DHTML Menu Design

[richkoi]

I really like the organization of the DHTML menus I've seen out there. Does anyone know of a good editor to create these menus? I am trying to find a good WYSIWYG editor so I can start to play around with DHTML (freeware would be nice for now!).

I am not very knowledgable about how they are created, is it Javascript?

Thanks,

Rich

[carbonize]

You can find lots of scripts for doing this sort of menu on http://dynamicdrive.com just remember to also offer plain text links as an alternative.

[starrwriter]

MenuMaker is free: http://www.webattack.com/get/menumaker.html

[richkoi]

Thanks for the links! The MenuMaker website will not let me download...I think the server is dead. Do you know any mirror sites for this download?

Thanks,

Rich

[richkoi]

http://www.coffeecup.com/freestuff/

Here is a pretty goot DHTML menu builder I found. Simple and not very customizable, but good for a beginner.

Rich

[namita]

i think dreamweaver is best to make the menu builders. you can good extentions from the below link.

http://www.projectseven.com/extensions/index.htm

U can create menu with just a few clicks. Also this site has very usefull tutorials.

Namita

[richkoi]

Thanks! I use Dreamweaver, helpful link.

Rich

[StarE]

Simple, graceful, accessible
http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/
-StarE

[carbonize]

Found this for you - http://web-nova.com/ezmenu.asp

[ranjan]

Beware of DHTML menus that produce the submenus on the fly (the links are not a part of HTML they are generated by javascript). Such menus are not spidered by search engine robots.

A List Apart gave us a very good article on how to make accessible DHTML Menus.

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dropdowns/

If you use dreamweaver, my website has an extension to automatically generate suckerfish menu

http://www.dreamlettes.net/extensions

[carbonize]

Beware of DHTML menus that produce the submenus on the fly (the links are not a part of HTML they are generated by javascript). Such menus are not spidered by search engine robots.

As I said earlier always offer plain text links as well not only for search engines but, more importantly, for visitors who cannot use the DHTML menu for any particular reason. Some people have javascript disabled, some are using text only browsers, some are using browsers that read out the pages and sometimes javascript just messes up.

[ranjan]

As I said earlier always offer plain text links as well not only for search engines but

1. Why repeat Menus and confuse users, especially with regards to web accesiibility. Screen readers read the links twice confusing users.

2. A menu is basically a list of links. Keep it that way. Use unordered list for menus and nest lists for sub menus. Using javascript to manipulate display properties of the nested lists is the way to go. Robots love proper HTML (use of elements the way thet were intended to be used). so do screen readers and text browsers.

Hence my recommendations were

1. http://gazingus.org/html/menuDropdown.html - supports multiple nesting
2. http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dropdowns/ - only single level nesting supported

[carbonize]

1. Why repeat Menus and confuse users, especially with regards to web accesiibility. Screen readers read the links twice confusing users.
Because text browsers don't support javascript and therefore they wouldn't see the links in a DHTML menu.


2. A menu is basically a list of links. Keep it that way. Use unordered list for menus and nest lists for sub menus. Using javascript to manipulate display properties of the nested lists is the way to go. Robots love proper HTML (use of elements the way thet were intended to be used). so do screen readers and text browsers.

Yes but they don't like javascript. Anything within <script type="text/javascript"> and </script> will be ignored.

[ranjan]

Because text browsers don't support javascript and therefore they wouldn't see the links in a DHTML menu.

Yes but they don't like javascript. Anything within <script type="text/javascript"> and </script> will be ignored.

Please read the code in the links given. If javascript is disabled, the html menu will show unordered nested list(plain and simple html). Thus avoiding the need to repeat the menus.

[carbonize]

The first one looks, and from reading the code is, just a variation on the CSS dropdown menues. If you use the first of the menues you are then left with the dilemma of how your site will look if it appears as lists. Be intereting to test this one in Opera as it seems to revert to lists for Opera if I'm reading the code right.

The second one is CSS based and once again you then have to worry about how it will look on browsers that don't fully support CSS. CSS support is bizzarre even in the latest browser particularly IE6 which is now approaching about 2 years old but is still the most common browser out there.