Left Hand Column Suggestions

Hi,

With the new forum release approaching, I am interested in your suggestions as to what you would like to see in the left hand column of the site.

Essnetially what I am looking for is things that you would find useful, which would add to your user experience. If you have seen something on another forum, or know of a hack / modifiaction that you think fits the bill, then post it here.

These things need to be realistic, and preferably can be introduced by including pre-built VB modifications/hacks.

Please post the following details:

Description:
Short summary of what it does.

Example:
An example of where you have seen it implimented

Source:
A reference to the code source for the hack/mod


Anyone interested can have a browse of www.vbulletin.org for potential candidates.

Thanks

I think it would really help me if I could visualize the skin, just so I can get a feel for what would look best there

cough cough

Originally Posted by BrokenFaith I think it would really help me if I could visualize the skin, just so I can get a feel for what would look best there cough cough

Good effort

The side bar can be created very simple by using the plugins and template edit either header template or forumhome depending on if you want it sitewide or not.

I find them useful but the current one I don't ever use other than for my PMs.

Originally Posted by CreativeLogic The side bar can be created very simple by using the plugins and template edit either header template or forumhome depending on if you want it sitewide or not. I find them useful but the current one I don't ever use other than for my PMs.

Sure - I'm looking for userful things we can put in it though - as you say you only find the PM's useful, but what else could we add off use?

Left Hand Column on Every Page: http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=91888

I think a forum navigation would be good (DHTML), but it could be tricky to do. There's one hack that make a large pop-up box, that could possibly be customised though.

Furum Jump Hack:

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showt...ght=forum+jump

Originally Posted by Big Zee Sure - I'm looking for userful things we can put in it though - as you say you only find the PM's useful, but what else could we add off use? Left Hand Column on Every Page: http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=91888

I'd recommend only using the site-wide sidebar if the skin is going to be quite wide. ;]

Even if the skin is going to be quite wide (read: fluid) I'd rather there not be a sidebar on every page. Keep it to the homepage and I'll be happier.

Maybe it's a little extravagant but I'd like to see maybe a modular approach to the sidebar. It'd be a big hack but I'd love you forever if it was possible to pick and choose which 'modules' get shown in the sidebar (maybe make the advert box mandatory) and to be able to reorder them to my liking. It's just an idea and probably something you're not willing to put the expense into implementing.

Also, I don't know how many others do this but I very rarely actually enter the site through the front page. My bookmark points to the 'getdaily' search which lists new topics (and ones I've read already). I just browse through those to find interesting topics quickly rather than the traditional hunt-through-every-forum. Because of that, the front page sidebar isn't of much interest to me. :P

Oh, if you were to decide on putting a left-hand column on every page could you add in a JavaScript (with session/cookies to remember settings!) to add a 'hide' functionality, so we can choose to have it open or collapsed?

Originally Posted by Salathe Even if the skin is going to be quite wide (read: fluid) I'd rather there not be a sidebar on every page. Keep it to the homepage and I'll be happier. Maybe it's a little extravagant but I'd like to see maybe a modular approach to the sidebar. It'd be a big hack but I'd love you forever if it was possible to pick and choose which 'modules' get shown in the sidebar (maybe make the advert box mandatory) and to be able to reorder them to my liking. It's just an idea and probably something you're not willing to put the expense into implementing. Also, I don't know how many others do this but I very rarely actually enter the site through the front page. My bookmark points to the 'getdaily' search which lists new topics (and ones I've read already). I just browse through those to find interesting topics quickly rather than the traditional hunt-through-every-forum. Because of that, the front page sidebar isn't of much interest to me. :P Oh, if you were to decide on putting a left-hand column on every page could you add in a JavaScript (with session/cookies to remember settings!) to add a 'hide' functionality, so we can choose to have it open or collapsed?

Not asking for much Ha Ha.

I think the first suggestion may be a while off, however I really like your suggestion:-

Oh, if you were to decide on putting a left-hand column on every page could you add in a JavaScript (with session/cookies to remember settings!) to add a 'hide' functionality, so we can choose to have it open or collapsed?

Can you explain how you would achieve this in coding terms - how hard do you think it would be to do? As I understand it you would have a small tab "SHOW/HIDE SIDEBAR" - if clicked the sidebar scrolls until its hidden, while at the same time the main forum section slides to fill its space.

You could use vBulletin's javascript collapse features to accomplish this. If nothing else you could make it an account setting as well.

I think the sidebar on all pages will work well. It opens the door for future additions and members have said before that they would really like to have the little UserCP box displayed on all pages.

The latest threads hack, I wonder if it would be possible to make that forum specific? For example, if you were on the main page it would display the latest threads from all forums as normal but if you were in the MarketPlace it would show the newest threads from just the MarketPlace (ie Newest Sales) or if you were in the 3M's it would show just the newest thread for those forums and then return to showing the newest from all the forums when you're back on the main page etc

Dunno if thats possible but it might be good if it can do that.

I'm not sure if we need a navigation with us having pretty much all the forums on show right from the front page but if we ever decided we needed to restructure the forums and make use of sub-forums more then I think adding a navigation would be essential (not saying we should do that just my thought that at the moment a full navigation is probably not needed).