Add message/image to left menu bar?

[petad]

Hi

I want to place some text and an image below the PayPal logo (appears on the left menu) on my Home page. Any idea how I can achieve this?

Pete

[entertaintoday]

Hi

I want to place some text and an image below the PayPal logo (appears on the left menu) on my Home page. Any idea how I can achieve this?

Pete


Hi Pete,

You can either edit the block that includes the paypal info, or you can create a new block and make it appear under the paypal one. You'll be using the block manager section, and the layout manager section within the bluepark admin. hope this helps

[petad]

Brilliant! Thanks for your help David.

[petad]

Another one, if you have any ideas...

I want to get my banner bar to place right at the top of the page, but I have this band of white space above it at the moment. I managed to do it previously, but since I've changed the banner, I can't find how I did it.

Thanks in advance.

[entertaintoday]

Another one, if you have any ideas...

I want to get my banner bar to place right at the top of the page, but I have this band of white space above it at the moment. I managed to do it previously, but since I've changed the banner, I can't find how I did it.

Thanks in advance.


I think that is by going into the template editor and selecting the one you're using. then select account under the bars section. You'll see a distance from top box to fill in. hope that helps.

[petad]

Hi David

I tried that one, but it just affects the distance of the account bar from the top of the header, not the placement of the header itself.

Pete

[entertaintoday]

Hi David

I tried that one, but it just affects the distance of the account bar from the top of the header, not the placement of the header itself.

Pete


OK, try under the same area, but select the header tab. there is one box labelled padding. type in 0px into there and try that. I'm by no means an expert, but believe this may do it.

[Rich]

Hi David

I tried that one, but it just affects the distance of the account bar from the top of the header, not the placement of the header itself.

Pete

I had a look at this and there was a non-breaking space -   - at the top of your Home page. I've removed this space, and the banner is now sitting at the top of the page (10px below the header, according to the top padding for the center column).

If I could give you a tip, I would say have a look at the Header image. I'm viewing your site on a 1400px resolution monitor (in terms of width). The Header image you're currently using has a width of 1260px, meaning it runs out before the end of my page (leaving white space). On the other hand, it's actually quite a wide image for the "average" Internet user who probably has a monitor resolution of 1024px (1024 x 768 is still the most popular screen resolution).

My recommendation would be to optimise the image for a width of 1024px and put the image in the Header Content section in the Template Editor. Chop the image where the yellow colour (beneath the blue) reaches the top of its curve - you may need to shift the purple text to the left slightly. Create a Background Image, with blue on the top and yellow on the bottom, to repeat across the page, in a straight line, behind it. What you then have is an image, optimised for any screen size, which never runs out.

It's always more difficult to put together a Header image for a 100% width site, usually you need to use both a static logo image and a repeating background. I hope that's helpful!

[petad]

Thanks for the advice on the banner, Rich. I'll give it a go.

As far as the white space goes, it is the space above my banner (header image) that's the problem, between the banner and where IE finishes. That's still there, and I did manage to get rid of it once before.

Regards

Pete

[Rich]

Thanks for the advice on the banner, Rich. I'll give it a go.

As far as the white space goes, it is the space above my banner (header image) that's the problem, between the banner and where IE finishes. That's still there, and I did manage to get rid of it once before.

Regards

Pete

Ah, I understand now. The Header image code was wrapped in <p> tags which have their own padding values (meaning white space on top of the image). I simply took out these tags in the HTML view. I then rejigged the height of the header by 5px (and pulled the Navigation Bar up) to finish the job. It looks correct now. :)

[petad]

Excellent, thanks once again.

Pete

[petad]

I had a look at this and there was a non-breaking space - &nbsp; - at the top of your Home page. I've removed this space, and the banner is now sitting at the top of the page (10px below the header, according to the top padding for the center column).

If I could give you a tip, I would say have a look at the Header image. I'm viewing your site on a 1400px resolution monitor (in terms of width). The Header image you're currently using has a width of 1260px, meaning it runs out before the end of my page (leaving white space). On the other hand, it's actually quite a wide image for the "average" Internet user who probably has a monitor resolution of 1024px (1024 x 768 is still the most popular screen resolution).

