Regarding complex Menu structures

[Ravi Shankar Nair]

Dear all,

In our application, we need to create very complex menus:- top level in the
browser, followed by a bottom level, when you click on any of the first
level items(dynamic), and then third level, which will have again sub menus.
Basically it is an n-tree, not a binary tree. Is there any commercial or
open source tools/menu builders by which I can have the creation of such
menus based on a configuration file? It would be nice, if I can specify the
position of the menus as well in that configuration file.

Further, if I select a menu going through all heirarchies mentioned above,
then the page may contain some buttons, whose positions and enabled/disabled
flag also need to be configured.

Any one used such a complex architecture? If so, please help, and thanks in
advance.

Best regards,
Ravi

 

[Oliver Wong]

Dear all,

In our application, we need to create very complex menus:- top level in
the browser, followed by a bottom level, when you click on any of the
first level items(dynamic), and then third level, which will have again
sub menus. Basically it is an n-tree, not a binary tree. Is there any
commercial or open source tools/menu builders by which I can have the
creation of such menus based on a configuration file? It would be nice, if
I can specify the position of the menus as well in that configuration
file.

Further, if I select a menu going through all heirarchies mentioned above,
then the page may contain some buttons, whose positions and
enabled/disabled flag also need to be configured.

Any one used such a complex architecture? If so, please help, and thanks
in advance.

Best regards,
Ravi

You mention application and web browser in the same post. Is this an
application, an applet, a JSP page or something else?

- Oliver

 

[Ravi Shankar Nair]

Hi Oliver, Smith,

Not sure why you are not getting the idea. By menu, I mean the different
menu items that can be seen in web sites/web pages. The menus which when you
click, will take you to another page etc etc.

Thanks and regards,
Ravi

[post re-ordered]

Dear all,

In our application, we need to create very complex menus:- top level in
the browser, followed by a bottom level, when you click on any of the
first level items(dynamic), and then third level, which will have again
sub menus. [...]

You mention application and web browser in the same post. Is this an
application, an applet, a JSP page or something else?

It is a J2EE application

By "menu", are you referring to HTML code, perhaps involving the <A
HREF="foo.html"> tag? Maybe you can post a screenshot showing a mockup of
what you want.

- Oliver

 

[Timo Stamm]

Hi Oliver, Smith,

Not sure why you are not getting the idea. By menu, I mean the different
menu items that can be seen in web sites/web pages. The menus which when you
click, will take you to another page etc etc.

You mean links?

Thanks and regards,
Ravi

[post re-ordered]

Dear all,

In our application, we need to create very complex menus:- top level in
the browser, followed by a bottom level, when you click on any of the
first level items(dynamic), and then third level, which will have again
sub menus. [...]
You mention application and web browser in the same post. Is this an
application, an applet, a JSP page or something else?

It is a J2EE application

By "menu", are you referring to HTML code, perhaps involving the <A
HREF="foo.html"> tag? Maybe you can post a screenshot showing a mockup of
what you want.

- Oliver

 

[Oliver Wong]

Hi Oliver, Smith,

Not sure why you are not getting the idea. By menu, I mean the different
menu items that can be seen in web sites/web pages. The menus which when
you click, will take you to another page etc etc.

The term "menu" could ambiguously also refer to, for example, the
javax.swing.JMenu class or java.awt.Menu class, which are part of J2SE,
which is part of J2EE.

Anyway, I strongly suspect you DO mean dynamically generating <A
HREF="foo.html"> tags from an XML configuration file or something like that.
That being said, I don't know of any package which can read your mind, and
generate HTML which perfectly fits the layout of the page surrounding the
menu. Like I said, post a mockup screenshot of what you want. Are you gonna
be using frames? Is the menu easily isolatable in a <DIV> or <TABLE> tag, or
is it gonna be mixed in with the content? How is the hierarchy going to be
represented? Does clicking on a super-menu take you to a new page, or does
it trigger DHTML/JavaScript to make submenus visible?

- Oliver