Software for menus

They have: 71 posts

Joined: Mar 2002

Hello...............

My site has been constructed with Front Page.....I use (image) buttons (in a shared border) with links to major site areas.

This really looks "old fashioned" (although it didn't a few years ago)................especially when I compare it with the nice looking drop down menus (that also can change colors, and/or display different info) when the mouse rolls over the link, that seem to be everywhere.

Can anyone suggest some reasonably easy to use software that will allow me to do these things, plus be compatible with FP and all the different browsers out there?

Thanks!

Joe Hussar
[email protected]

They have: 5,633 posts

Joined: Jan 1970

Best idea is to look for a script and edit it. http://www.dynamicdrive.com is very good, and others... I don't think their are many programs out their...

Suzanne's picture

She has: 5,507 posts

Joined: Feb 2000

listamatic.com -- CSS menus. check alistapart.com for articles on standards-based "dropdowns" that don't involve a whack of complicated and easily broken JavaScript code.

Be careful with dropdowns, though, they are a usability nightmare. Sensible navigation is better than a dropdown any time.

Greg K's picture

He has: 2,145 posts

Joined: Nov 2003

Suzanne, I did a search for "Dropdown" on alistapart.com, and tried their article, and was simply amazed at what all can be done with just CSS (and a small JS code for IE). It is so much simpler than the javascript version one I found on DynamicDrive.com (don't get me wrong, that works fine, but simply editing plain list items in HTML was simpler than adding JS code for the one I was using before).

ALA is very nice!

-Greg

Suzanne's picture

She has: 5,507 posts

Joined: Feb 2000

They do good work. Smiling

mjs416's picture

They have: 127 posts

Joined: Dec 2003

My advice would be to save your money on individual menu software and just purchase a copy of fireworks from macromedia. So.... not only do you get the ability to make drop down menus from scratch (which automatically generates the javascript), you get a very good graphics editing program.

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

I just wanted to add that you don't need fancy javscripts to make your site look up to date. Check out some of the CSS articles at the sites Suzanne linked. That's really the way to go Smiling

They have: 32 posts

Joined: Nov 2003

Hi there Joe...

I think the program you may be looking for is Xara Webstyle. With the program you can create dropdown menus among many other things. It's a very useful program for beginners as it automates alot of the process for you. It's reasonably priced and I'm pretty sure you can download a demo.

Check it out at http://www.xara.com/downloads/

If you're interested in learning more about coding them yourself, etc. you may want to download various javascript navbars and simply pick them apart in your favorite editor. You can learn a great deal about how they work this way. Anyways..

Good luck,

Mark

They have: 16 posts

Joined: Jan 2007

Hi.
interesting article and one i have a problem with.

can someone please tell me

1/ WRT CSS, I have heard about it but know nothing of it .

Is it something you can do with frontpage or do you need a special program?

2/ thsi script that I saw at dynamic drive looks like what i want but does it mean I have to link the code back to thier site or can i put the code on my own site?

He has: 388 posts

Joined: Apr 2005

Yes you can change links like this

egabuff;220681 wrote:

  • http://www.dynamicdrive.com">Home
  • These are just example links but if a link has a comment beside it telling you not to remove it don't because this is the link to the authors site and removing it could mean you breach the (c).

    They have: 16 posts

    Joined: Jan 2007

    thanks for your reply vibins.

    can you please tell me if CSS can be used with front page?

    I downloaded the zip file from http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex1/dropdowntabs.zip

    and it even had a dropdowntabfiles/ddcolortabs.css (Sample CSS for 1st example menu style)
    which I copied into the HTML section of frontpage and it didnt work!

    I tried the other stuff as well, if I click on a CSS file in the zip folder it opens a folder in FP but agian it is just the code that I see.

    Man the site says Customization
    Setting up and customizing Drop Down Tabs is very simple, as the entire menu consist of regular HTML and styled using CSS. Logically it makes sense to think of the menu in the following three parts:

    Well I must be really DUMB because I havent got a clue here?

    Can some please help ?

    They have: 16 posts

    Joined: Jan 2007

    anyone? anyone at all? please?

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