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.

[kylek]

Did you try to change the width of the side colume?

"<td width="160" valign="top" align="left">$leftcolumn</td>"

Change the 160 and see if it makes a difference.

[tipoboy]

tried that changed it to 130 same width as my table i'm inserting it didnt work any idea's?

[kylek]

Sorry I cant think of anything at this moment. I ended up putting the code in my forumhome template as we only wanted it to show on the main forum page and no where else.

[Angel-Pie]

ok i want to get this but are these boxes possible to get something to add that tells the top posters like there name and the amount of posts and stats and stuff like that in them? or is that a whole other thing?

[question?]

When theres an error, like when you press "new posts" and there aren't any, it comes up without a side colum (well it's indented, just nothing in the space)

[futuredood]

I noticed when I tried to fill the background of the left column that it's floating on the left, and not truly a whole left column. You can see on this page that that the left column stops about 3/4 of the way down the site... any ideas on how to make the height truly 100%?

http://www.aznraps.com/forums/

[hydn]

In IE tables slow loading a lot (Not a FF issues but most users are on IE). Is there a hack for tableless left OR right column using CSS?

[rhinoForums.net]

I was curious if it would be tough to modify this code slightly?

I'm looking for it to exclude certain forums, instead of include them. In other words, I want the left column to show up everywhere, except the forumid's that I list in this conditional.. Can anyone please help with this?

Thanks!

Originally Posted by LaCN

Hi,

I put this column under my navbar, which looks verry well

I also added a few conditionals to have it only show on some forums...

But..
In the leftcolumn template, I removed all code, and added a $variable from a plugin I made.
But it won't show
the plugin includes a php-page which has for example: $var = "test";
the leftcolumn template has: $var

It did show when I used peterska2's show left column on front page hack.
But I deinstaleld that one, and trying to use this one


Why doesn't it show a plugin variable ?



edit, even without the forum-conditionals it doesn't show anywhere, not even on the main page


btw, if someone also wants forum-conditionals, use this:

PHP Code:

<if condition="in_array($forumid, array(2,3,4,5))">
  add ur html here
</if> 


Where 2, 3, 4, etc are forum-id's

[WoodiE]

I run version 1.0.2 of this mod on one of my forums and run call template names just fine on the side bar. However this new version 1.1 I can not. I'm trying to call a template name for a plugin I created to display banner ads and randomize them the template name is $randads but it will not display the banners on this new version 1.1 sidebar.

I know it works because I can add $randads to say the ForumHome template and it works fine. Any ideas how to fix this new 1.1 sidebar to allow templates to be loaded as you used to be able to in 1.0.2?

-WoodiE

[MOF]

How do I add stuff to the sidebar once it is installed?