Plugin positions

[satollo]

There is a way to place a plugin not only in the side bar(s) but also in other positions? Like, in the main column top, main column bottom, after the first post and so on?

In other words a way to "define" other positions in the template?

Satollo.

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Yes, you can do that, but not using the serendipity plugin manager. This only supports three different positions: Left, Right, Hidden.

However, the serendipity plugin API just uses those positions as placeholders; the positions could also be named "1, 2, 3". Your template is responsible for emitting the positions at the correspondig places; for instance the default index.tpl does this via the {serendipity_printSidebar} smarty commands.

So, you could use the "left" sidebar to show it in the top menu, the "right" sidebar to show it as your bottom menu. And maybe "hidden" for a second top menu.

But then, all your options to differ plugins into groups are gone. If you need more than 3 groups, you need to resort to calling each sidebar plugin manually in your template. Using the s9y API, you can do that easily.

This is described here:

http://www.s9y.org/78.html

The {serendipity_showPlugin} is what you want to use. This way you can say: "put the quicksearch plugin there, show the categories plugin here" etc.

You can also place this commands in your entries.tpl template, for instance to show the quicksearch plugin after each entry!

HTH,
Garvin

[satollo]

Thank you Garvin,

i'll follow yor notes, but may be of interest, in a future version, to have more - predefined or not - position for the plugins. It would be great!

Bye, Satollo.

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

This is hard to implement - actually we try to make it as easy for our novice users to put plugins into the left or right sidebar. If we added new "top", "bottom" etc. positions, this might be strange for people to understand and put newbies clueless.

Thus, for advanced users I strongly suggest to use the flexible smarty templating features with which this can be achieved.

In serendipity 1.1 the layout of how plugins are displayed has changed, and there new positions would not fit into the concept, sinc ethere no longer is a dropdown indicating the position...

Best regards,
Garvin