Conflict between Milonic and Macromedia javascript DMW MX

Poster: JohnH.
Dated: Friday August 20 2004 - 20:05:44 BST

Hi,

Please find the conflict example here on these test pages:

With Milonic http://altauno.com/accueil-testmenu2.html

Without Milonic http://altauno.com/accueil-nomilonic.html

When you browse over the image map in the middle of the page in particular over the circles, there is like a gap between each images in the map and thus make it appear to flicker bringing back the center image with the main text for a split second. Actually there are no gaps. These were created with Dreamweaver and Fireworks and have never been any problems.

As soon as I disable the Milonic menus, then the mouse over returns to normal not displaying any gaps between the images. The mouse over becomes very smooth again.

We would very much like to know how to correct this issue.

For your info, we have disactivated other javascript in the page and we have also tested the menus without any coding inside (no menus but Milonic javascript activated) and the problem still persists. We have also tried repositioning the javascript inside the page but to no avail.

Your kindest help would be very much appreciated.

In advance, many thanks for your great product.

Very best,
John

Follow-up on the version of Milonic

Poster: JohnH.
Dated: Friday August 20 2004 - 20:17:27 BST

Please note:

We have tried implementing the latest Version 5.42 and the problem is exactly the same.

Thanks,
John

Any ideas?

Poster: JohnH.
Dated: Wednesday August 25 2004 - 1:34:54 BST

Hi,

I have posted since a few days and have not received any replies yet.

Is this a known problem?
Has anybody been able to reproduce this kind of problem before?
Or did we simply miss out on something?

In advance, many many thanks for your ideas or help.

Very best,
John

Poster: John
Dated: Wednesday August 25 2004 - 2:49:57 BST

The version currently on your site is v5RC9 - quite literally 90-100 versions down-level. As mentioned on the home page, support is only provided for the most current version, as of this writing 5.43. There's no way we can help with that old version posted.

Please update from http://milonic.com/ and we'll take a shot at it.

Poster: JohnH.
Dated: Wednesday August 25 2004 - 14:26:17 BST

Hi John,

Thanks for your reply.

We had not installled it on our production server since the problem was reproducible on our testing server even with your latest version.

But in order to have your full support, we will definitively update it during the next couple of days and then get back to you.

Very best,
John

Poster: John
Dated: Wednesday August 25 2004 - 15:02:38 BST

Thanks, John. At that point we'll do our best to get you going.

No change: with the latest version of Milonic Version 5.42

Poster: JohnH.
Dated: Thursday August 26 2004 - 12:59:38 BST

Hi John,

The latest version was installed in a different folder on our production server ("/menu2") and our test files make the calls to that folder with your latest release Version 5.42.

Please find the conflict example here on these test pages:

With Milonic http://altauno.com/accueil-testmenu2.html

Without Milonic http://altauno.com/accueil-nomilonic.html

There are no changes to the above problem (original posting), but hopefully this will help you better understand the problem we are in this particular situation.

Many thanks and very best regards,
John

Poster: John
Dated: Thursday August 26 2004 - 15:23:46 BST

Try making this a negative number, as shown...

Follow-up - change made but...

Poster: JohnH.
Dated: Thursday August 26 2004 - 16:11:38 BST

Hi John,

Thanks for pointing us to the small error in the data file. It was corrected but we see no changes in the map and mouse over behaviour.

When you browse over the image map in the middle of the page over the circles, there is still a bigger gap between each images in the map and thus make it appear to flicker bringing back the center image with the main text for a split second.

Without Milonic loaded like you can see in the test pages, it works fine.
With Milonic http://altauno.com/accueil-testmenu2.html
Without Milonic http://altauno.com/accueil-nomilonic.html

Any more clues...?

John

Poster: John
Dated: Thursday August 26 2004 - 16:43:13 BST

That's a bit strange. I have your page posted at http://www.west.asu.edu/sa/testsite/ (missed a few images, but the important ones are there). The only thing I changed in the _data file was the -6 I mentioned earlier. There is no longer any gap, and the background images do not flicker (unless you slip off the menus themselves while mousing from sub to sub). I've been using the Entreprise/Liens menus for testing, as they drop the lowest into the other images.

