Fixed Side Bar

[Former Member]

it will cover the skin partially, NO other way around that sorry to say.
You need to think of each element in 3D space


There are no hacks around this. People will blindly tell you, YES I have a way, generally they have zero idea when it comes to performance.

[Serpent]

So there's not really a way to have like a sidebar thing that stays there and doesn't cover up the skin? I'm just trying to figure out if we can get it on the side where it'll always be visible as we don't really like it on the bottom

[Kami]

Feb 28, 2017 16:55:32 GMT -8 Serpent said:

So there's not really a way to have like a sidebar thing that stays there and doesn't cover up the skin? I'm just trying to figure out if we can get it on the side where it'll always be visible as we don't really like it on the bottom

I guess I wasn't clear enough. Whether or not the sidebar "covers the skin" (which, I think you mean covers the boards + content, as 'skin' or 'theme' tends to refer to the overall design) depends on who is viewing the forum and how large their resolution is.

What Phil is talking about is performance; having elements like this tend to be resource intensive (edit for clarification on my part: resource intensive based on people who use a lot of extraneous special effects) and will require a lot of finagling to accomplish, which is why I spoke of responsive design and only having the side bar appear selectively based on the viewer's resolution. As Phil said, there is NO way around this: either you elect not to display the sidebar for certain resolutions and display the information some other way OR you will overlap the forum content on some resolutions.

With all due respect to Phil, what he's talking about is an addendum to your request to make it better performance-wise rather than a solution to your problem of having content that doesn't overlap.

[elli]

Maybe I'm missing something, but this is not very resource intensive? (Left/Right push menus)

tympanus.net/Blueprints/SlidePushMenus/

[Kami]

Feb 28, 2017 17:45:22 GMT -8 elli said:

Maybe I'm missing something, but this is not very resource intensive? (Left/Right push menus)

tympanus.net/Blueprints/SlidePushMenus/

a) that's super cute
and b) that's not really the style i've seen used on most forums with side bars but what a good link

[Serpent]

Is there a way to have something where the sidebar is like x pixels wide then the rest of the site is there on the other side. It doesn't have to toggle. Similar to something like this or maybe something like this where the toggle is at the bottom? Or even just have a cbox fixed like this?

I just really want to find a way to get it on the side. I'd rather have performance, so if that dynamic thing would sacrfice that, then I'd rather just find something else. There may not be a way to get it there, but I figured I could at least see if there was.

[Kami]

Feb 28, 2017 18:06:20 GMT -8 Serpent said:

Is there a way to have something where the sidebar is like x pixels wide then the rest of the site is there on the other side. It doesn't have to toggle. Similar to something like this or maybe something like this where the toggle is at the bottom? Or even just have a cbox fixed like this?

I just really want to find a way to get it on the side. I'd rather have performance, so if that dynamic thing would sacrfice that, then I'd rather just find something else. There may not be a way to get it there, but I figured I could at least see if there was.

You can have any of those, yes. Are you OK with part of the forum being cut off? It's a tradeoff, see. Either under certain resolutions the sidebar will overlap OR the forum will be cut off. For example, if I shrink my resolution to under the combined width of their forum + sidebar, I only see about half the forum proper and have to scroll left/right.

I mean, the only thing that I'm saying really is that depending on the size of your forum + sidebar + space between (if any), that anyone whose resolution is less than that total in width will see either overlap or need to scroll horizontally.

You are not going to get something that works 100% perfectly in 100% of resolutions fulfilling all of your requirements, simply because there is only so much that can be displayed and that is entirely dependent on how big each individual user's resolution is.

Even with elli's suggestion of the push menus (which btw I think are ingenious), if you have a browser width under a certain amount you need to scroll horizontally to see the rest of the content.

Tbqh, I am not 100% sure what phil is talking about re: performance. While I have seen many forums use methods that are resource intensive because of all the bells and whistles they add to it, I don't know if that's an overall issue when it comes to performance. Maybe a little bit of a slow load if they have a crap connection but otherwise I don't know.

[Serpent]

I'm not opposed to it. I guess with the first one there, when I zoom in the forum part zooms and the sidebar zooms, but you don't have to scroll left/right nor does it overlap the skin.

I'd prefer it always be there, although the push menu could maybe work. I'd almost prefer people to have to scroll left/right than it overlap the skin. But I'm also not opposed to changing the layout of the theme slightly to accomodate a sidebar to hold the cbox

[Kami]

Feb 28, 2017 18:46:21 GMT -8 Serpent said:

I'm not opposed to it. I guess with the first one there, when I zoom in the forum part zooms and the sidebar zooms, but you don't have to scroll left/right nor does it overlap the skin.

I'd prefer it always be there, although the push menu could maybe work. I'd almost prefer people to have to scroll left/right than it overlap the skin. But I'm also not opposed to changing the layout of the theme slightly to accomodate a sidebar to hold the cbox

This is the part of the thing I said about responsive design (the overlap / scroll issue comes from having fixed widths, which you would encounter having a fluid width forum + a fixed width side bar, or having both fixed). The forum you linked to in the first example uses a fluid width forum and sidebar, meaning that each only covers a certain % of the browser window. If you zoom out, instead of in, you will notice that both shrink in size and the gap between them gets even wider.

I mentioned this in an earlier reply; obviously though having a very narrow forum and a side bar that is either the same width or wider than the main content is not ideal, hence my suggestion of hiding the sidebar if the browser is under a certain resolution. I mean, you don't have to do it that way, you can totally just leave it as-is, it just won't look very good. Let me know, and I'll write something come the weekend if someone else doesn't get to it first (:

[Serpent]

I mean if that fluid width forum thing or which ever can be done that would be best. I wouldn't necessarily want to stop it on low resolutions because I know several of our members access the site from their phones throughout the day.

[Kami]

Mar 2, 2017 15:25:56 GMT -8 Serpent said:

I mean if that fluid width forum thing or which ever can be done that would be best. I wouldn't necessarily want to stop it on low resolutions because I know several of our members access the site from their phones throughout the day.

I would highly advise you to reconsider, or at least to use a different method of displaying the information on mobile. Desktop-oriented sidebars on mobile are 100% not mobile friendly and are very inaccessible.

[Serpent]

We used to have a fixed cbox on the side on the last skin that could be toggled through like a click on the menu if need be, and one that couldn't toggle and we didn't really have any complaints that I know of

[Kami]

Mar 2, 2017 15:51:47 GMT -8 Serpent said:

We used to have a fixed cbox on the side on the last skin that could be toggled through like a click on the menu if need be, and one that couldn't toggle and we didn't really have any complaints that I know of

I'm not sure this is the time or the place to get into a discussion about the merits of mobile-first design or at the very least being mobile-friendly, so I'll simply reiterate that I strongly advise you to reconsider.

Either way, it's up to you. Just let me know what you decide and I'll figure something out this weekend, again if someone doesn't get to this before then.

[Serpent]

I mean ideally there would be something like this (this is our old skin) where we could toggle it but it's there. If there is a way to put that in, even if it means editing the header to accomodate it so the header doesn't go across the page that could work

[Kami]

Thats entirely doable. I'll come up with something this weekend. Would I be correct to presume that the forum itself is not coded to be responsive?