your code is working fine when testing locally... I am just wondering why would it not work otherwise... I actually cut-copied-pasted the code from Header where it was not working into a notepad and saved as local html file and it worked....

PM me your code and i'll take a look, Its probably not working because you've done something not right, Did it work ok before you added the images??

Send me that code because without it i can't help you

[PakFuse]

The code is too long.... I will PM you in two parts ...

[mhackl]

This is Quickmenu. Same coding, there maybe a potential copyright issue here. I've been using this on my site for almost a year, but I had to pay $120 for mine.

[KevinL]

all it is is some css...how could there be a copyright issue?

You can get a $39 account now also..

[UKBusinessLive]

Originally Posted by mhackl

This is Quickmenu. Same coding, there maybe a potential copyright issue here. I've been using this on my site for almost a year, but I had to pay $120 for mine.

I use this for all my dropdowns, just like a skin designer uses photoshop, I paid over $568 for this, for unlimited websites as i'm using this for a business venture.

No copyright issues involve, as when i create the menus to my clients design i'm the copyright holder

Unlimited Sites - A single user may create unlimited menus for an unlimited number of websites, without restriction. A single unlock code activates the software for any web site!

Nothing Hidden, Safe Commercial Licensing, QuickMenu does not use any behind the scenes hidden links or attempt to contact other servers to validate the purchased license. Copyright notices and text descriptions about OpenCube are not saved to your pages when publishing menus.

[UKBusinessLive]

Originally Posted by KevinL

all it is is some css...how could there be a copyright issue?

You can get a $39 account now also..

kevin, The $39 Account is Monthly plus a very basic account without all the add ons

Plus the Css and the Html is all the same as what you would find with a different program or even if you did it yourself, your right there, it uses the same strings, attributes, all the program does is allows you to design and produce the final outcome. Its a bit pricey, but there again so is photoshop, and how many people have paid for their version of photoshop that have designed skins in the styles forum ???

Can we please get back on topic now guys

[UKBusinessLive]

Originally Posted by PakFuse

The code is too long.... I will PM you in two parts ...

PakFuse,

I will look at your coding when i get back from work and edit it so that it works for you, from the bacic coode which i had in the Zip file what else have you added ot taken off the code, I know you added some images, thats one, anything else???

If you let me know we'll get this sort shortly

[PakFuse]

Originally Posted by UKBusinessLive

PakFuse,

I will look at your coding when i get back from work and edit it so that it works for you, from the bacic coode which i had in the Zip file what else have you added ot taken off the code, I know you added some images, thats one, anything else???

If you let me know we'll get this sort shortly

added only one image and ofcourse the menu items.... nothing else....

[PakFuse]

UKBL:

The problem is solved....

The issue was that when I was copy pasting the code from notepad into the header, it was inserting additional "white space" and lines in between menu codes etc.... I removed all the spaces and it is working like a charm....

It looks awesome

I am going to make them more visually appealing by adding my stuff

have a look

http://www.pakfuse.com/pf

[UKBusinessLive]

Originally Posted by PakFuse

UKBL:

The problem is solved....

The issue was that when I was copy pasting the code from notepad into the header, it was inserting additional "white space" and lines in between menu codes etc.... I removed all the spaces and it is working like a charm....

It looks awesome

I am going to make them more visually appealing by adding my stuff

have a look

http://www.pakfuse.com/pf

I looked at the code you sent me via PM and it did look like a bit of a mess :erm:

I was going to do what you did, so i'm glad you managed to sort it out

Glad you enjoyed it :up: