Mulitple List Based Menus

Poster: nekcih
Dated: Monday June 13 2005 - 20:13:55 BST

Is there a way to do more than one list-based menu? There should be a way to specify which <UL> elements to convert to menus.

Any help would be much appreciated. If I can't get this to work we'll have to find another menu solution before doing our site redesign and I don't want to do that because I like this menu.

Thanks.
Mark

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Tuesday June 14 2005 - 17:11:34 BST

Could you give a bit of a description as to what you mean? Maybe if you could put a non menu test page showing the lists you want and the layout? I'm having a hard time trying to visualize it.

Ruth

Poster: John
Dated: Wednesday June 15 2005 - 18:02:48 BST


That makes two of us...

Poster: Speednet
Dated: Friday June 17 2005 - 5:13:52 BST

I don't have a hard time visualizing it, because I'd like to do the same thing.

Basically, the list-based example turns every list on the page into a menu (at least it worked that way the last time I checked).

I (and I assume the original author) would like that specify that the < ul> tag with an id of "mymenu" (for example) would be converted into a menu, but leave the other < ul> tags on the page alone (don't convert them into menus). (i.e., < ul id="mymenu">)

Also, by adding that rather simple logic, that would allow mutliple < ul> tags to represent totally differently-styled menus. For example you can have an Office XP-styled menu at the top by specifiying < ul id="myofficemenu"> and a vertical menu in the left nav with < ul id="myverticalmenu">. The menu_data.js file would have some option in the definition that allows you to specify the id attribute that belongs to a particular definition.

It could also be done with a class attribute, but that id attribute is really nice in order to be very specific, and is also the fastest way to address any DOM element on a page.

Hope this helps. (And hoping for this option!)

Poster: Speednet
Dated: Friday June 17 2005 - 5:20:38 BST

By the way, if this list-based thing receives some good attention in the next release of the menu, it could allow developers to totally solve any search engine difficulties described here:

http://www.milonic.com/searchengines_milonic.php

That's because the search engines would easily see and crawl the <a> tags listed in the simple <ul> structures, yet the end-user would see the same great menus. A real win-win.

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Friday June 17 2005 - 17:47:31 BST

It is possible to use the Milonic List based menu and not have it include lists you do not wish in the menu. It is not, at this time, possible to define two milonic list based menus in any test I tried.

Not having any idea just what the layout is, or what is really desired as to layout, I made a number of different layouts and tested using the listbased.

To set up a Milonic List-based menu and also have non menu lists on a page can be done in 2 different ways:

1. position the Milonic menu absolutely using the top= and left= parameters, then declare the list from which the Milonic Menu will be created right after the call for the Milonic files and before any other page content. i.e. call the files right after the body tag, and place the list immediately after that, then begin any page content.

2. position the menu using position="relative"; HOWEVER to do that you MUST position the menu as the first item in whatever table and BEFORE any other lists are included.

In other words, any other lists must come after the Milonic List and the call for the listmenus.js file.

I tested these in Netscape, Firefox, IE. I cannot test in Mac nor Opera. You'll have to do that yourself.

Ruth

Poster: Speednet
Dated: Friday June 17 2005 - 23:27:30 BST

Thanks Ruth, it's really awesome that you go to such great lengths to be friendly and helpful!

I figured there must be a way to position the elements, along with the JavaScript statements, in such a way as to make one list (and only one) a menu. Your tests have successfully confirmed that suspicion - thanks so much.

After you went through those tests, I'm sure you came to the same conclusion - that it would be much-preferrable to be able to specify < ul> tags with an id attribute, so you don't have to precisely position everything in the code. I'm sure Andy must feel the same way, as he termed the list-based menu a "prototype" or "test" or something like that.

I am totally supportive of providing some enhanced functionality to the list-based menus, because of the enormous benefit potential for search engine usage. Plus, it works VERY NICELY with new XHTML layouts that people are devising these days.