Poster: JohnH.
Dated: Thursday August 26 2004 - 17:33:26 BST

John,

I went several times in the last few minutes on your test page:
http://www.west.asu.edu/sa/testsite/

I even tried:
http://www.west.asu.edu/sa/testsite/acc ... menu2.html

but it does not show up at all. Is it the good address?

Very best,
JohnH

Poster: JohnH.
Dated: Thursday August 26 2004 - 17:35:28 BST

Oh.. just to make sure:

The flickering does not occur in the menus themselves but in the map in the middle of the page with the circles.

Were we right on this?

Poster: John
Dated: Thursday August 26 2004 - 17:42:54 BST



Hi John -

Yep, just tried it again with no problems. You might want to try http://www.west.asu.edu/sa/testsite/index.htm, but that really shouldn't make a difference. Andy from Great Britian is currently looking at another page on that same server with no trouble.


Yes, understood. That flickering in the 'background' (AltaUno... stuff) is gone.

Poster: JohnH.
Dated: Thursday August 26 2004 - 18:06:32 BST

The page still cannot be viewed.
But I can go anywhere else without any problems.

Even the short one cannot: http://www.west.asu.edu/

Sorry.

JohnH

Poster: JohnH.
Dated: Thursday August 26 2004 - 18:12:31 BST

Plus, we have made the changes suggested.

The parameter was changed and the very latest version of your software was installed.

Why are you testing somewhere else which we cannot unfortunately see...? And what are the differences in the code if you have imported our stuff there? Hence, there should be no differences.

Our test pages demonstate the problem quite evidently and all of the software and data files can be accessed.

With Milonic http://altauno.com/accueil-testmenu2.html
Without Milonic http://altauno.com/accueil-nomilonic.html

Best,
John

Poster: John
Dated: Thursday August 26 2004 - 19:08:23 BST

John, I have no idea why you can't get access. It's an open server, actually our 'front door' to this campus.

Anyway, try http://tiggrsuccess.com/test/. That's one of my personal servers, off-campus.

Again, nothing has been changed except the already-mentioned -6 (and adding your domain to the img statements to make them work, of course).

Poster: JohnH.
Dated: Thursday August 26 2004 - 21:09:01 BST

Hi,

Thanks. We were able to get access to your private server:
http://tiggrsuccess.com/test/
Actually the same problem occurs. The flickering is still there when you go over the image map.

At some point, we thought this was just one of our browsers, but then when we checked with other people, the same occurs. We use the most recent IE browsers 6.0.2900 on XP with SP2 (SP2 did not change a thing) with all recommend updates.

In Netscape, we cannot see the flickering of the image map. Only in IE.

Best,
Jean

Poster: John
Dated: Thursday August 26 2004 - 21:26:12 BST

I don't have NS loaded, but in Win/IE and Mac/Safari I do not see any flickering. The gap between the menus is now gone. Rolling over the main images shows a solid quick change in the right side images.

Poster: JohnH.
Dated: Friday August 27 2004 - 5:06:12 BST

We still see the flickering... and IE is the most used browser.

How come? By what is it created? So strange...

As soon as we leave the Milonic code aside (none activated), there is no more flickering in the image map in IE browsers.

Hummm...

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Friday August 27 2004 - 8:08:04 BST

I know what's happening but cannot give you a fix, perhaps some javascript could do something. What you are calling a flicker is normal mouseOn mouseOff functions. So, you mouseover item 1 and the image changes but when you mouseout of item 1 the mouseout requires the image to go back to the original, even though you are mousing down to the next item rapidly, there is still a mouseout function taking place. I don't know how you would stop that from happening because if someone mouses onto item 1 then mouses out and doesn't go to the next item you want the image to go back to the original.

Ruth

Poster: JohnH.
Dated: Friday August 27 2004 - 20:12:41 BST

Hi Ruth,

We really appreciate your inputs.

Is there any Javascript that we could use in order to suppress this unwanted effect. Further, it only appears when the Milonic javascripts are active even if there is no data in the "data" file - something we also tried.

