Static header frame

[gruslo]

Is there a way to make the header frame static? For example, if a thread has too many posts, it would be nice if it was possible to make the blocks of the header static and, if the user reads the last posts, would have the possibility to select from the left frame (header) a useful block, for example a post from the recent topics block, without having to scroll up to the top of the web page again...

[Frost]

wow your users are lazy j/k <img>

Your theme may have a built in button somewhere on the bottom that takes them back to the top. All themes I make have this function as I am pretty lazy too lol

What's your website?

[gruslo]

Yes, I know this button, but members want to be able to see always the recent topics list... Well, if this is not possible, I wiil tell them to use the "back to top" button and then navigate the recent topics block.

Generally, the members of my forum are quite strange... For example, when entering the site (http://www.e-arhontariki.gr) having portal.php as home page, most of the members thought that all forum topics were the... Recent topics (!!!) and could not understand that they had to click on "forum" to enter the main forum web page... So I recently made forum (index.php) as first page of the site.
They also ask me to have a left frame with the Recent topics block and... all forum discussion categories always static, to be able to click at once every time on every category the want!
They also want to see a list that shows when every user enters the forum (with day/time login display)!

Well, there is something behind all these strange requests: members used a very old-fashioned forum, at http://forums.delphiforums.com (enter anyone with a simple registration) until I decided to make a new Integramod one. Integramod is for me the best forum I have seen. Also new members have been excited! But old members want some special conveniences of the old-fashioned delphi forums. Maybe some of their requests would be useful...

[tharaleos]

I agree with gruslo that a static navigation frame is a great..... missing in all the php forums. I have also been a user at delphiforums and I can say that though they are with quite limited functions, they have the best navigation ever, through the forum posts. The left bar integrates:
1) The forums
2) The recent posts
3) The unread posts
4) All the above are collapsible in a very convenient way
5) The default used theme is simple and neat even for a newbie.

[Frost]

You would have to ask someone that designed the setup of the original phpbb for this, or someone who is very good with changing all the files in your forum lol

If I get what you are saying, you are wanting the entire left side of the site to "stay" as the rest of the site changes. There are two ways I can think of to make this happen... one would be very difficult, the other kind of hard..

1. You would have to make the actual forum part open in an iframe and change all the links to make everything refresh in that iframe. This would cause the header and the left side never be refreshed. But in doing this you would'nt get an updated list of who is online, new topics, etc... You would still have to refresh the whole thing for that. For some reason I don't think this is what you are talking about as this would be a very bad idea lol

2. You could use javascript to have a dynamic menu that stayed to the side of the page and "floated" up and down as you scrolled the page. This menu could contain all that you wanted inside. I could build you the menu and all the code. But I would need some help from someone more familiar with php code to get it to load those tpl files inside. I think the if defined in phpbb etc would cause problems because the tpl pages can only be loaded on the site. (I think, again this is why I would need help)

If I still haven't got it right for what you are looking for tell me lol <img>

[tharaleos]

Oh! Sorry I forgot one last think of information that is integrated in the left bar. So
6) Its always visible where exactly you are in the forum (which forum, topic) because there is a small mark (a tiny icon) at the left bar (with the recent topics) in front of the topic you are reading each time.

[gruslo]

[quote=""Frost";p="17668""]If I still haven't got it right for what you are looking for tell me lol Anyway, if finally it's not too hard, I would try.

[Teelk]

You would have to ask someone that designed the setup of the original phpbb for this, or someone who is very good with changing all the files in your forum lol

If I get what you are saying, you are wanting the entire left side of the site to "stay" as the rest of the site changes. There are two ways I can think of to make this happen... one would be very difficult, the other kind of hard..

