Delay in IE6

[Roland]

I am working on a nav menu for a sports team fan page. Everything works fine
up to this point except for a delay for the sebmenus and their hover effect
in IE6. In FF, Opera, and Netscape the effects apply as fast as I put my
mouse over them making it so I can just zip up and down the list watching
the colors change. But the delay in IE6 makes me feel like I am wasting my
time considering how many people use it.

Can someone look with IE7 and see if the long delay is in that version?

There are a total of 31 links in the 2nd submenu that I think may be causing
this. There is an "a" and "a:hover" id(with bg images) for each of these in
the css file to get the effect. Is it possible that the amount of links is
slowing the menu down in IE6?

http://home.earthlink.net/~abhosk/test/test.htm

http://home.earthlink.net/~abhosk/test/test.css

Roland

 

[Benjamin Niemann]

I am working on a nav menu for a sports team fan page. Everything works
fine up to this point except for a delay for the sebmenus and their hover
effect in IE6. In FF, Opera, and Netscape the effects apply as fast as I
put my mouse over them making it so I can just zip up and down the list
watching the colors change. But the delay in IE6 makes me feel like I am
wasting my time considering how many people use it.

Can someone look with IE7 and see if the long delay is in that version?

There are a total of 31 links in the 2nd submenu that I think may be
causing this. There is an "a" and "a:hover" id(with bg images) for each of
these in the css file to get the effect. Is it possible that the amount of
links is slowing the menu down in IE6?

http://home.earthlink.net/~abhosk/test/test.htm

http://home.earthlink.net/~abhosk/test/test.css

Can't say much about IE, but: the sub-submenus are so long that they do not
fit completely on my screen (1024x786) and I don't have a chance to reach
the lower items. Also when linebreaks are inserted into items (which
happens in my Konq), the text overlaps the icons.

The delays in IE may be caused by a known bug that causes IE to
(re-)download background images, everytime they are changed - even if they
are cached. But that's just a guess, because I'm too lazy to fire up VMWare
to verify.


HTH

 

[Bergamot]

the sub-submenus are so long that they do not
fit completely on my screen (1024x786) and I don't have a chance to reach
the lower items.

Another problem with these kinds of menus in general is that they
require very good coordination with the mouse. My experience is usually
the submenu I'm trying to get to disappears before I reach it because
the cursor wavers off the path on the way to a particular item.

I tend to curse the rotten things and can't fathom why they seem to be
so popular.

 

[J.O. Aho]

Another problem with these kinds of menus in general is that they
require very good coordination with the mouse. My experience is usually
the submenu I'm trying to get to disappears before I reach it because
the cursor wavers off the path on the way to a particular item.

I tend to curse the rotten things and can't fathom why they seem to be
so popular.

It's the "coolness" factor of having one, it's more important than
userfriendlyness.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Another problem with these kinds of menus in general is that they
require very good coordination with the mouse. My experience is usually
the submenu I'm trying to get to disappears before I reach it because
the cursor wavers off the path on the way to a particular item.

I tend to curse the rotten things and can't fathom why they seem to be
so popular.

Because they can handle a site's large hierarchal links without taking
up a lot of real estate. Horizontal with drop down submenus are a bit
easier to navigate with a shaky hand but are more limited in the number
of base links that can fit across the average screen.

You can use the old time method of only having the adjacent page links
with maybe a "home" link on the page. But it is not very convenient
forcing the visitor to "wander the Oregon trail" to navigate your site!

 

[Bergamot]

You can use the old time method of only having the adjacent page links
with maybe a "home" link on the page. But it is not very convenient
forcing the visitor to "wander the Oregon trail" to navigate your site!

I don't deny that multi-level menus may be tolerable to use for some
people, but forcing their use by all visitors is rude and a definite
PITA for many.

If there is a separate site map with plain text links, I'm happy to use
that instead. Too bad most sites don't have one.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

I don't deny that multi-level menus may be tolerable to use for some
people, but forcing their use by all visitors is rude and a definite
PITA for many.

If there is a separate site map with plain text links, I'm happy to use
that instead. Too bad most sites don't have one.

I always like to put a site map on my sites. Since I manage my pages
with a database generating a site map is a cinch.