Advertisement:

Author Topic: Floating Top and Sidebar  (Read 1012 times)

Offline Wrouster

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 2
Floating Top and Sidebar
« on: July 25, 2012, 04:19:44 PM »
What I want is basically, a Top and Sidebar that follow the screen(always on the same position) to substitute the options on the top of the page(My messages and etcetera). I created a few images on Photoshop using SMF forums to show basically how I want it to be.




On the first Image, since the user is not logged on yet, the sidebar will not appear.



In here, the user is logged on, the top bar shrinks(so it won't use too much space) and only shows the hello message and a Search bar(that I forgot to put in this image, but it is on image three). The sidebar appears, but it is shrunk, it won't display any options unless you click on it.



Now, the sidebar shows the options, and, as long as the cursor stays on top of the bar, it will remain open, as soon as the cursor wanders off, it shrinks again. The sidebar will show all options that are programmed into it(so it has to be customizable), on the My Messages for an example, if you have unread messages, the title will change to "My Messages(Number of Messages)". And if there are more options than displayed, and arrow will appear in the bottom of the sidebar, and putting the mouse on top off it will scroll the options down, the same will work to scroll back up(except that the arrow will be in the upper part and pointing up).

If it is possible to create this, I will be immensely happy.

Offline Sorck

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 240
  • Gender: Male
  • Sporks need more uses.
    • Second Sphere
Re: Floating Top and Sidebar
« Reply #1 on: July 26, 2012, 07:07:21 AM »
It's definitely possible (in fact I was thinking of having such a top bar on a site I'm working on :P) but it would probably have to be done by having a brand new theme. It would be a customised version of Curve.

Is the sidebar a little like the one on Google+? For example, when I hover on 'more' at the bottom of the page, I get another option that I can click upon. (the attachment shows this).

Best practice would make sure the sidebar used the existing menu array ($context['menu'] IIRC) so what the sidebar displays should, in theory, be only able to access what's defined in that array. But I'm sure that could be integration-hooked into being customisable through the admin CP.

Offline Wrouster

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 2
Re: Floating Top and Sidebar
« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2012, 11:47:38 AM »
Problem is, I don't really understand how that works, I only know the basics(I also don't really understand why does my Internet Provider keeps failing me). It would be kind of like that sidebar, but instead of opening a ballon-like window it would just scroll the options down.