place manufacturers drop down in header

Is it possible to place the manufacturers drop down box in the header of the website?

did anybody find out how to do this?
I've searched the forums and tried creating it myself - but with no luck?
Please help

As far as I know it should be in Admin>>Tools>>Layout Boxes Controller go to the Manufacturers sidebox one and set it to Single Column Status.....lol hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong :blush:

It does not work.
I'm guessing it will have to be recoded to fit the header??

anybody?

Hi,
I actually got this to work.
Somebody remind me to post up the solution.

A year later ... I'm reminding you to post the solution!

any solution?

You can customize the manufacturers.php sidebox by changing the box being called from:
$column_box_default

to read:
tpl_box_header.php

Then alter the header for: the tpl_header.php

to include the manufacturers.php sidebox just as it does the search_header.php sidebox ...

Then change the settings on the display of the manufacturers.php sidebox from being a scroll list to a dropdown in your Admin Settings for the Configuration ... Maximum Values ...

Manufacturers List - Scroll Box Size/Style
Number of manufacturers names to be displayed in the scroll box window. Setting this to 1 or 0 will display a dropdown list.

I just opened a new thread about this here.

My apologies for that as I never seen this thread until now... Looks like I am on the right tracks:

If you look at https://www.dystynction.com you'll see I have the search box positioned in my header bar to the right. I'm trying now to position the manufacturers drop down box just next to this.

In the tpl_header.php I can see what is generating the search box:

<div id="navMainSearch"><?php require(DIR_WS_MODULES . 'sideboxes/search_header.php'); ?></div>

I have tried to generate the manufacturers list using this just below this in the tpl_header.php file:

<div id="manufacturers"><?php require(DIR_WS_MODULES . 'sideboxes/manufacturers_select.php'); ?></div>

However, this just causes major problems.... It does not work at all...

Can you please explain what you mean by:

You can customize the manufacturers.php sidebox by changing the box being called from:
$column_box_default

to read:
tpl_box_header.php

Then alter the header for: the tpl_header.php

I tried opening manufacturers.php and changing this:

to this:

    require($template->get_template_dir($column_box_default, DIR_WS_TEMPLATE, $current_page_base,'common') . '/' . $column_box_default);

    require($template->get_template_dir($tpl_box_header.php, DIR_WS_TEMPLATE, $current_page_base,'common') . '/' . $tpl_box_header.php);

.....as per instructions above..... however, this just causes site malfunction....

Can you please be more specific/accurate as to exactly what to change this line to?

Sorry if I'm missing the obvious, but I'm a total amateur.

Can anyone offer a little help on this one, I've tried various combination's of Ajeh's fix above but just can't get it to work :-(

EUREKA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's how it's done:

1. From Admin>Tools>LayoutBoxesController.... switch manufacturers sidebox off (unless you also want it showing as a sidebox)... Then, from Admin>Configuration>MaximumValues you'll need to set Manufacturers List - Scroll Box Size/Style to 0 or 1 so that it becomes a drop down menu.

2. Edit /includes/modules/sideboxes/manufacturers.php to replace:

      require($template->get_template_dir('tpl_manufacturers_select.php',DIR_WS_TEMPLATE, $current_page_base,'sideboxes'). '/tpl_manufacturers_select.php');

    $title = '<label>' . BOX_HEADING_MANUFACTURERS . '</label>';
    $title_link = false;
    require($template->get_template_dir($column_box_default, DIR_WS_TEMPLATE, $current_page_base,'common') . '/' . $column_box_default);

with this:

    require($template->get_template_dir('tpl_manufacturers_select.php',DIR_WS_TEMPLATE, $current_page_base,'sideboxes'). '/tpl_manufacturers_select.php');

    $title = '<label>' . BOX_HEADING_MANUFACTURERS . '</label>';
    $title_link = false;
    require($template->get_template_dir('tpl_box_header.php',DIR_WS_TEMPLATE, $current_page_base,'common'). '/tpl_box_header.php');	

3. add the following line to /includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/common/tpl_header.php

<div id="manufacturersContent"><?php require(DIR_WS_MODULES . 'sideboxes/manufacturers.php'); ?></div>

You'll need to play around with the position of this line and maybe the div tags just to get this looking right and so it doesn't screw up the layout (this will depend on how heavily your tpl_header.php file has already been modified) but you should get it in the right position with a bit of trial and error.

4. Add the following to your stylesheet.css

#manufacturersContent {
width: 200px;
height: 11px;
float: right;
font-size: 10.5px;
margin-top: -3px;
}

Note that this is the styling I used for my own site. You'll obviously have to style and position it to suit your own site.

Hope this helps someone, I'd been messing around with the code for ages before I got a breakthrough!

Thanks for the update that you got this working and for posting the specific details on what needed to be done to get this working ... :cool:

You're welcome..... I know what it's like looking for a solution on here so if ever I can help someone else solve something then I don't mind taking a couple of minutes to post a thread...

Nothing more annoying than finding a thread when someone says, "it's ok I solved it" and then doesn't explain how :-)

Thank you for this post! It was exactly what I was looking for.

One quick question....how do I replace the "Please Select" from the drop down.

Thanks
Sue

Easy, search in your english.php for "- please select-" and just change it to whatever you want it to say :-)

Perfect! Thank You.

Already gone mad, doesn't work for me :-(

Nothing appears on frontend... :-| wtf could it be ?

Loter:

Already gone mad, doesn't work for me :-(

Nothing appears on frontend... :-| wtf could it be ?

damn ##########, I have no products that's why no manufacturers pops up :-|

Thanks for the update ... and don't be too hard on yourself ... many, many people miss that one ... you gotta have Products to display the manufacturers or they didn't make much ... :cool:

However ... there is a switch to control what displays in the manufacturers sidebox in the Admin in the Configuration ... Maximum Value ...

Manufacturers List - Verify Product Exist
Verify that at least 1 product exists and is active for the manufacturer name to show

Note: When this feature is ON it can produce slower results on sites with a large number of products and/or manufacturers
0= off 1= on