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.

[chimaira]

Hey love the look of this, But one problem it seems to be making my tables shift right, and makes them out of line.. see screeny Hope someone can help us out with this here...

edit**
no worries ive sused it now... i think lol

[chimaira]

Okay i have a new problem... A screen res problem... my main table width was 782.. if you look on my attached image you can see it was all out of line... well i changed the table width to 90% and it all lined up well.. But it appears fine oon my screen but out of line on a freinds pc with a different screen res... im totally stumped to fix this.

[aveon]

you might want to use an css padding to costumize your forum take look here http://www.w3schools.com/css/pr_padding.asp

[chimaira]

Ill give it a scout through. thanks

[attroll]

Originally Posted by aveon

or is there any way to add collapse to all left column??

To make them collapsable use this code in your template:

PHP Code:

<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="1" class="tborder" width="100%">
<thead>
<tr>
<td class="tcat" colspan="0">
<a href="#top" onclick="return toggle_collapse('module_40')" style="float:right"><img alt="" border="0" id="collapseimg_module_40" src="/forum/images/buttons/collapse_tcat.gif" /></a>
<span class="smallfont"><strong>&raquo; Title here</strong></span></td>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody id="collapseobj_module_40" style="">
<td class="alt2">
<!-- Begin custom code -->
<a href ="http://www.yoursite.net">Home</a><br>
<a href ="http://www.yoursite.net/forum">Forum</a><br>
<!-- Begin custom code -->
</tbody>
</table> 


[skyecade]

I just added this to my forum (3.6) and it works great with 1 minor exception. When I view a thread (showthread.php) it seems to disalign some of the tables. Anyone know a fix to this problem?

Everything else seems to be working okay.

[JenniferK]

I posted this in the thread for right column, but I will put it here as well since I don't think everyone is checking both threads (and this is the one I am actually using anyway)

For the width issue, what worked for me was removing

$spacer_close
$spacer_open

wherever it occurred - but only in the templates for the problem areas. For me it showed fine everywhere (even showthreads page) except for the Members list and the Calendar. I removed that from both of those templates and now all is good. Hope this helps someone.


Now the problem I am having, is that I would like the footer (the What's Going on box) to go the full width of the page. I accomplished that with the navbar by using that template instead of the header one, but I'd like to find a fix for the bottom if possible. I think it will look much cleaner that way.

[danielcompton]

great works well. Does anyone know how to add code to show a poll or latest threads into the left column also?

thanks

[ztempuser]

is there a simple line i can change to make it on the right?

[Troy Roberts]

Is anyone using this with vbadvanced? I'm getting a blank left column on the vbadvanced front page.