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.

[Rich]

Hello,

Here is the basic html for a table with a border:

<table border="1" width="90%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td>your text or code here</td>
</tr>
</table>

You can add: align="center" to the opening table row so the table centers itself.

You can also increase the width, or use a set width by changing the "90%".
To make a thicker border, just increase the border="1" with a higher number.

**** This modification works "as is" on RC2 ****

[Rich]

Hello,

I found something that I know is an easy fix, but I don't know how. lol I have an uncached template. Where does this get added to be cached?

Page generated in 0.09874 seconds with 15 queries (1 queries for uncached templates) [Server Loads: 0.17 0.25 : 0.30]
Uncached templates: left_column (1)

[amykhar]

I'll get you the plugin code for that in a sec. Back when I wrote this mod, we didn't know how to cache the templates in plugins yet.

[Rich]

Hello,

Thanks Amy, I can wait. I am not running live with this site yet.

[akanevsky]

Ummm.. Can't find it. Could you please throw a link on the paper please?

There we go, thanks.

[talkhost]

I've installed this and it looks good. Handy for placing google ads
Is there an easy way it can be changed from the left to the right of the forum?

[Rich]

Hello,

As previously stated, I was looking for a way to have the left_column template get cached. I know Amy is working on adding it to the zip, but this is how I manually did it.

(It works, though I am not 100% certain it needs to be in THIS location. But it DOES cache it!)

Open your global.php file found in your root directory. (root/global.php)

Look for:

// templates to be included in every single page...
$globaltemplates = array_merge($globaltemplates, array(

Under this section, look for:

	'headinclude',

Below that, add:

	'left_column',

Save the file, and upload. The left_column is now being cached.

[MentaL]

it buggered mine up on rc2

[Cyricx]

Double check your edits, I'm running it just fine on rc2.

[Rich]

Hello,

Yup, this mod works fine on RC2 as does the code I posted throughout this thread and the means for cache. You must have made a mistake with the edits somewhere.