Marquee Plugin

[Lynx]

This started out as just template / CSS mods (as seen here: support.proboards.com/thread/555030/template-css-mods-marquee ), but I'm trying to make this into a plugin to make it easier for people to adjust settings for it. Since this is my first attempt at making a plugin, I've naturally run into problems - mainly, I can get the first line to show (via variable), but then all my code starts showing up instead of just the separator and the next text line. It's also not scrolling. I'm guessing I've got coding in the wrong spot.

Also, to be clear, this is not my own code. It is some JS / CSS code I found (and have listed the URL in my About tab in the plugin). I'm trying this so I can try to learn how the plugin builder works, as well as trying to learn JS / CSS (as well as through other media, such as W3Schools).

If any coder wants to take a look and help point me in the right direction of what I need to do to fix it (constructive criticism is always appreciated), just let me know. I have a special Member Group (Plugin Helper) on my forum for those who are coders and need to get in to take a look.

Any help is appreciated!

I'm more than willing to do the work. I just need help with debugging and shown what's supposed to go where. I'd be happy to credit you in the About tab as well.

[Lynx]

Should I be tagging Tim Camara or other ProBoards Coders so maybe someone could tell me had bad I screwed up?

[Brian]

None of the if statements in your Header/Footer component appear to be typed correctly. Template if statements should look similar to this:

{if $[variable1] && $[variable2] != ""}
    Do something here
{/if}

{if $[variable1] && $[variable2] != ""}
    Do something here
{elseif $[variable3] == 2}
    Do something else here
{/if}

Also, ensure that you're typing == (two symbols) when checking if a value is equal to another.

[Lynx]

Jul 14, 2015 8:48:23 GMT -8 Brian said:

None of the if statements in your Header/Footer component appear to be typed correctly. Template if statements should look similar to this:

{if $[variable1] && $[variable2] != ""}
    Do something here
{/if}

{if $[variable1] && $[variable2] != ""}
    Do something here
{elseif $[variable3] == 2}
    Do something else here
{/if}

Also, ensure that you're typing == (two symbols) when checking if a value is equal to another.

If there was an else, would it look like this:

{if $[variable1] && $[variable2] != ""}
    Do something here
{elseif $[variable3] == 2}
    Do something else here
{else}
    Do default here
{/if}

Thank you VERY much for that. I think I had a DORT moment about the ==. I should have remembered from my programming days that one is to assign and 2 is to compare.

[Brian]

The example you posted is correct.

[Lynx]

Jul 14, 2015 9:23:12 GMT -8 Brian said:

The example you posted is correct.

Thank you very much, kind sir. Everything looks good now except for one small issue - it doesn't scroll.

The site's currently in Maintenance Mode. Please let me know if you need me to turn it off.

[Brian]

For whatever reason it looks like they have two different Javascript codes for the horizontal marquee. I recommend comparing your JS to this one since it has a working example on the same page: www.hashbangcode.com/examples/javascript-marquee/horizontal-scroll.php

[Lynx]

Brian,

I took the copy that had the working example and posted it in, only changing the scroll speed variable to pull from my variable. Something's not doing it's job, but I'll be darned if I can figure it out.

Just to be sure I'm correct in this: The JS box in the plugin builder does -not- require the <script tags and the CSS box does -not need the <style tags. Is this correct?

[Lynx]

I took the time to read through the comments under the code. It would seem that it is old code, and even the author had suggested not using it due to the age of it. I've therefore found new code and am working on configuring that for my plugin.

The new code looks promising, as setting up just the defaults it had actually did what it was supposed to do. Now to see if it still works after I've configured it to be used as a plugin.

[Peter]

If you want help from others as well, maybe post your plugin, code, or enable the plugin on a test forum. I looked just now in your forum source, and I could not see anything related to what you were doing.

[Lynx]

Hi, Peter.

I had it active on my Birds At Night forum (same forum you had checked the monetary issue I had). If you want to take a look, you're more than welcome to. Your account there should let you into the plugins part of the Admin panel. The plugin name is Marquee - and I gave you access to that as well. Thank you very much for the offer to help. I know a lot of you coders are busy with your own projects, so I didn't want to take up too much of your time.

EDIT: I just double checked to make sure you had the permissions, Peter, and you're set (Themes; Headers & Footers and Plugins accesses; as well as the Marquee plugin access). I have also turned it on in case any other coder wants to take a look.

[Brian]

Jul 14, 2015 11:42:22 GMT -8 Lynx said:

Just to be sure I'm correct in this: The JS box in the plugin builder does -not- require the <script tags and the CSS box does -not need the <style tags. Is this correct?

That's correct. Both of those tags are HTML tags and are thus inapplicable to the languages of the content placed within them.

[Lynx]

Jul 15, 2015 9:20:26 GMT -8 Brian said:

Jul 14, 2015 11:42:22 GMT -8 Lynx said:

Just to be sure I'm correct in this: The JS box in the plugin builder does -not- require the <script tags and the CSS box does -not need the <style tags. Is this correct?

That's correct. Both of those tags are HTML tags and are thus inapplicable to the languages of the content placed within them.

Thank you very much for the verification on that.

[Lynx]

Plugin is almost done. I've just got one other issue to resolve and I can see about submitting it.

Issue: When first going to the page, the marquee lines show up as they should, but once the page fully loads, lines 2 and 3 don't show anymore (I've got 3 Text Lines entered in for testing). Any advice on that issue would be greatly appreciated. My guess is it's somewhere in the JS.

(Note: It's currently active on my Birds At Night forum (link in sig). Peter - if you have time, or are able, it's the Forum Marquee plugin. I've pretty much scrapped my other attempts (although I haven't deleted them yet.))

Brian - Once submitted, what's next? Is there a link that shows the steps during plugin submission? Thanks!

[Brian]

It looks like it's just using the first span to get its text. This line is assigning the text of the first span to the txt variable.

var txt = this.mqo.getElementsByTagName('span')[0].innerHTML;

This line is emptying your m1 div completely.

this.mqo.innerHTML = '';

And this line is assigning that variable's value to the HTML of each of the marquee headlines it creates.

this.mqo.ary[i].innerHTML = txt;

You submit a plugin to the library and it gets accepted or rejected. That's about it.