[For 1.6] Advanced Sidebox 2.1.1

[Wildcard]

Hmmm . . . that's a bug then. Did you by chance import that box?

I will take a look as soon as I have time. Thanks for the report.

[MikeInToshx]

Nah, no import, clean code. No problem.

By the way, the options i mentioned before is gone aswell, in the settings, to not display it on certen pages.

[Wildcard]

The options when adding and editing side boxes? :s

[MikeInToshx]

The "plugin options". Used to control some pages where to display the sideboxes.

[Wildcard]

Ah okay.

Now that is no longer in Settings. To disable a script, go to the Manage Scripts tab and click the link beside that script in the list. It will be red 'Inactive' when deactivated.

[Tanweth]

I just updated to 2.0 a couple of days ago, and I am very much enjoying the changes. The ability to put the sideboxes on my custom Portal page has really expanded my ability to use it, since I was hesitant to use its full potential before because they couldn't appear on the Portal. The ability to add new scripts is also very welcome, since my site has many custom pages.

Overall, I can now freely manage all of my sideboxes with this plugin on any page I want. The new admin CP interface is also very impressive and easy to use. So, I must once again thank you for all of your hard work. This has become one of the most integral plugins to my forum now!

There were a couple of things I wanted to report and suggest:

1. I appear to be experiencing a formatting error on the "Settings" tab of the edit menu for each sidebox. The body content aligns to the right of the tab menu at the top, rather than under it. You can view that here:



2. My members' avatars can vary in their proportions (many aren't square), so by default they end up being stretched one way or another in the Who's On-line list since it resizes them to square dimensions. Instead, I think it looks better if they're just kept to a consistent width, so that their proportions are maintained. This is probably a personal taste thing, since this does result in the icons not being a consistent size, but I thought I'd give my opinion anyway. I've already modified it to only constrain width on my site.

3. One minor quibble that I thought I would give my opinion on anyway. I feel like the rendition "on-line" is fairly archaic these days, and the term is pretty well established as a compound word ("online") by now. So I prefer that the "Who's On-line" plugin use the compound word "online" instead. That's quite easy for me to modify for my own site, but I thought I'd say my two cents.

4. Another very minor quibble: the tooltip that comes up when you mouse over the avatar of someone who is online in the Who's On-line module says "[Username]'s Avatar." That struck me as slightly out-of-place, since the goal in mousing over is most likely just to be to discover who the user is, and the avatar represents them. So I'd prefer it to just say "[Username]." But this was also easy for me to modify for my site.

Lastly, I made a module for Advanced Sidebox that allows you to display a poll (including voting options if you haven't voted in it yet) in a sidebox. It's inspired by the Poll on Index plugin, but this one is made to work as an ASB module and display well as a sidebox. It also addresses some annoyances I had with that plugin. Like it now includes a link to the original thread of the poll, and you can have it pull the latest poll from a forum (or forums), not just call a poll by poll ID (though that option is also there).

I figure I may not be the only person who would benefit from such a module, so I'd be happy to provide it for others. But I don't know what distribution system you had in mind for custom modules, so I thought I'd ask you about it first.

If you want to get an idea as to how it looks, here's some screenshots of it operating on my site:

http://kerfufflealliance.com/pictures/poll_box_1.jpg

http://kerfufflealliance.com/pictures/poll_box_2.jpg

[Wildcard]

I just updated to 2.0 a couple of days ago, and I am very much enjoying the changes.
[..]
So, I must once again thank you for all of your hard work.
[..]
This has become one of the most integral plugins to my forum now!

You are very, very kind. Thank you.

1. I appear to be experiencing a formatting error on the "Settings" tab of the edit menu for each sidebox.

I don't get that in MyBB 1.6.10 but when I tested ASB on MyBB feature branch I did.

I am attempting to contain the settings so the modal doesn't get so big that it breaks sight-lines for those with lower res displays. Apparently, I have made some mistake . . . I'll make an issue on GitHub (or you are welcome to).

Thanks for the report.

2. My members' avatars can vary in their proportions (many aren't square), so by default they end up being stretched one way or another in the Who's On-line list since it resizes them to square dimensions.

I am so weird about symmetry and I couldn't live with the odd heights-- but now that you mention it, it would be easy to add a setting to control that and I really should have done that rather than impose my preference on others. Sorry. Will get it on the list.

3. I feel like the rendition "on-line" is fairly archaic these days, and the term is pretty well established as a compound word ("online") by now.

I just changed some of the tools I use and the new code editor spell checks-- it indicated that both 'plugin' and 'online' needed to be hyphenated so I made the change.

I would certainly not argue if you are telling me that it needs to be changed back. In fact, I would welcome it if you looked all the language over and gave me pointers. It is one of my weakest suits.

4. Another very minor quibble: the tooltip that comes up when you mouse over the avatar of someone who is online in the Who's On-line module says "[Username]'s Avatar."

Hehe again, I didn't know what to do so I just did something

Technically, since they link to the user's profile, shouldn't the title attribute describe what happens when they click? ei.: '[Username]'s Profile'

Lastly, I made a module for Advanced Sidebox that allows you to display a poll (including voting options if you haven't voted in it yet) in a sidebox.
[...]
I figure I may not be the only person who would benefit from such a module, so I'd be happy to provide it for others.

That is so awesome!

There has only been one other add-on module created afaik. I made a lot of mistakes and one of them was to pull the external add-on into the core package. This made the plugin dependent upon that add-on author's schedule and I found that unacceptable.

So, I would suggest you create a GitHub repository for the add-on module and then create a thread announcing your module and attach the files to that thread.

I would of course link to your thread in the OP of this thread and on GitHub.

In any case, how awesome are you for making something that seems like it should've always been available for the ASB!!! Destroy666 asked about a latest polls side box last year some time and I never really got a chance to get into it.

I am super excited and thankful to you Tanweth and to everyone else who helps out (you know who you guys are!)

Giggling like a child,
Wildcard

[Tanweth]

1. I'm not sure what you mean by MyBB feature branch. I am running MyBB 1.6.10. But anyway, glad to hear that it was reproducible.

2. I figured that it would come down to personal taste. You must have symmetry, and I must not have stretching. Anyway, including a setting to configure that would be much appreciated.

3. Ah, good old spell-checkers. I'll certainly let you know if I see any other language issues.

4. I think users will probably get the idea either way, but "[Username]'s Profile" has a certain logic and would be fine with me.

I took your advice with my module. I spent some time today testing it more and fixing some minor issues, so hopefully it should work as intended across all [proper] usage situations and different themes now. But now it is available on GitHub here: https://github.com/Tanweth/Poll-Box , and I made a thread for it here: http://community.mybb.com/thread-145875.html .

[Wildcard]

You have made a really nice addition to the plugin and you should feel proud of yourself!

I replied to your thread so I won't repeat, but I will say that I will certainly get this linked in the OP and on GitHub some time tomorrow . . . and I think I may need to get this installed on my forum pretty soon

Thanks again and look for those updates to ASB soon.

Also, since I have been the only module author, I discontinued using the author and author site fields within the ASB Manage Modules ACP page. I'll make some changes to that so you can be credited within the plugin and also so users can link directly to your repo (or where ever you choose to link them) to get help or thank you

I'll get with you on GitHub when I have made the changes.

[Tanweth]

Thank you for the kind words! And glad to hear that you're interested in linking it (or even better, using it).