My recommendation would be to optimise the image for a width of 1024px and put the image in the Header Content section in the Template Editor. Chop the image where the yellow colour (beneath the blue) reaches the top of its curve - you may need to shift the purple text to the left slightly. Create a Background Image, with blue on the top and yellow on the bottom, to repeat across the page, in a straight line, behind it. What you then have is an image, optimised for any screen size, which never runs out.

It's always more difficult to put together a Header image for a 100% width site, usually you need to use both a static logo image and a repeating background. I hope that's helpful!

Hi Rich

I have just viewed my site through Firefox, and it doesn't seem to be displayiing any repeating images, such as the box header banners, or my own logo banner, which I changed based on your suggestions (works a treat in IE).

Is this a problem with my settings, or is it a "feature" of Firefox, and if so do you have any suggestions?

Thanks

Pete

[Rich]

I've resolved this problem for you Pete, it was due to spaces in the image filenames. I haven't changed your filenames, I've made a change to the CSS which allows them to be displayed correctly. You're right in that only Firefox was displaying the problem.

[petad]

Thanks for the swift fix Rich. Look fine now.

[petad]

I had a look at this and there was a non-breaking space - &nbsp; - at the top of your Home page. I've removed this space, and the banner is now sitting at the top of the page (10px below the header, according to the top padding for the center column).

If I could give you a tip, I would say have a look at the Header image. I'm viewing your site on a 1400px resolution monitor (in terms of width). The Header image you're currently using has a width of 1260px, meaning it runs out before the end of my page (leaving white space). On the other hand, it's actually quite a wide image for the "average" Internet user who probably has a monitor resolution of 1024px (1024 x 768 is still the most popular screen resolution).

My recommendation would be to optimise the image for a width of 1024px and put the image in the Header Content section in the Template Editor. Chop the image where the yellow colour (beneath the blue) reaches the top of its curve - you may need to shift the purple text to the left slightly. Create a Background Image, with blue on the top and yellow on the bottom, to repeat across the page, in a straight line, behind it. What you then have is an image, optimised for any screen size, which never runs out.

It's always more difficult to put together a Header image for a 100% width site, usually you need to use both a static logo image and a repeating background. I hope that's helpful!

Hi Rich

I'm struggling to optimise for 1024 display - nothing I do seems to narrow the screen display. Do I have to redisign for a fixed screen size and take off the 100% setting? Even when I set a fixed-width, the screen display is still wide, though the banner header is shorter.

Pete

[Rich]

There are two recommendations I would make. At the top of the page, there are 4 images in a row. I would move (or remove) one of these to make more room.

Also, you're currently displaying your featured products (in the center column) in rows of 5. You can reduce this to 4 or even 3. Go to Site -> Configuration: Catalogue and look at the Global Product Block Columns field. Once you've altered this, you may want to change the Products per Global Center Block field so that the rows are even.

You may then want to change the Catalogue Product Block Columns and the Products per Catalogue Center Block fields to match.

These changes will allow your page to shrink for smaller displays.

[petad]

There are two recommendations I would make. At the top of the page, there are 4 images in a row. I would move (or remove) one of these to make more room.

Also, you're currently displaying your featured products (in the center column) in rows of 5. You can reduce this to 4 or even 3. Go to Site -> Configuration: Catalogue and look at the Global Product Block Columns field. Once you've altered this, you may want to change the Products per Global Center Block field so that the rows are even.

You may then want to change the Catalogue Product Block Columns and the Products per Catalogue Center Block fields to match.

These changes will allow your page to shrink for smaller displays.

I had tried all these options, but it just seems to spread the product displays wider to cover the same space. I can't seem to narrow the display. Does it need to be on a "fixed width" setting (which I tried, but didn't seem to help)?

[Rich]

The page content will always space itself out to meet the edges of the page on a 100% layout, that's not a problem. The real question is whether it will compress sufficiently to fit into a 1024 x 768 display.

The section of your page which won't compress, at the moment, is the row of 4 images. Images can't get any smaller, and they don't "wrap" onto a new line, so they will always skew a page. Remove one of the images to see the effect, or you might want to make the images smaller.

You're fine with a 100% width display. Even if you changed to fixed width, the page size would still be skewed by any images that didn't fit into the specified dimensions. Think of it as fitting too many boxes into the boot of your car, then trying to close it!

[petad]

Hi Rich - I've finally got it (looking at a laptop display helped see the impact the changes were having). Thanks once again for your support.