Put a Column on the Left Side of Every Forum Page

This little PRODUCT will provide you with a template to put content in a column going down the left side of every forum page.

What you put there is limited only by your imagination.

This can easily be combined with the right column product to have a column on both sides.

To use this with the right column product , change the footer code to:

<!-- Right Column Code  -->
</td>
<td width="160" valign="top" align="left">$rightcolumn</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td></tr>
</table>
<!-- End Right Column Code -->

Changes in 1.1
Some very important changes were made to the header and footer template changes. Please modify your header and footer code to use the new version.

This is now a PRODUCT and not a plugin. Use the product manager to import it. If you are upgrading, copy the contents of your left_column template to notepad BEFORE you install the product. Then, replace the template contents with your backup.

This version now includes sample html in the left_column template. Thanks to iguanairs for that code.

[Nordraserei]

Where do I add the links? I tried to wrap them in the tags in the header template and it shows up in various weird places outside of the box. Or am I trying to edit the wrong template? :ermm:

[Vierie]

You put your links in the left column template...

[Nordraserei]

hmm. When ever I tried that it put them in various weird places.

[0xid0]

Originally Posted by tgmorris

After thinking this was going to be easy I wound up working on this for 3 hours before I finally came up with a solution that works in both FF and IE.

In my case I wanted the vb navbar to extend full width so I made one of my changes at the bottom of that template. If you want the navbar shoved over by the left column then make the change to the header template instead.

After installing the existing product do the following.

Append at bottom of navbar template.
This portion controls the spacing between the left column and the forum.

<!-- Left Column Code  -->
<div style="width: 100%">
<table border="0" width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" align="left">
  <tr>
    <td valign="top" align="left">
      $leftcolumn
    </td>
    <td><img src="$vboptions[cleargifurl]" width="10"></td><!-- adjust width as desired -->
    <td valign="top" width="100%">
      <table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
        <tr>
          <td valign="top">
<!-- End Left Column Code -->

Insert at top of footer template

<!-- Left Column Code  -->
          </td>
        </tr>
      </table>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
</div>
<!-- End Left Column Code -->

Revised template: left_column.
This template controls the width of the left column. Modify the settings to provide the desired appearance (borders, spacing, etc.)

<table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="120">
  <tr>
    <td align="center" bgcolor="#ffffff">

<!-- Begin custom code -->
Your custom code goes in here.
<!-- End custom code -->

    </td>
  </tr>
</table>

BTW - This in no way is meant to diminish the work that was done to come up with the original work. It was workling fine for me in FF but I was installing it on another site. Testing in IE revealed the situation where the "All times are GMT" text was pushed out to the right of the forum. After reading all 14 pages of the thread I discovered nobody had really solved it - at least the posted solution didn't work for me.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!!!! It me has worked correctly, now I have a couple of questions:

- Might one say the code to me to put in left_column in order that me a block appears as with the plugin without modifying?

- Does it know if there is some way of doing that the blocks of the left side do not appear at the moment of reading the messages?

Thank you very much again

[Danny Diamond]

Man, this might be a stupid question but how do we add links and such to the left column once its installed?

[gc1]

go to adcolums left template and add it there, this is a fantastic hack btw Amy... and I did vote for it as HOTM

[silurius]

Originally Posted by KYNSimon

Man, this might be a stupid question but how do we add links and such to the left column once its installed?

It took me a while to find it, but you have to update the left_column template manually. No admincp interface for adding links, so you'll have to play around with it a bit. I agree that this is a fantastic hack to have.

[NexDog]

We have this working great. We have just upgraded our board from vb 2.3.xx to 3.5.3 and having a hard job with the avatar display on the left column when a user logs in. Forum is here:

http://nexusportal.net

This is the code we have:

<a href="profile.php?do=editavatar"><if condition="!$bbuserinfo['avatarid']"><img src="nex/noavatar.gif" border="0"><else /><img src="$bbuserinfo[avatarurl]" border="0"></if></a>

No matter what we try, it always returns the noavatar.gif. Is there a simple code mod I can put in to make this work again?

[Vierie]

You probably need:

<a href="profile.php?do=editavatar"><if condition="!$vbulletin->userinfo['avatarid']"><img src="nex/noavatar.gif" border="0"><else /><img src="$vbulletin->userinfo[avatarurl]" border="0"></if></a>

[NexDog]

Still no worky.