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

[MGP_Tech]

I'm having a small issue with this menu on my website: http://madhatterrgames.com/vampire-larp/index.php

Browser: Firefox
Skin: Permatakus2 (you should be able to change the skin by using the bottom drop down selection box)
Error: The menu drop down selections disappear under the main content area of the website. Pictures Attached.

Anyone got a fix for this?

[Halfhidden]

Originally Posted by camarilladee

I'm having a small issue with this menu on my website: http://madhatterrgames.com/vampire-larp/index.php

Browser: Firefox
Skin: Permatakus2 (you should be able to change the skin by using the bottom drop down selection box)
Error: The menu drop down selections disappear under the main content area of the website. Pictures Attached.

Anyone got a fix for this?

That's because you need to turn off (or remove) navbar for each style (or skin) that you want to use this menu system with. You'll also need to paste the menu system in the header of each of the styles (skins) that you want to use it with.
Hope that helps?

[MGP_Tech]

Originally Posted by Halfhidden

That's because you need to turn off (or remove) navbar for each style (or skin) that you want to use this menu system with. You'll also need to paste the menu system in the header of each of the styles (skins) that you want to use it with.
Hope that helps?

I'm not sure where you "turn off" the navbar (please advise me of that one if you know) ... everywhere I've seen online says to just delete it from the template and when I tried to do that it messed the appearance of that particular template.

I have the menu already put into the header style of that skin (it shows up great on IE) and on all the templates I'm using, it's just on firefox menu goes into hiding and I have no clue why. Attached is a screenshot of the same template in IE with the menu working fine.

[Halfhidden]

Originally Posted by camarilladee

I'm not sure where you "turn off" the navbar (please advise me of that one if you know) ... everywhere I've seen online says to just delete it from the template and when I tried to do that it messed the appearance of that particular template.

I have the menu already put into the header style of that skin (it shows up great on IE) and on all the templates I'm using, it's just on firefox menu goes into hiding and I have no clue why. Attached is a screenshot of the same template in IE with the menu working fine.

Works fine for me on FF3. Perhaps you should clear your cache and try again. I couldn't try another styles because Guests can't change styles... but if it shows here there no reason why it shouldn't show elsewhere.
You are right to edit the style in VB admin CP>style manager > find the style you want to edit > and find breadcrumbs and then beneath that is navbar. Open it and then delete the contents in there and save and reload. If you have altered navbar, then it's a good idea to copy the contents first. All that does is remove the navebar for that style. You can turn off navbar altogether in admin cp but that's not advisable frankly

[MGP_Tech]

I'm switching the default template to the black and red one so that you can see it now. http://madhatterrgames.com/vampire-larp/index.php

Thanks for taking a look at this, I really appreciate it!

EDIT: The theme you want to look at is Permatakus2 ... since it seems you're not online I wanted to make sure we had a theme defaulting that actually worked. You should be able to switch to it, when you have time to look it over, at the bottom of the screen.

[Halfhidden]

Ok... sorry been out to get some supplies in. Yes I can see what you mean with Permatakus
The reason why IE displays the drop down and not FF is simply the difference between the two browsers and how they handle javascript errors.
In your case, either way the script is wrong.
You have an error in the javascript and the script is expecting an ")" but it is missing and this changes the code.
You'll have to go through the code and compare yours with that of the original code posted on this thread.
To have a look yourself open your page in IE and have a look at the very bottom left hand side of the browser window of IE and you'll see a yellow triangle. This suggests that you have a code error on your page. Click on that and you'll see the suggested code error.
Don't take the code error as gospel because often a missing piece of code elsewhere can have an affect somewhere else. IE will only report some errors.... So have a good look over your code again I'm afraid.
Hope this helps?

[MGP_Tech]

Looks like I'm looking for a new template. Thanks for your advice.

[davida500]

I am having a problem with the Nav Bar, but first i would like to say that its great..other than this one little problem

You can see the problem that i am experiencing at: www.e3-clan.net

On some screens it looks ok, but on other screens the Navigation bar will go onto 2 lines even if there is space to the left and right of the nav bar, is there any way i can make it so they extend out more on smaller screens so that it all stays on one line if that makes sense.

Thanks.

David.

[Halfhidden]

Originally Posted by davida500

I am having a problem with the Nav Bar, but first i would like to say that its great..other than this one little problem

You can see the problem that i am experiencing at: www.e3-clan.net

On some screens it looks ok, but on other screens the Navigation bar will go onto 2 lines even if there is space to the left and right of the nav bar, is there any way i can make it so they extend out more on smaller screens so that it all stays on one line if that makes sense.

Thanks.

David.

Well David, it looks like to me that your menu script is inside a table or div that is a fixed width. If I view it at 1440x900 the menu is still on two lines. If viewed at 1024x768 it spans three lines..... That would be the reason... I'm 100% sure of that.

[davida500]

Thanks for the info so far halfhidden...Is there any way you may be able to help me further with the issue

It would be much appreciated.

David.