Site navigation question

[Griff]

Completely new to technologies like CSS, but trying to learn fast....

I've seen a few sites with "very sophisticated" navigation tools that
provide menus that both drop down and expand horizontally...very similar to
the menu tools we're used to in Windows applications.

Anyhow, in an attempt to mimic this, I've looked at a web few sites and
studied the source files. It appears that there are two schools of thought
here.

The first uses unordered lists and the second uses tables to hold the
information. Both then use a combination of CSS and JavaScript to control
the behaviour.

Which really is the method of choice?

Thanks

Griff

PS - not using ASP.NET (yet)

 

[Jeff Cochran]

Completely new to technologies like CSS, but trying to learn fast....

I've seen a few sites with "very sophisticated" navigation tools that
provide menus that both drop down and expand horizontally...very similar to
the menu tools we're used to in Windows applications.

Anyhow, in an attempt to mimic this, I've looked at a web few sites and
studied the source files. It appears that there are two schools of thought
here.

The first uses unordered lists and the second uses tables to hold the
information. Both then use a combination of CSS and JavaScript to control
the behaviour.

Which really is the method of choice?

As far as ASP goes, there's no difference. It's client-side
presentation and code, so posting to the ASP group won't help you.

Jeff

 

[Adrienne]

Completely new to technologies like CSS, but trying to learn fast....

I've seen a few sites with "very sophisticated" navigation tools that
provide menus that both drop down and expand horizontally...very
similar to the menu tools we're used to in Windows applications.

Anyhow, in an attempt to mimic this, I've looked at a web few sites and
studied the source files. It appears that there are two schools of
thought here.

The first uses unordered lists and the second uses tables to hold the
information. Both then use a combination of CSS and JavaScript to
control the behaviour.

Which really is the method of choice?

Thanks

Griff

PS - not using ASP.NET (yet)

Followups set to css group.

Tables are for tabular data, rows and columns, not for layout. Navigation
is usually a list of links, so an unordered list would be a better choice.
An unordered list is also better for screen readers and for debugging
purposes. It's also easier to style.

For example:
<div id="menu">
<ul>
<li class="skipnav"><a href="content">Skip Navigation</a></li>
<li><a href="home.asp">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="contact.asp">Contact</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div id="content">
<h1>Page Title</h1>
<p>Some text</p>
</div>

CSS:
#nav ul {list-style-type: none}
#nav li {width:100px; height:50px}
#nav a {display:block}
#nav a:link, #nav a:visited {background-image:url("buttonoff.gif");}
#nav a:hover, #nav a:focus, #nav a:active {background-image: url
("buttonon.gif");}
..skipnav {left: -100em;}