If a user clicks a particular option in a TinyPortal menu block, I would like a webpage (basically this would be the html pages section of my site) to open in place of where the forum index or posts usually appear - so that the page is still framed by the TP panels that are usually around the forum.
Is this possible?
Sure just use an html article.
I am not sure I follow - how do I make sure this opens in the area where the forum would normally be displayed, rather than in a dedicated block to the side or above? Or, if that can't be done an alternative is to dynamically open a block above the forum to display it, one that is not usually there until the user clicks the menu option I am planning to provide.
Articles are displayed in the area the forum would be in if you were in the forum. Then set up the article and blocks however you want to show block when viewing the article.
I think from the your reply you may be assuming I know more about what I am doing than I actually do :D Please could you take a look at my site at http://dino.drealm.info/den/denforum/index.php?action=forum
I have a site in two halves, effectively. The forum/portal half, and the html content pages half, each hosted on a different server. My downloadable content is on html pages, while I take feedback and support questions about that content on the forum site.
Now if you look on the right hand panel there is a menu block called The Sims 2, and in that menu an option called Downloads. When I click that, the page comes up in the same window, but it completely replaces my forum and portal interface.
What I was hoping to make it do was appear in the space usually occupied by the forum board index, but without losing the right hand TinyPortal panel from the window, so that it is easy for the user to seamlessly return to checking forum posts after finding the download they want.
So basically I was asking for someway to write the link for the menu option "Downloads" that would tell the page to open in a particular frame - ie the one that usually displays the board index.
Quote from: Inge Jones on April 19, 2012, 08:35:05 PM
What I was hoping to make it do was appear in the space usually occupied by the forum board index, but without losing the right hand TinyPortal panel from the window, so that it is easy for the user to seamlessly return to checking forum posts after finding the download they want.
Like WillyP said, just add a html article, and paste the code in from your downloads page. like I did here as a test. http://cctestsite.info/forums/index.php?page=downloads The images are missing, as I haven't edited the links, but you get the idea.
What am I meant to be seeing at that link? Which menu option do I click to get the effect? I was looking for something like a target= to put into the menu option link, so basically if there is a name for that central panel where the forum goes, I would go target=forumpanelframe
My current code for that menu item is "http://www.drealm.info/simlogical/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2.htm", so I was looking to make it "http://www.drealm.info/simlogical/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2.htm target=forumpanel" or something like that - if I knew the name of forumpanel.
Ok, lets explain like this.
Open a new html article, or edit an existing one. And open your standalone download page in your text editor. Copy everything between... but not including.. the body tags. Paste that in the article. Then you have some url's that look like this:
""../Sims2Downloads/Sims2_Doors/Ladies.jpg""
The two dots at the beginning will (most likely) have to be replace with the full url, in this case:
http://www.drealm.info/simlogical/sl/Sims2Downloads/Sims2_Doors/Ladies.jpg
EDIT: I guess if you wanted to keep the background style, include the body tags when you copy/paste, but then change them to div:
Body tags:
<body background="../images/page_elements/1010.gif" leftmargin="20">
</body>
Change to:
<div style="background: url (http://www.drealm.info/simlogical/sl/images/page_elements/1010.gif); margin-left:20px;">
</div>
Quote from: Inge Jones on April 19, 2012, 09:37:29 PM
What am I meant to be seeing at that link?
Sorry, I had it hidded from guests. Try again http://cctestsite.info/forums/index.php?page=downloads I've also adjusted a couple of the image links, so you can see them working.
You could try something like this>>> http://tinyportal.info/index.php same has lurkalot really
Quote from: WillyP on April 19, 2012, 10:04:46 PM
Ok, lets explain like this.
Open a new html article, or edit an existing one. And open your standalone download page in your text editor. Copy everything between... but not including.. the body tags. Paste that in the article. Then you have some url's that look like this:
""../Sims2Downloads/Sims2_Doors/Ladies.jpg""
The two dots at the beginning will (most likely) have to be replace with the full url, in this case:
http://www.drealm.info/simlogical/sl/Sims2Downloads/Sims2_Doors/Ladies.jpg
The example in my last post was done by clicking "view source" copying the whole code and pasting into a html article. Then edit the image links as you described.
Quote from: Lesmond Ƹ̴ÓÌ´Æ· on April 19, 2012, 10:10:07 PM
You could try something like this>>> http://tinyportal.info/index.php same has lurkalot really
Same Les, but Inge Jones wanted to preserve the right hand blocks, hence why I left them on. ;)
Quote from: lurkalot on April 19, 2012, 10:13:28 PM
The example in my last post was done by clicking "view source" copying the whole code and pasting into a html article. Then edit the image links as you described.
Maybe because I am using a plugin for Firefox that lists html errors when I view source, but I cannot copy when I view source.
Also, not sure if it was Les's or Lurk's, but you included the head section and body tags in your example. Head and body tags cannot be nested in a body. Remove the head section and body tags. Unless you are using an i-frame.
