Drop Down Menu plugin or facility

[Barkley]

Is it possible that Proboards can give us a drop down menu facility for the navigation menu facility please?

I appreciate the great work by Shortyverrit, and his attempts to provide one, but it isn't compatible across browsers. To have a custom page facility, yet no way to display them doesn't make sense. It is a very needed feature.

[Ryan Roos]

Apr 9, 2013 4:53:46 GMT -8 Barkley said:

Is it possible that Proboards can give us a drop down menu facility for the navigation menu facility please?

I appreciate the great work by Shortyverrit, and his attempts to provide one, but it isn't compatible across browsers. To have a custom page facility, yet no way to display them doesn't make sense. It is a very needed feature.

Can you please explain what it is you are requesting in detail? We don't understand your request.

The word 'facility' doesn't mean anything specific and isn't a forum term here on ProBoards. And we're even more confused when you're requesting a 'facility for a facility'.

Tell us how your feature works and why that's important. Be specific.

Drop down menu facility?
Navigation menu facility?
Custom page facility?

No idea what you're referencing. If facility means a way to edit these things, then that already exists for all 3 things you mentioned.

With regards to any plugin. If it isn't cross browser compatible that is up to the author to make it work. Odds are if this request is already a plugin, or if it can even be achieved with a plugin that we're going to tell you to use a plugin. Perhaps people using plugins will come to appreciate how difficult it is for us to continue to support outdated or obscure browsers and how much time/money we waste doing so.

Clarify your request and we will do our best to help you.

Thank you.

[Barkley]

Double post edited out.

[Barkley]

A drop down menu that works with the navigation bar. We have one in the admin panel. Why isn't there one available for the forum itself?

I hope that's a better description.

Here is an example, if somewhat ugly lol.

[Ryan Roos]

Because the admin area has a clearly organized and broken down set of categories and sections.

The forum doesn't... at all.

Let me do a mock drop down system really quick.

I'll use support to demonstrate the problem. My commentary will be the orange text.



Home What goes here? Everything? That already exists right below this button. It's the navigation tree. So duplicate that I guess?

Support >

Support Board
ProBoards Mobile App Support

ProBoards v5 Open Beta >

Example
Example
Example >

Example
Example
Example
Example

Example

Testing >

Example
Example
Example
Example

General >

Example
Example >

Example
Example
Example
Example

Example
Example

Moderators >

Example
Example
Example
Example

Admins >

Example
Example
Example
Example

Admins & Gmods >

You get the point. This already all exists one inch down the page.

Search Nothing...
Help Nothing...
Calendar Nothing... Maybe Grid View vs List view... maybe.
Members Nothing...
Admin The entire admin drop down menu? No, because the permission checks for this are done in the admin area and would slow down the page on every page load if they had to be done here. So this one is also Nothing.
Profile This one has things. That's good at least. But still only one click different and you have to wait for it all to load just the same.

Summary

Activity

Following

Friends

Groups

Notifications

Gift

Bookmarks Nothing...
Messages 2 Things? No. 3 Things!

Inbox

Outbox

Archive

Create a Forum Custom Link, Nothing.
Rules Custom Link, Nothing.

So basically there are only 3 sections that can have a drop down at all. 4 if I'm giving you options for the calendar. One of those already exists on the page right below the button (Navigation tree is right below the Home button). And all the rest have no sup categories or sections and a drop down makes no sense.

If you have a plugin that accomplishes this in some fashion that makes sense then go ahead and use that. If it isn't browser compatible then ask the author to make it so. We do not see the value or the use in having a drop down menu for only 3 sections of the navigation bar. That was not the design or the type of that bar. It was not that way in v4, it is not that way in v5. I'm sorry, but we will not be adding this as a default feature for all ProBoards forums.

Thank you again.

[Barkley]

Ryan, where is your vision ha ha.

The board is a platform from which admins and their team can build upon. If we all stuck to the basic 'default' intentions of PB then life would get very boring indeed.

Having the custom pages facility is a fantastic opportunity for admins to expand endlessly the features of any Proboards forum, and the drop down menu from the navigation bar is the perfect place to access those custom pages.

Not having an inbuilt feature, means that the creative adventurous admin then has to become a creative and adventurous coder in order to get the same goals, and that is a very different thing to running and building a forum.

Please visit my PB site to see what I've been doing with the navigation bar.

loveeverton.proboards.com/

Without Shorty's plugin, I couldn't do it, but his plugin doesn't support I.E. and yes, I've discussed it with him. If Shorty hadn't built a plugin, what would we do for a drop down?

[Ryan Roos]

You just explained it perfectly.

Vision.

If you have the vision to expand your forum in such a way that a drop down navigation is a logical UX element to use then you can implement it with the tools we already give you (plugins). We even made it so people with no skills in coding can get plugins from people who do and install them. After launch there will be a plugin library for this exact purpose. So we have plenty of vision,. And we have plenty of vision for those who don't have the means to accomplish the goals they can imagine.

Your feature suggestion is not something that applies to 98% of all forums. And it won't... ever. People aren't going to be doing that. Or if they are they will use plugins that others have made to do so.

If you have the vision and drive to make your forum more and that requires changes in how its navigated then make those changes. We even give you a way to do so already.

You're arguing that we add a turbo button and spoiler on every car even though only a very very small fraction of drivers are going to put an actual turbo system under the hood and make their car go extra fast. You don't need those features if the hardware to use them doesn't exist. And we still give you the options to add these things later.

Default v5 doesn't need a drop down navigation menu. It doesn't make sense (I just showed you that). Add if the browser issue is an issue then that is where the problem is. This isn't a v5 problem, this is a plugin problem. You need to get the author to fix it or find a better plugin. Once the library launches you can rate and comment on why or why not to use the plugin and you can go find another.

Drop down navigation for the control areas of the forum isn't a default feature. We already provide a full forum drop down navigation for the forum itself (the navigation tree). I can't explain it any more than that...

Thank you for the conversation though.

[Barkley]

Ha ha, ok.

Love the turbo thing. Beep beep.