Submenu background flickers

Poster: lhboes
Dated: Monday October 9 2006 - 23:32:20 BST

When the submenu first appears, it appears from the bottom up slowly and then when you mouseoff a submenu item, the background image flickers off & then back on again. This is only happening on my new, faster computer using IE6. It doesn't happen on my old, slow computer (also IE6) and doesn't happen with Firefox. Also, it doesn't fade nicely like it does on Firefox.

The link to the site is http://www.drquinnlac.com.

Thanks,

Lori

Here's my javascript:

fixMozillaZIndex=true; //Fixes Z-Index problem with Mozilla browsers but causes odd scrolling problem, toggle to see if it helps
_menuCloseDelay=500;
_menuOpenDelay=150;
_subOffsetTop=4;
_subOffsetLeft=-2;

with(menuStyle=new mm_style()){
fontfamily="Verdana, Tahoma, Arial";
fontsize="80%";
fontstyle="normal";
headerbgcolor="#ffffff";
headercolor="#000000";
offcolor="#FFFFCC";
bgimage="menu_bg.gif";
oncolor="#FFCC66";
overfilter="Fade(duration=0.2);Alpha(opacity=100);Shadow(color='#777777', Direction=135, Strength=5)";
outfilter="randomdissolve(duration=0.2)";
padding=6;
separatorcolor="#CCCC66";
separatorpadding=0;
separatorsize=1;
subimage="arrow.gif";
subimagepadding="1px 4px 0 3px";
}

with(milonic=new menuname("Main Menu")){
alwaysvisible=1;
orientation="horizontal";
menuwidth="640px";
style=menuStyle;
aI("text=Home;url=index.html;");
aI("showmenu=About;text=About Beth;");
aI("text=Services;url=services.html;");
aI("showmenu=Chinese Medicine;text=Chinese Medicine;");
aI("showmenu=News;text=News;");
aI("text=Testimonials;url=testimonials.html;");
aI("text=Links;url=links.html;");
aI("text=Contact;url=contact.html;");
}

with(milonic=new menuname("About")){
style=menuStyle;
aI("text=About Beth ;url=about.html;");
aI("text=Training ;url=training.html;");
aI("text=Practice ;url=practice.html;");
}

with(milonic=new menuname("News")){
style=menuStyle;
aI("text=News ;url=news.html;");
aI("text=Articles by Beth ;url=articlesby.html;");
aI("text=Articles about Beth ;url=articlesabout.html;");
}

with(milonic=new menuname("Chinese Medicine")){
style=menuStyle;
aI("text=Acupuncture ;url=acupuncture.html;");
aI("text=Chinese Herbs ;url=herbs.html;");
}

drawMenus();

Poster: John
Dated: Wednesday October 11 2006 - 15:31:09 BST

I'm not seeing a problem on either IE7 or, as you mentioned, FF.

As for the fade you said...

FF will not show the fade, as the code for that is IE-specific. You will only see it in IE.

Poster: lhboes
Dated: Wednesday October 11 2006 - 17:10:16 BST

Thanks John,

You're right about the fade, it doesn't happen in Firefox, I was mistaken, but it also doesn't happen on the desktop in IE6 that is giving me that flicker problem. I'm going to assume it's my computer somehow since I only see the problem on that one computer. Perhaps it is because that computer is running Windows XP64?

Lori

Poster: kevin3442
Dated: Wednesday October 11 2006 - 20:47:30 BST

Hi Lori,

I don't see a problem either, with IE6/WinXP SP2. Your menus look and work great.

I'd say you're correct about it being machine specific. It sounds like the problem may be related to the filter effects you've applied. As John mentioned, those effects apply only when the page is viewed in IE (5.5 or above I believe). That's because the effects rely on DirectX. You could test to see if the problem is related to your filters by temporarily commenting out any overfilter or outfilter settings you use in your menu styles. That will remove the filter effects from the menu. When you do that, the menus should appear and disappear much as they do in FF. Do they now work OK in IE6 on the problem machine? If so, you might try re-installing DirectX.

Cheers,

Kevin

Poster: lhboes
Dated: Thursday October 12 2006 - 4:41:09 BST

I figured it out. Under the IE6 menu "Tools->Internet Options...->Temporary Internet Files->Settings...->Check for newer versions of stored pages", if "Every visit to page" is selected, it doesn't work right. I get that weird flickering affect. If I change it to "Automatically" the submenu works nicely. I tried this on 2 computers so that seems to be it. I have to have the "Every visit to page" selected for a software package that I use so that's why I even thought of looking there.

Lori

Poster: kevin3442
Dated: Thursday October 12 2006 - 8:09:48 BST

Hi Lori,

Very nicely done! I tried the same thing just now ("every visit" vs. "automatically"), using IE6 to visit your site. Got the same flicker. Interesting... it looks like the bgimage is getting loaded from you server, instead of the cache, for every item, each time a menu is opened, causing the items to flicker as their background image is reloaded.

Thanks for posting your findings. May help someone else down the road.

Cheers,

Kevin