Quote from: WillyP on April 19, 2012, 10:25:40 PM
Quote from: lurkalot on April 19, 2012, 10:13:28 PM
The example in my last post was done by clicking "view source" copying the whole code and pasting into a html article. Then edit the image links as you described.
Maybe because I am using a plugin for Firefox that lists html errors when I view source, but I cannot copy when I view source.
I'm using IE9 :D
I am tempted to reply 'My condolences'.
But that would be off topic... ;)
Quote from: WillyP on April 19, 2012, 10:34:48 PM
I am tempted to reply 'My condolences'.
But that would be off topic... ;)
lol.. I was waiting for a comment like that. :D But hey, I have found a use for it. Viewing source code, and seeing missing images on websites. ;)
Quote from: WillyP on April 19, 2012, 10:25:40 PM
Also, not sure if it was Les's or Lurk's, but you included the head section and body tags in your example. Head and body tags cannot be nested in a body. Remove the head section and body tags. Unless you are using an i-frame.
I have used body tags before in an html article, but I always remove head tags.
Sorry we are taking over your topic Inge Jones ::)
Ok thanks for the extra detail, but this isn't gonna give me the result I was after. You see the page I am gonna link to has loads of links to other pages and so on and so forth, I wanted my users to do the whole navigation of the html site from that initial page, while being able to snap back to reading forum any time by clicking something like "Recent posts" in the Posts menu. I didn't actually want to copy the page itself into an article, just have the browser open it within a particular frame (in this case the main forum frame) Similar to targeting an Iframe.
You could always add ssi to your html pages. That is, rather than trying to add your html pages to forum, bring some of the forum to the pages.
Then you should probably use an iframe to load the content in the article. That should probably keep the navigation in the article without loading all the different articles etc.
This is kind of a confusing topic but let me see if I can shed some light on it.
I just created a TinyPortal php article here on this site. In addition, I setup two test blocks in the right panel that were already existing and set them to show only on this article. If you want to see it, click here --> http://www.tinyportal.net/index.php?page=downloads
If you look at it and click on one of the links in it, the link will open on the same article page and to get back to the main article, all you have to do is hit the back button on your browser.
This article uses an iframe to show the content of your html page, which is very wide by the way. Because it is so wide, I changed the width of the right panel to 150px. It won't affect anything here since we don't use the right panel on this site. Therefore, those 2 blocks I setup in the right panel will only show when viewing that article. I also turned off display of all the other panels for that article. The code I used in the article is as follows ...
echo '<iframe frameborder=0 scrolling=no width=1000 height=1750 src="http://www.drealm.info/simlogical/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2.htm" align=top></iframe>';
Inge Jones, is this something like what you are looking for? Since the content of your html page is so wide, if you don't use a width for your screen resolution of at least 1280px, some of the content will be cut off. You could always set scrolling for the iframe in the code above to yes if that happens.
ZarPrime
Tis a bit confusing, made worse probably because I turned off my example articles. :-[
I also played with the iframe idea last night, but couldn't make it fit properly because of the width of page. It looked bad, so I didn't suggest it.
I am surprised the page didn't shrink to fit, as they were designed as tables of 100% rather than fixed size and should be able to shrink quite a lot. Well they did when I first made them, tested in IE which I haven't used for ages :D
ZarPrime, the appearance matches what I want, but the missing connection here is I don't want that to be a fixed article on the front page, I wanted that to appear in response to clicking an option on my menu block. So, if user is sitting looking at forum index, then spots the menu on the right and clicks it, suddenly the forum index vanishes and they see my html page (the way you have shown it on your site) instead. Then, when they are tired of looking at my webpage, they click the menu again for Support, and that webpage is replaced with the forums again, ready for user to post their question.
It looks to me like how you have it is just a fixed article on Front Page. Usually I have other news and stuff on my Front Page, only want html article to appear in response to menu click.
Edit: No you're right, those pages are rubbish. Must have made them before I knew much about web design - they don't resize well at all :( But anyway in principle I'd still like to get this working, just in case I get round to fixing the table width.
Inge Jones,
I think you are missing the point. This article I setup is set to
NOT show on the FrontPage, though it could be setup to show there. It is a TinyPortal article. Either of these links will get you there ...
- http://www.tinyportal.net/index.php?page=downloads
- http://www.tinyportal.net/index.php?page=29
Right now, the only blocks that are set to show on that article are the ones in the right panel. If I had blocks in the Top panel (or bottom, upper, or lower panel) that were to set show on that article they would also show up. Remember, the only reason I turned off the left panel for that article is that the content of your html page is too wide to show both the left and right panel.
If I setup a link in the TinyPortal menu that I was showing in the right panel, it would open up in the same browser tab, still showing all of the blocks, including the menu
ZarPrime
So what link should I put in my menu, to make an article like that appear on my site? I can see the example articles you are giving me links to, but what I haven't seen yet is it popping up after I click a menu option, which was really the root of my initial question. Not how to make an article that displays a webpage, cos I already have done that for other articles, but how to have the block appear dynamically when a user clicks a menu item.
