Odd shifting behavior

Poster: gummyworms
Dated: Tuesday February 8 2005 - 22:41:07 GMT

Hello,

I am using the Milonic menu with one of the new websites I'm building. The menu is contained within a table, and if the size of the window is smaller than the width of the table. I get a weird shifting effect.

Try this:

Go here: http://www.chem.wisc.edu/
Make your window <800px
Mouse over the menu and you'll see the issue.

Oh yeah, this is only a problem in Internet Explorer.

Thanks,
Shawn

Poster: John
Dated: Wednesday February 9 2005 - 14:11:19 GMT

Shawn -

A couple of things we've noticed on your site. The 5.7 code is down-level. True, it's only one step, but, as pointed out on the download page, it is no longer supported.

You're running un-licensed code. ALL copies, free (which you qualify for as an edu) or not, must be licensed. The link-back to Milonic is inoperative because it is not properly closed. Whether by accident or design, it needs to be there properly.

Clean these up and we'll do what we can to help.

Poster: gummyworms
Dated: Wednesday February 9 2005 - 22:55:30 GMT

Hello,

Sorry about the license issue. There was a slight administrative delay between when the site needed to launch and when the administrative department could get the license paid for. I just purchased a license today for the http://www.chem.wisc.edu domain.

I also upgraded to 5.711 today, and I still seem to have the same shifting problem. In addition, I have a new issue that is sorta driving me nuts.

The menu seems to perform slowly under older computers. My computer does not exhibit this problem because it is newer, but on some computers, namely late Pentium 3 and early Pentium 4 equivalent systems, there is a marked delay between a mouseover and when the submenu pops up.

I theorized that this might have to do with the fact that the menu is positioned via table. I changed the positioning to absolute, and it sped up the submenu pop-out speed considerably. However, positioning the menu absolutely doesn't work for my layout as well.

I was just wondering if it is a fault of the menu that it runs slower when bound in a table, or something wrong with my code...

Thanks,
Shawn

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Thursday February 10 2005 - 1:03:55 GMT

Hi,
I'm on an older machine, win98se, IE5.5 Pentium II, at least that's what it tells me, dialup connection, and the menus seem to drop pretty quickly. Have you tried lower the menuOpenDelay?

Ruth

Poster: gummyworms
Dated: Thursday February 10 2005 - 2:30:12 GMT

Yeah, I think I found out how to make the menu faster.

I have several pages where I use the menu, and I pull this portion into each page with a php require() function:

<script>
with(milonic=new menuname("Main Menu")){
style=mainMenu;
top=0;
left=0;
alwaysvisible=1;
orientation="horizontal";
position="relative";
aI("text=Home;url=/;");
aI("text=General Info;showmenu=General Info;url=/about/overview.php;");
aI("text=People;showmenu=People;url=/people/list_people.php;");
aI("text=Undergrad;showmenu=Undergraduate;url=/undergrad/courses.php;");
aI("text=Graduate;showmenu=Graduate;url=/graduate/whywisconsin.php;");
aI("text=News;showmenu=News;url=/news/upcoming.php;");
aI("text=Groups;url=/research/research.php;");
aI("text=Facilities;showmenu=Facilities;url=/facilities/facilities.php;");
aI("text=Outreach;showmenu=Outreach;");
aI("text=Careers;url=/careers/careerhome.php");
aI("text=Donate;url=https://www.uwfoundation.wisc.edu/giving/giving2.nsf/jsCheck?openform&College%2Bof%2BLetters%2Band%2BScience%7EDepartment%2Bof%2BChemistry");
}
drawMenus();
</script>

Seems this causes the menu behavior to perform slowly. Instead, I have hard-coded this portion into every page, and it works a bit faster. It's not an ideal solution, because I'd rather have it be one file, instead of in many different places, but I guess it will do.

I still have not solved the shifting issue yet. You have any idea what it is?

-Shawn

P.S. Menu Open delay is set to 0

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Thursday February 10 2005 - 2:41:47 GMT

I don't see the menu shifting, I see the whole layout [the white area] shifts left when you starting making the width smaller. If you use the mouse and in really tiny increments make the width smaller you'll see that whole area begin shifting left and no horizontal scroll bar appears until there is just a little tiny bit of gray on that left margin. That makes me think it's something to do with the css and the margins between your white area layout and the page margin.

Ruth

Poster: kevin3442
Dated: Saturday February 12 2005 - 0:00:38 GMT

Hi Shawn,

You still getting the shift? What happens if you remove the DOCTYPE at the top of the code?

Kevin

Poster: gummyworms
Dated: Saturday February 12 2005 - 3:42:32 GMT

Wow. That fixed it. Why do you think the DOCtype was doing that?

Poster: John
Dated: Saturday February 12 2005 - 5:20:26 GMT

What exactly were you using for the doctype? You really should have one. Just for grins, try putting it back and also move the menu JS calls to the first items after the body tag.