Why shouldn't I use this menu system

[Larry Webb]

The drop out/down menu on the site below works great on different
browsers and I would like to use it on another site I'm redesigning.
What are the downfalls of using a system like this?

http://www.dimonconstruction.com

Thanks for your time

Larry

 

[Michael Wilcox]

The drop out/down menu on the site below works great on different
browsers and I would like to use it on another site I'm redesigning.
What are the downfalls of using a system like this?

http://www.dimonconstruction.com

That menu is a large amount of JavaScript which cannot be guaranteed to work
on all systems due to different browser versions. Also, quite a large number
do not have JavaScript or have it turned off because it can infringe on
security.

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Larry Webb pounced upon this pigeonhole and pronounced:

The drop out/down menu on the site below works great on different
browsers and I would like to use it on another site I'm redesigning.
What are the downfalls of using a system like this?

http://www.dimonconstruction.com

What menu is that? I didn't see any menu.

<http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.cgi?url=http:/%
2Fwww.dimonconstruction.com%2F>

 

[Eric Bohlman]

That menu is a large amount of JavaScript which cannot be guaranteed
to work on all systems due to different browser versions. Also, quite
a large number do not have JavaScript or have it turned off because it
can infringe on security.

In fact, with Javascript disabled on Opera 7.20, the menu is completely
missing; there's no navigation at all on the page.

Note that Google won't be able to index any of the links off the page,
because they're not real links.

If you want to achieve the (admittedly attractive) effect that's present
with Javascript enabled, you really need to mark up the menu so that in the
absence of Javascript it appears as a vertical list of links, with each
main menu item's sub-links underneath it (probably indented). Then use
Javascript to hide the sub-link sections (by manipulating their style
attributes) and pop them up (using absolute positioning, again by
manipulating style attributes) in response to mouse movements.

If you do that, you'll have the best of all worlds: a menu that looks and
works the way you want it when Javascript is enabled, that looks good and
still works if Javascript is disabled, and that enables search engines to
index your whole site.

 

[Woolly Mittens]

What are the downfalls of using a system like this?

http://www.dimonconstruction.com

No link in that menu will ever get spidered by a search engine.
The menu works fine for most people, but *please* offer and alternative
navigation.

You can even make it invisible if you have to.

 

[Toby A Inkster]

The drop out/down menu on the site below works great on different
browsers and I would like to use it on another site I'm redesigning.
What are the downfalls of using a system like this?

As others have said, what menu?

Use the menu at http://devedge.netscape.com/ instead.