Ok I see in the links you have things like "page=downloads" or "page=29" so how do I find out what page number will open my article like that?
In SMF, when you are clicking a link in a Forum topic, like the ones I gave you above, they will open up another browser tab like you saw. If you setup a link in the menu, it will open up the article in the same browser tab as your forum rather than opening up a second browser tab to display it. I hope I was being clear on that.
If you have experience setting up an article, you already know that each article has a page #. The page number on this site for that article is 29. When you setup the article, you can also add a query title. In the case of the one that I did, I made the query title "downloads" so that either link works. Once you know the url of your article, all you have to do is put the url in your menu as a link and when you click it, in the menu, it will open up the article in the same content area as your Forum BoardIndex is normally located in.
Oh, and on your menu block, make sure that the block is set to show on that article.
ZarPrime
Quote from: ZarPrime on April 20, 2012, 05:16:34 PM
If you have experience setting up an article, you already know that each article has a page #
Nope, never seen any page numbers. Just taken another look and I can't spot them anywhere lol
Just setup a test article on your site. After you have saved it, click "Preview" and it will show you the url.
ZarPrime
Actually, when you click "Preview", it would show you something like http://www.tinyportal.net/index.php?page=29;tpreview
Just drop off the ";tpreview" at the end and you'll have the url.
ZarPrime
YAY!!!! That was the bit I was missing all the time - how to reference an article directly. I never bothered to use preview, you see. Always checked the articles live. Ok I now have my test article popping up on demand. Thank you all for your patience :)
Ok I just want to make a final tweak but not sure if it's possible. The article appears to pop up surrounded by the panels I have enabled on my front page. However, in the forum I only use the righthand panel in order to allow more space for the main display. I would really have preferred the article (ie my downloads website) to only have that right hand panel also. I guess this is a requirement too far?
Edit: I managed the latter by setting the individual blocks to only appear in Front Page context. A bit more work than just having the panel not appear but has the same end result
Quote from: Inge Jones on April 20, 2012, 05:29:50 PM
Ok I just want to make a final tweak but not sure if it's possible. The article appears to pop up surrounded by the panels I have enabled on my front page. However, in the forum I only use the righthand panel in order to allow more space for the main display. I would really have preferred the article (ie my downloads website) to only have that right hand panel also. I guess this is a requirement too far?
Edit that article, and scroll down, you'll see all the options for those blocks / left and right panels etc. Just choose what you want to display with the article, and save. ;)
Quote from: ZarPrime on April 20, 2012, 05:27:56 PM
Actually, when you click "Preview", it would show you something like http://www.tinyportal.net/index.php?page=29;tpreview
Just drop off the ";tpreview" at the end and you'll have the url.
ZarPrime
You can also use whatever you put in the "Query title" For example, if you added downloads as the "Query title", then the address could be,
Something like, http://www.tinyportal.net/index.php?page=downloads
I just looked at your site and, if the test article you created is at http://dino.drealm.info/den/denforum/index.php?page=8 ...
(the one in the Sims 3 menu) be sure that, when you go in to edit the article, you approve it. Right now, I can't see the test article because it hasn't been approved yet. In this case, only Admins will see it until it is approved.
ZarPrime
Lol yeah I didn't approve it - it's got rubbish in for the test. I am going to start now on setting up the proper one. Will update here when it's ready :)
Ok, working versions now under Sims 2 Downloads and Sims 1 Downloads menu options.
OK, good. O0 I can't see them as a guest but you probably have them in a category that guests are not permitted to see. So, for now, I'll go ahead and mark this topic solved and if you need any further help or have an more questions, feel free to start a new topic.
ZarPrime
Eek! Guests are meant to be able to see them so I had better check that out! Thanks for letting me know
OK, works now, with scrollbars for the html content area. ;)
ZarPrime
Yeah I wasn't sure how to get the article area to expand to the length of the content page. When I copied the example code you guys gave me, I wasn't able to scroll down to see the bottom of the content at all. So while it is now all seeable, it would be nicer to use if you only had to pull the one single scrollbar at the side of the browser window. I am redoing the content pages so they will shrink sideways and wrap like they should, but what's the trick to getting the block/article itself to stretch downwards to fit the content?
If you don't want the vertical scrollbar, you just have to set the height of the iframe high enough so that the content fits it.
ZarPrime
That's as I feared, also confirmed by Google as a limitation of the IFrame implementation. Some of my pages would need a setting of 5000 as they stand, which would add some inconvenience to users who might feel they should scroll the browser window more just to make sure they didn't miss any info right at the very bottom of the content. I will compromise with a setting of 2000 for now, which will display many of my pages without scrolling, but leave scrollbar in for the others.
Yeah, probably best to redo your html code so that you know what length you need, including with the links that you might click. ;)
ZarPrime