So for us, it tells us clearly that there is a function in Milonic that slows down something.

If you think a little bit of extra code is necessary as a workaround, we will be terribly happy about giving a big try.

As a side note, we are really surprised that we are the first ones to come across a conflict between the image maps generated by Dreamweaver MX and Milonic's menus.

Many many thanks for your ideas and very best,
John

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Friday August 27 2004 - 22:43:01 BST

Hi John,
There have been others who have tried to figure out a way to stop the mouseover/out from working as it does. It's really not a fault in the menu, if you were on a page without the menu but which has images swaps on mouseover they would do the same thing, on mousing on it would change the image and on mousing off it would swap it back. The reason you still see the function even when you have the menu but leave it empty is that you do have an image and you have a menustyle declared and mouseover/out is the default in the menu. I had a couple of ideas, though I don't know you'd want to use either.

1. Changing your image swap function to an onclick event instead of onmouseover and putting a 'heading' in the section telling them to click to get more information on the topic of their choice [or something like that]

2. Getting rid of the onMouseOut [the onMouseOut restore image] part of the code so the image doesn't switch back?

I am not a programmer, nor a javascripter [if that's a word], mostly I'm able to kind of 'see' what the menu is doing in everyday terms. I couldn't write a function for you, but I think that's what you need. I believe it would be a pretty involved function: you'd need a delay written in it, and it' would have to be applied to each of the 5 links, I believe, and then you'd also need if statements I think referring to each item and what has to happen in each instance [mouseon/out] i.e. if item one and mouseover do this, and so on. You might post a new topic with a different subject line and explain the issue and see if you can get help with a function. I'm sorry I can't be of more help. There may be someone else with more knowledge who can help you.

Ruth

Poster: JohnH.
Dated: Saturday August 28 2004 - 0:34:09 BST

Hi Ruth,

Thanks again for your inputs.

Just want to stress that when we disactivate the Milonic menus, everything comes back to normal. So in a way, I believe something could still be done...

If anyone else has ideas, we do welcome them.

Very best,
JohnH.

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Saturday August 28 2004 - 5:03:08 BST

There might be something that could be done in the program, adding or changing something, but I have no idea how difficult it would be since I know any change tends to change a lot of things. If you have a professional license you might contact Milonic and ask for help on this since the forum doesn't seem to have an answer for you.

Ruth

Poster: kevin3442
Dated: Saturday August 28 2004 - 7:57:03 BST


But the forum has given an answer... at least in terms of what's causing the problem. Your analysis of the cause was right on the mark Ruth. And your proposed solution was pretty good too; delaying the restore function under a specific circumstance would be the way to go. You should learn more javascript Ruth... you'd be a natural!

JohnH ,

It's actually the MM_swapImgRestore() function in your swapimgrestore.js file that's causing the flicker. The function is called from the onmouseout event, so it briefly restores the default center image as you mouse from one cell in the table to another. The function is, in fact, called every time you mouse out of one of the table cells in your menu. If you mouse out of a cell, and into another, then the MM_swapImgRestore() function is followed immediately by the MM_swapImage() function, changing the center image again... hence the flicker. This cycle occurs whether the menu code is in or not. But with the menu code out, the cycle from one function to the next occurs faster. So the image swapping still occurs, but it hapens so fast that you essentially don't see it (maybe you would on a slower machine... BTW, I see it in NS7 too). So, the menu isn't necessarily interfering with the image swap functions, it's just slowing them down a little; just eough so that you notice the swap. Why the slow down? I don't know for certain without testing, but I imagine two possibilities: (1) perhaps the menu code implements a repetitive timer or iterval function to periodoically check for menu events, (2) more code in the page equals more processing required.

So... what to do about it? The problem is essentially in how the image swap functions work. They're generic, and usually pretty good. But in this specific situation, they aren't good enough. If it were me, I'd write a different set of swapping functions that are designed specifically for this situation. They would be fairly straight forward (actually less complex than the MM_ functions you now use), and would be designed specifically to prevent the flicker. If you need some help with that, I could probably lend you a hand early next week (won't be on the forum any more this weekend).

Cheers,

Kevin