Topic: BP 1.2 Accordion UI for compact sidebar

BP 1.2 Accordion UI for compact sidebar

@damoncook

Participant

14 years, 10 months ago

I’m in the process of trying to build out an Accordion UI for BP 1.2. I think BP’s existing UI is a little overwhelming as far as menus: Home, Activity, Members, Groups, Forums, Blogs, etc. I usually wouldn’t recommend an accordion, because I think it is a little clunky and proposes too many usability issues, but in BP’s case I think it is appropriate. Read all about it here, and checkout screen-captures. Please hit me up if you are in for helping, because I’m really struggling where to find some of the hooks for this?

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

@designodyssey

Participant

14 years, 10 months ago

Saw the screen captures. Couldn’t you do a widget and put it in the sidebar. There’s gotta be hooks and even widget logic for this? Just a thought.

@r-a-y

Keymaster

14 years, 10 months ago

What in particular are you having troubles with?

Most of the code you’re looking for can be done through bp-THECOMPONENT-templatetags.php or through a BP loop.

@damoncook

Participant

14 years, 10 months ago

@designodyssey: Yes, a widget will be more ideal. I’ll look into the necessary hooks and logic. Thanks for the suggestion.

@r-a-y: What I’m having trouble with is my lack of PHP skills …right now I’m good at copy-paste, but when I have more specifics of what walls I’m running into I’ll def post. Thanks for your pointers above. I’m going to check’em out right now.

@damoncook

Participant

14 years, 10 months ago

Well, I figured out how to make a Widget Plugin in 40 lines of code (55% being declaring the widget and GNU/GPL statement). Now I have to figure out how to check to see if BP is installed in order for the user to use the widget.

I wonder if there is already a BP plugin that has something I can refer to? hmmm…off to the BP Plugins section to scavenge

@bowromir

Participant

14 years, 10 months ago

Hi Damon,

Glad that I could be of inspiration hehe I’ll look at making it a widget also tomorrow.. If my widget is finished I’ll share the code here.. I’m almost done, just need to figure out some small thing. When it’s done I will share the code in a tutorial+download on the new BP-Tricks site!

A screenshot of my widget:

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/1489/screenshot20100203at105.png

@damoncook

Participant

14 years, 10 months ago

@Bowe: ohh I didn’t realize that you were really aiming for an accordion. Awesome! I just got to the point where I was digging around and came across the Tabbed Widgets plugin, and I was wondering if it would be a better solution to create a plugin with the 4 or 5 BP widgets that I could plunk (technical term) into the Tabbed Widget corresponding areas.

Perhaps I’ll just wait for your tutorial? hmmm…

@bowromir

Participant

14 years, 10 months ago

My current solution is indeed a accordeon which is fully cross browser compatible and very lightweight! (powered by jQuery Tools). I’ve just managed to make it into a widget (damn that was easy!) and now I need to finish the code and make it more user friendly. JJJ offered to help me out, so I think this widget will see the light of day very soon

My widgets does not go as far as on your screenshots, and it merely provides links to the most important aspects of a user profile (so no displaying of messages/blogs etc). I want it to be clean and small, and the current widget does this

I’m also working on a child theme for BP 1.2 which this widget will feature.

That tabbed widgets plugins looks usefull btw