Today, the XHTML standard-bearers are pushing semantic coding, meaning that the tags you choose to use should be descriptive of the intent of the content. (So, for example, you should use < strong> tags instead of < b> tags, because "strong" is descriptive, and "b" is not.) Well, the unordered lists come across as a very descriptive way to implement menus, especially since you can nest lists.

I'll get off my soap box now - I hope Andy checks this out!

-Todd

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Saturday June 18 2005 - 0:45:30 BST

I'm sure Andy is/has checked it out and is working on it if it is at all reasonable. The problem is that with programming, what seem to be simple things end up requiring so much programming or change in programming that it defeats any purpose. This may be something do-able which just takes a lot of programming, so would take time to develop.

Ruth

Poster: kevin3442
Dated: Wednesday June 22 2005 - 0:39:30 BST



Just a quick note. Search-engine concerns are precisely why Milonic is working on list-based menus. I know it is an important project for Milonic, so stay tuned...

Cheers,

Kevin

Poster: Speednet
Dated: Wednesday June 22 2005 - 2:54:36 BST

Excellent news!!

Bumping

Poster: Speednet
Dated: Wednesday September 21 2005 - 22:21:57 BST

I'm bumping this topic because it's a shame that list-based menus have not gotten priority from Milonic.

I know everyone is different, and renewing a license is a personal decision based upon the value perceived by the buyer.

For me, I'll renew my license once the list-based menus receive an update, including the ability to control multiple, named list-based menus.

This was supposedly receiving attention from the development staff since April, but it looks like other things got bumped up the list ahead of it.

I'm not casting blame or criticism, just hoping to get this topic addressed by the development staff at Milonic, since this is hands-down the most important issue I have with the menu system.

(People unfamiliar with list-based menus should see all the topic discussion above, as well as the list-based example that comes in the menu zip file.)

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Thursday September 22 2005 - 1:41:51 BST

Hi,

You might contact Milonic, as a licensed user, with your needs.

Ruth

Poster: Speednet
Dated: Thursday September 22 2005 - 4:18:58 BST

I have previously "discussed" the topic with Andy, and made numerous suggestions. Since I no longer have access to support, I thought posting a message here would be the best way to communicate.

I will definitely "re-up" when this capability becomes more robust!

Poster: Andy
Dated: Tuesday October 25 2005 - 21:20:47 BST

This one got fixed today

Will get this code added to the downloads as soon as a decent demo has been done

-- Andy

MULTIPLE list based menus

Poster: nekcih
Dated: Wednesday November 16 2005 - 23:39:47 GMT

Unfortunately we won't be able to renew our license in the future until it meets this need either.

Today is Wednesday 11/16/05 and I just downloaded version 5.735 the latest and greatest which includes a way to style different UL's with different styles.

What we need is the ability to have code like this...



Where "myMenu2" is NOT affected in any way by the Javascript. Right now the mmenu hides all UL tags once you enable list based menus. The list menus need to be completely modular.

Again, thanks for the hard work Andy. Your menus are by far the best out there. We just need this feature.

We are currently using a home-grown menu system that is quite limited in it's functionality but suits our needs. We await the day that we can switch back to the almighty milonic menus! We'll watch for future updates.

Mark

Poster: Andy
Dated: Monday November 21 2005 - 17:06:23 GMT

Hi,

This has now been fixed (sorry for the delay)

All you need is to replace the file http://www.milonic.com/listmenus2.js

The List based menus should now only change menus with an ID that has been specified with the buildListMenu function.

Demos for version 2 of the list menus are on the way.

Hope this helps,
Andy

Multiple list based menus

Poster: nekcih
Dated: Monday November 21 2005 - 20:07:00 GMT

Thanks Andy! Unfortunately I haven't had my head into the menu Javascript for quite some time so I don't know what the parameters of the buildListMenu function stand for. I know you said demos are on the way. Assuming that it's only one line of code to activate the list menus, can you post an example for the sake of all interested in this thread? I'm anxious to see if it will do what we need it to.

Thanks for the quick reply. I understand things are probably very busy for you. If you can break away for a minute to do this I'll appreciate it very much.

Keep up the great work Andy! You're a genious!

Mark