Simplistic? Maybe, but if it helps....

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Friday April 9 2004 - 16:32:59 BST

Disabling the Panic Button

Now, this may be a little simplistic, but for those with more knowledge, ya'll can go to the more advanced areas, this is for the real beginners

For all those new to the menu system, there's no need to push the panic button, or run for the oxygen when you unzip the file. You will get two folders, docs and extras. Docs contains the documentation on how to build and install the menu, Extras contains menus such as asp, php, frames. There is an image, an index.htm page so you can see the menu which is fully funtional in the download, and 4 menu files which end in .js.


The three files highlighted in red are the program files. You don't do anything but upload these files to your site, just like you upload pages, images, etc. The green highligted file is the index page and if you open it you will see a fully functional menu. The yellow highlighted file is the menu_data which is just what the name suggests, the place you put all the information that will be in the menu, links, text, etc., the information as to how it will look [color, fonts, images ...]. It is in this file that you create your menus and submenus and how they will look. So, let's start at the beginning.

In a sense you can divide the menu_data file into 3 sections, though they are not so named.

Section I has 5 items in it.

A command for Mozilla browser z-index, how fast the submenu will open and close, and the top - left position where the submenu will open with reference to its 'parent'-- what you moused over to get the menu to show. NOTE: If the main menu is a horizontal menu then those subOffsets will not work. Unlike vertical menus where a submenu might open over a main menu item the submenus in horizontal menus automatically open below the parent item.

Section II begins

with(menuStyle=new mm_style()){

It may seem overwhelming to a beginner who knows nothing about the menu or about programming, but in everyday terms -- ok programmars, scientists and mathematicians who jump up pulling your hair out "no, no! the square root of minus one is NOT a winch that pulls, pushes, rotates things from the line! well guys, we don't need to know the formula nor how it functions, we just need that nasty little word ... analogy ... to help us feel a bit more comfortable with it.

So, in everyday terms this is all "with(menuStyle=new mm_style()){" is.. a little sentence that says..."Menu program, I've got this style, I called it menuStyle, and I'm going to put it with some of my menus [or all] so if you see it with a menu, then you use whatever I put in the style for the color, fonts, borders etc. and make the menu look like that"

Section III begins

with(milonic=new menuname("mainmenu")){

There we go with the squiggles again...you'll get used to them. This line is a menu line, what comes after it will be all the info that will be in the menu, the style used for it, if it will be alwaysvisible and therefore a 'main' menu, where it will be located if it's a main menu that is always visible, the links, the text, etc. All that line does is say "Menu program, I've got a menu created now and I called it mainmenu, so take a look at it and make it look like I've said.

So, the program comes tripping along and says, 'Hmmm, there's a menu called mainmenu, it says it's alwaysvisible, 10px from the top and 10 from the left and it's supposed to be 'dressed' with menuStyle. Now, let's see, why I do believe there is a style called menuStyle, so I'll use it and render [show] the menu'. And, voila there is the menu you designed!

So, simplistic? Maybe, but that's OK. If it helps one person take a deep breath and not feel overwhelmed by a totally new thing, it is worth it.

There will be other topics posted as time goes on. There are posts on creating styles your menu now available. That is probably a good place to start. As to the various properties available - for style, for the menus, and even for the items - see the links below my signature.

Ruth