1. You would have to make the actual forum part open in an iframe and change all the links to make everything refresh in that iframe. This would cause the header and the left side never be refreshed. But in doing this you would'nt get an updated list of who is online, new topics, etc... You would still have to refresh the whole thing for that. For some reason I don't think this is what you are talking about as this would be a very bad idea lol

2. You could use javascript to have a dynamic menu that stayed to the side of the page and "floated" up and down as you scrolled the page. This menu could contain all that you wanted inside. I could build you the menu and all the code. But I would need some help from someone more familiar with php code to get it to load those tpl files inside. I think the if defined in phpbb etc would cause problems because the tpl pages can only be loaded on the site. (I think, again this is why I would need help)

If I still haven't got it right for what you are looking for tell me lol <img>

The first one might not actually be too difficult. It could be possible to turn off forum headers, set up a new portal page and create a block with the iframe to index.php.

EDIT: Doesn't seem to work, probably a conflict somewhere.

[Frost]

The first one might not actually be too difficult. It could be possible to turn off forum headers, set up a new portal page and create a block with the iframe to index.php.

EDIT: Doesn't seem to work, probably a conflict somewhere.

That's what I was worried about, there are far more things than I am familiar with that have to be changed. But on the other hand I didn't even think about using the built in ability to have a different portal design...

Even if we could make the index.php load in the iframe it would look weird because it would be truncated. Also, you wouldn't be able to have any blocks load with the index.php (down the left side) because it would be ugly and cause scrollbars everywhere lol

This is getting more and more interesting lol here is what I am going to try and make...

New portal with header where it's at, and blocks down the left side (none on the right)

the entire middle and right section of the page will all be an iframe of width and height 100%, auto. The original index.php with no blocks loaded inside that iframe.

Also, a dynamic menu on the left that slides in and then slides up and down as you scroll the page with an iframe of the blocks they want. This menu set to refresh every 30 seconds.

Impossible? We will see

The link to the testing site/portal page that I'm trying = [url=http]Test Site[/url]

[Teelk]

You can try removing the line

Code: Select all

    include($phpbb_root_path . 'includes/page_header.'.$phpEx);  

from index.php.

[Frost]

Well, that works but it strips the index of all the images, tables, etc

I think overall_header.tpl holds the beginning of the middle structure per il index.php doesn't it? and the overall_footer.tpl finishes it?

what if we created a duplicate of index.php and index_body.tpl but changed them as needed.

Like

Code: Select all

    $page_title = $lang['NewIndex'];           $template->set_filenames(array(           'body' => 'index_body2.tpl')       );  

poi change the index_body2.tpl to have only the forum structure

hmm

[gruslo]

I appreciate your efforts! I imagined that the iframe would be the header (left frame) and not the forum web page, but your idea is also very interesting...
In order to be more specific, I will show you some screenshots-examples from the old-fashioned delphi forums. I don't think that these things are a "great missing" of phpbb, as tharaleos said, but you can take some interesting ideas and create other original blocks, with the power of php programming, that lucks delphiforums.
Delphiforums main left frame:
[flash=,:26hslmvf]http://www.e-arhontariki.gr/del1.jpg[/flash:26hslmvf]
Recent discussions are the Topics since last visit. The yellow star means that they are not readen. There is also a members visit statistic table, that show date / time of each visit.
When you press Start reading the frame changes as below:
[flash=,:26hslmvf]http://www.e-arhontariki.gr/del2.jpg[/flash:26hslmvf]
By scrolling the blue bar, you can navigate all forums, seeing the last topics from each category separatelly.
Yellow star= topic not readen
Blue circle= topic readen
Red circle= the topic you are reading now, from the main (center) forum page
The menus of each category are collapsable. If you click on a category, the left frame shows all the topics of this category.
[flash=,:26hslmvf]http://www.e-arhontariki.gr/del2a.jpg[/flash:26hslmvf]
If you want to return to the recent discussions of each category, you have to click on All folders.
The last interesting thing: each post has a counter that shows "post number / all posts number":
[flash=,:26hslmvf]http://www.e-arhontariki.gr/del3.jpg[/flash:26hslmvf]
Delphiforums are by far inferior than php ones, that's why I left them and now I am excited with Integramod 1.40, but maybe the ideas above could be helpful to implement even more powerful options for Kismod!