Pull-Down Menus

[D.Evans]

Pull-down menus seem to be rather rare on the Internet, especially
among commercial sites. Is this becuse they cannot be implemented
properly in HTML and Javascript?

If there is a site that uses them in a fashionable way that really
works, please reply with the URL of the site(s).

Thanks

 

[Whitecrest]

Pull-down menus seem to be rather rare on the Internet, especially
among commercial sites. Is this becuse they cannot be implemented
properly in HTML and Javascript?

I have not noticed that trend. I have been noticing the exact opposite
actually.

If there is a site that uses them in a fashionable way that really
works, please reply with the URL of the site(s).

The terms fashionable and really works are objective. I like
www.msnbc.com Maybe you will too. Of course some would like you to
believe that it all sucks and 10's of millions of others who like it,
are just too stupid to know that they are wrong...

Thanks

Well they will, just read....

 

[Toby A Inkster]

If there is a site that uses them in a fashionable way that really
works, please reply with the URL of the site(s).

http://devedge.netscape.com/

 

[David Dorward]

Pull-down menus seem to be rather rare on the Internet, especially
among commercial sites. Is this becuse they cannot be implemented
properly in HTML and Javascript?

Depends how you define "properly".

They can not be implemented in a way that acts like the typical application
menus, nor can they be implemented (at least I haven't seen such an
implementation) in a way which I don't find irritating.

 

[Leif K-Brooks]

www.msnbc.com

At a 1024x786 browser window (haven't measured the viewport), the
business menu is taller than my browser window. When I try to scroll
down, the menu disappears. How am I supposed to use the lower options on
the menu?

 

[delerious]

They can not be implemented in a way that acts like the typical application
menus, nor can they be implemented (at least I haven't seen such an
implementation) in a way which I don't find irritating.

This one at brainjar.com seems to act like a typical application menu:

http://www.brainjar.com/dhtml/menubar/demo.html

 

[David Dorward]

This one at brainjar.com seems to act like a typical application menu:

http://www.brainjar.com/dhtml/menubar/demo.html

Lets see...

* Move mouse to menu
* Depress mouse button
* Move mouse

Nope, menu doesn't open and it drags a link about instead.

 

[Leif K-Brooks]

http://www.brainjar.com/dhtml/menubar/demo.html

Isn't usable without JavaScript.

 

[brucie]

Pull-down menus seem to be rather rare on the Internet,

thats a good thing. they're not a very user friendly means of
navigation.

 

[Steve R.]

Leif K-Brooks wrote in message ...

Isn't usable without JavaScript.

Let's face reality and realise that *everyone* uses javascript .....

Except for a few crazy folks on this newsgroup :~)

 

[Eric Bohlman]

Leif K-Brooks wrote in message ...

Let's face reality and realise that *everyone* uses javascript .....

Except for a few crazy folks on this newsgroup :~)

Googlebot doesn't, so if the links in the menu system are stored as part of
the script code rather than in HTML, it won't be able to follow them and
the sub-pages of the site won't get indexed unless a lot of external sites
link to them. Nor will link-checking software be able to verify that they
remain live.

Properly written Javascript could take a menu marked up as a nested list of
links and restyle it into a set of pull-down menus, making the navigation
available to non-JS users including bots. But the typical menu scripts
that you can grab off the Web and drop into your pages don't do this. This
is one of those things where a half-assed implementation is substantially
worse than not doing it at all.

 

[Larry Webb]

Googlebot doesn't, so if the links in the menu system are stored as part of
the script code rather than in HTML, it won't be able to follow them and
the sub-pages of the site won't get indexed unless a lot of external sites
link to them. Nor will link-checking software be able to verify that they
remain live.

Properly written Javascript could take a menu marked up as a nested list of
links and restyle it into a set of pull-down menus, making the navigation
available to non-JS users including bots. But the typical menu scripts
that you can grab off the Web and drop into your pages don't do this. This
is one of those things where a half-assed implementation is substantially
worse than not doing it at all.

Do you know if Sothink's DHTML Menu software produces the properly
written Javascript you mention above?

Thanks
Larry

 

[D.Evans]

http://devedge.netscape.com/

Let me re-state the issue I raised. I'm talking about dynamic
drop-down menus where the sub-menu appears when the mouse cursor
hovers over the top menu item. For example, this site qualifies,
although the sub-menu is slow to respond to the mouse:

http://www.thomasregister.com/olc/asapsource/ .

 

[Mark Parnell]

Let me re-state the issue I raised. I'm talking about dynamic
drop-down menus where the sub-menu appears when the mouse cursor
hovers over the top menu item.

And the one that Toby suggested doesn't qualify because....?

 

[D.Evans]

http://devedge.netscape.com/

Yes, the Netscape site is exactly what I am talking about, and they
seem to do it well. They also seem to do it without Javascript.

There is a site, to be nameless at the moment, which has two
moderate-sized gif images to download, and the sub-menus act weird
until the images are finished loading because of the Javascript.

Thank you Toby.

 

[delerious]

Yes, the Netscape site is exactly what I am talking about, and they
seem to do it well. They also seem to do it without Javascript.

No, they do use Javascript. Anyways, how would such a menu be possible
*without* javascript?

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Quoth the raven named D.Evans:

Let me re-state the issue I raised. I'm talking about dynamic
drop-down menus where the sub-menu appears when the mouse cursor
hovers over the top menu item. For example, this site qualifies,
although the sub-menu is slow to respond to the mouse:

http://www.thomasregister.com/olc/asapsource/ .

You mean the drop-down on the two left buttons, Services and About
ASAP? Those, and all the other mouseover menus are annoying. I move my
mouse toward the back button and a bunch of menus blink.

When seeing that site, I'm also expecting something to happen when I
mouseover the next three buttons, but nothing does. Inconsistent.

Of course, if JavaScript is not available, there is no navigation.

 

[Mark Parnell]

No, they do use Javascript. Anyways, how would such a menu be possible
*without* javascript?

In theory, with CSS. In practise, this is only supported by Gecko-based
browsers at this stage.

See also http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/menus/demo.html (totally CSS
- no Javascript).

The Netscape one uses CSS primarily, then has a Javascript fallback for
browsers that don't support CSS well enough (non-Gecko browsers), and then
a basic link fallback for browsers that don't support Javascript either.
Unfortunately it is rather buggy in Opera (though at least the site is
still usable), but I have yet to find a better one.

 

[delerious]

No, they do use Javascript. Anyways, how would such a menu be possible
*without* javascript?

Oops, looks like I'm wrong about this... I think. In Mozilla, it still works
when I disable javascript... But in Opera, the submenus don't get displayed
correctly when I disable javascript, so that's weird. I can't even find where
I can disable javascript in IE 5.5.

 

[Leif K-Brooks]

No, they do use Javascript. Anyways, how would such a menu be possible
*without* javascript?

Only to fix IE's broken (lack of) CSS2 support. Look at their CSS to see
how it's possible.