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Author menu behavior
Bill

2005-09-20, 7:40 pm

Hi

I want to make a menu with dropdown submenus.
I know some ways to do it (JS, PHP ...) but I wonder if there's one using
CSS. ???

Ex:

item1
subitem1.1
subitem1.2
item2
subitem2.1
subitem2.2
......


Like directory listings.

Thanks


David Dorward

2005-09-20, 7:40 pm

Bill wrote:

> I want to make a menu with dropdown submenus.


Why? As far as usability goes, its far nicer (in almost every case) to just
give the user an expanded menu to start with.

> I know some ways to do it (JS, PHP ...) but I wonder if there's one using
> CSS.


Yes ... if you don't mind the menus vanishing the instant the mouse drifts
away from them and not working in Internet Explorer.

If you must have expanding menus - stick to JavaScript.

--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is
Bill

2005-09-20, 7:40 pm

Thanks

> If you must have expanding menus - stick to JavaScript.



Rincewind

2005-09-21, 7:34 pm

On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 14:01:34 -0400, Bill wrote:

> Hi
>
> I want to make a menu with dropdown submenus.
> I know some ways to do it (JS, PHP ...) but I wonder if there's one using
> CSS. ???
>
> Ex:
>
> item1
> subitem1.1
> subitem1.2
> item2
> subitem2.1
> subitem2.2
> .....
>
> Like directory listings.
>
> Thanks


Yes http://www.positioniseverything.net/css-dropdowns.html and it works in
IE FF and Opera, at least the versions I have on my machine.
Stan Brown

2005-09-21, 7:34 pm

On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 12:12:22 GMT in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets, Rincewind favored us
with...
> On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 14:01:34 -0400, Bill wrote:
>
> Yes http://www.positioniseverything.net/css-dropdowns.html and it works in
> IE FF and Opera, at least the versions I have on my machine.


It looks very cool, but the problem is that it's usually hard to
use such a thing because you have to guess which main category
contains the sub-category you want.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why We Won't Help You:

http://diveintomark.org/archives/20...e_wont_help_you
Stan Brown

2005-09-21, 7:34 pm

On 21 Sep 2005 07:02:35 -0700 in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets, sschling@XXXXXXXXXX
favored us with...
> You can also check out son-of-suckerfish
> (http://www.htmldog.com/articles/suckerfish/dropdowns/) who has taken
> the idea that Rincewind mentioned a little further and cleans it up a
> bit.


Enlighten me: how does adding Javascript constitute "cleaning it
up"? :-)

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why We Won't Help You:

http://diveintomark.org/archives/20...e_wont_help_you
Rincewind

2005-09-21, 7:34 pm

On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 11:06:43 -0400, Stan Brown wrote:

> On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 12:12:22 GMT in
> comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets, Rincewind favored us
> with...
>
> It looks very cool, but the problem is that it's usually hard to
> use such a thing because you have to guess which main category
> contains the sub-category you want.


What?

So if you had 2 headings, 1 says cars, 1 says houses, you would have to
*guess* where to look for "Ford"?
Rincewind

2005-09-21, 7:34 pm

On 21 Sep 2005 07:02:35 -0700, sschling@XXXXXXXXXX wrote:

> You can also check out son-of-suckerfish
> (http://www.htmldog.com/articles/suckerfish/dropdowns/) who has taken
> the idea that Rincewind mentioned a little further and cleans it up a
> bit.


yes but your stuffed if Javascript is off :-)) whereas my recommendation
uses nothing but CSS.
Eric Kenneth Bustad

2005-09-23, 7:40 pm

In article <14uqdhb9j967u.1mi5ff4iz8gxj.dlg@40tude.net>,
Rincewind <the_rincewind@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 11:06:43 -0400, Stan Brown wrote:
>
>
>What?
>
>So if you had 2 headings, 1 says cars, 1 says houses, you would have to
>*guess* where to look for "Ford"?


An awful lot of pages use some sort of Marketingspeak for their
catagory labels, which makes it really hard to figure out where
the information one is looking for is hidden.

--
= Eric Bustad, Norwegian bachelor programmer
Stan Brown

2005-09-23, 7:40 pm

On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 20:59:50 GMT in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets, Rincewind favored us
with...
> On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 11:06:43 -0400, Stan Brown wrote:
>
> What?
>
> So if you had 2 headings, 1 says cars, 1 says houses, you would have to
> *guess* where to look for "Ford"?


Did you miss that word "usually"? Most real-life menus that I've
seen are MUCH more ambiguously structured.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why We Won't Help You:

http://diveintomark.org/archives/20...e_wont_help_you
Rincewind

2005-09-23, 7:40 pm

On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 11:42:56 -0400, Stan Brown wrote:

> On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 20:59:50 GMT in
> comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets, Rincewind favored us
> with...
>
> Did you miss that word "usually"? Most real-life menus that I've
> seen are MUCH more ambiguously structured.


Then your "usually" looking at crap sites, I can't remember the last time I
looked at a site where I had to guess where I was going, and if I did I
wouldn't be going back, after a polite but forthright e-mail had been sent
them.
Rincewind

2005-09-23, 7:40 pm

On 23 Sep 2005 12:13:49 GMT, Eric Kenneth Bustad wrote:

> In article <14uqdhb9j967u.1mi5ff4iz8gxj.dlg@40tude.net>,
> Rincewind <the_rincewind@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> An awful lot of pages use some sort of Marketingspeak for their
> catagory labels, which makes it really hard to figure out where
> the information one is looking for is hidden.


In which case tell them and don't use the site. But I haven't yet come
across a site that I have had to guess at the navigation.
dingbat@codesmiths.com

2005-09-23, 7:40 pm

Rincewind wrote:

> Then your "usually" looking at crap sites,


www.greenweld.co.uk

They sell illuminated magnifiers (and they used to do good ones too).
Now try and find them!

Rincewind

2005-09-23, 7:40 pm

On 23 Sep 2005 10:10:33 -0700, dingbat@codesmiths.com wrote:

> Rincewind wrote:
>
>
> www.greenweld.co.uk
>



As I said "looking at crap sites" This one is all javascript and fails on
so many levels it's laughable.

> They sell illuminated magnifiers (and they used to do good ones too).
> Now try and find them!


They do have a search box! ;-))
kchayka

2005-09-24, 6:20 pm

Stan Brown wrote:

> On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 12:12:22 GMT in
> comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets, Rincewind favored us
> with...
>
> It looks very cool, but the problem is that it's usually hard to
> use such a thing because you have to guess which main category
> contains the sub-category you want.


These types of menus are also not as accessible as they think they are.
Just try navigating by keyboard, tabbing in particular. Then, disable
CSS and try wading through that enormous list of links on every bloody
page. ish :(

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