S9Y Bulletproof

Aug 21

Customizable navigation

A frequently asked question (or better: feature) in the s9y forums has always been adding an additional navigation to a s9y-powered blog. In the past, this required modifiying the template's files, until the theme options were added to Serendipity's features. Bulletproof provides an additional navigation bar which can be extensively customized using the theme options. Since these options are very powerful, they will be explained more in detail than the other theme options.

First of all, let's look at the theme options related to the customizable navigation bar:

  • Position of the navbar: Choose one of five options for the position of the navigation bar. It can be displayed above or below the banner or in either sidebar. Of course, it can also be deactivated altogether.
  • Show navigation links in the footer: The links from the navbar can also be displayed in the page footer as an additional navigation source. These links will be the same links you have in the navigation bar. They are a copy of the navbar links, placed in the footer as a site visitor convenience. When enabled, your visitors will not have to scroll back to the top of the page to use site navigation. Footer navigation links will not be displayed if the navbar is deactivated.
  • Show quicksearch in the navbar: If, and only if, the navigation bar is displayed above or below the banner, the input box for s9y's search option can be displayed within the navigation bar. This does not work if the navbar is displayed in either sidebar! Also, the HTML output of the quicksearch sidebar item will be automagically suppressed, you do not have to deactivate it under "Configure Plugins".
  • Title for navigation menu: If the navigation menu is displayed in either sidebar, it should have a title. Use this text box to enter the desired title. This title is only for when the navigation menu is displayed in the sidebar - the title will never be displayed if the navigation menu is displayed above or below the header.

Now the following options are actually the greatest feature of the customizable navbar. In the past, users were stuck with the number of links in this navbar the author of the template provided. The only way to de- or increase the number was to edit the template's code. Thanks to s9y lead developer Garvin Hicking, it's now possible to change the number of links in the navbar dynamically.

  • Enter number of links: Use this to set the number of links in your custom navigation menu. You'll need to save and reload the "Manage Styles" page for the changes to take effect. Although this does not have a limit technically, the way the template actually styles the navigation menu might present some problems with a decent display. To check that out, you'll have to set this to a rather large number and take a look at how the navigation menu is actually displayed in the blog. Depending on how the individual items of the navbar are styled, it might split into two (or even more) rows and look funny.
  • Enter the navbar link text #X: This part of a pair of input boxes using the same "#X" sets the link text, i.e. the text actually displayed in the navigation menu …
  • Enter the full URL of your link #X: … and this input box sets the corresponding URL, i.e. the URL you're linking to with this particular item of the navigation menu. It's usually a good idea to use absolute URLs (https://...) in this input box.

Also note that if you reduce the number of links in the navigation menu, the "deleted" menu items are not actually deleted (from the s9y database). They will reappear if you increase the number of links again, so you might want to pay attention to the text/URL boxes :-)

Posted inFeatures at 14:02 | 5 Comments
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The Livesearch (Javascript iterative search) Plugin does not work with bulletproof. Can you take a look at this, please?
#1 Daniel on 10-14 09:26
We're aware of that, and it's on the todo list for the next BP release. However, this still needs more testing. Might actually a problem of the (live)search plugin after all. Let's just say we're aware of it, and we're at it.
#1.1 YellowLed (Homepage) on 10-14 11:36
As YL pointed out, we are aware of that, but thanks for taking the time to point it out anyway! Livesearch is its own plugin. It is hard coded to specifically look for quicksearch as a SIDEBAR item, not a navbar item.

So, the plugin (not bulletproof) needs to be modified for it to work outside the sidebar. Might be a minor effort, might not. I'll try to take another look at it as soon as I can find the time unless Dave or YL beats me to it.
#1.2 Don Chambers (Homepage) on 10-14 17:57
I am looking forward to experimenting with this. I'm installing s9y with the bulletproof framework this week.
#2 NJ WebGuy (Homepage) on 04-07 19:07
Be sure to let us see how you get on :-)
#2.1 David Cummins (Homepage) on 04-08 10:55
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