Using Milonic menus with AJAX

Poster: bdumes
Dated: Thursday February 22 2007 - 17:29:02 GMT

I am writing an AJAX web application.

I want to be able to use my milonic menu without doing a postback on the server and to change the menus by javascript control alone.

Is this possible? Can the menu be created after the page has already rendered by calling the menu javascript later on? If so, how do you clear the first menu before creating the second?

Here's the idea:

1) click button A and menu A appears
2) click button B and menu A disappears and menu B appears

All this must happen client side! That is critical.

Thanks!

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Tuesday February 27 2007 - 17:23:34 GMT

Hi,

I don't know anything about Ajax, but there seems to be a new menu setup for ajax. I don't know that it's in the download yet everything is being upgraded here. Try this link

http://www.milonic.com/ajaxmenus/

Ruth

Poster: Andy
Dated: Thursday March 1 2007 - 9:53:07 GMT

Also, take a look at the menu API found at http://www.milonic.com/mm_menueditapi.js

Contains functions to build and edit menus on the client.

Re: Using Milonic menus with AJAX

Poster: magicpix
Dated: Thursday February 28 2008 - 3:15:47 GMT

Hi I have been a very satisfied commercial user of Milonic menu for quite a few years now across many projects, thank you guys!

Recently I have had a significant and growing problem with the Milonic menu on a large project. The file that defines the menu system had grown to over 150kb, and resulted in page loading hanging across the site for up to 5 seconds for many users. It was definitely the large menu file causing the hanging. As a solution I've temporarily disabled all but the first level of menus.

You could argue the menus should not be so extensive as to cause such a problem, but while the site offers standard navigation, search and sitemap, as the project has grown over the last two years, for whatever reason site visitors _much_ prefer to use the menu system.

So... as a solution I'm in the process today of changing over to the Ajax implementation, which btw is very elegant, thanks!

My question is - is there a way to include something that immediately indicates to the user the ajax menu is loading i.e. when a user mouses over a menu link that calls an ajax submenu, something immediately appears that explains the delay in the menu appearing e.g. a custom graphic we can define appears, or even better, a single child menu that appears immediately and just contains 'Menu loading....', which is replaced by the ajax menu when it is fully loaded.

Thanks again!

Pete

Re: Using Milonic menus with AJAX

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Monday March 3 2008 - 6:22:37 GMT

Hi,

I'm sorry, but you will have to contact Milonic about this. I'm assuming that since John hasn't responded he doesn't know, and I, like John, am not a programmer nor developer so I don't know either. I'm pretty sure Milonic would be able to help you on this and they are very very user oriented.

If you have a professional or above active license, try using http://www.milonic.com/support/

Hope this helps

Ruth

Re: Using Milonic menus with AJAX

Poster: John
Dated: Monday March 3 2008 - 12:34:46 GMT

Just to be picky, I am a web programmer/developer. However, at this time I have no need for Ajax, so I would have been no help to you.

Did you contact Milonic support as Ruth suggested?

Re: Using Milonic menus with AJAX

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Monday March 3 2008 - 13:51:15 GMT

Sorry about that, John. I know you do that stuff, too. No idea what I was thinking [not thinking] when I wrote that.

Ruth

Re: Using Milonic menus with AJAX

Poster: magicpix
Dated: Thursday March 6 2008 - 11:50:38 GMT

Hi John and Ruth,

I have a pro license (actually have bought multiple over the years at different companies) but haven't contacted Milonic support as I guess it was more a feature request, and I can see other people have requested the same loading indicator for Ajax menus in the forums.

Do you know if the Ajax implementation is still being worked on? I have come across a number of glitches that users have also mentioned regarding the behaviour of the Ajax menus which I guess I should report to forums here somewhere.

The Ajax info only appears on what looks to be an unfinished page on the Milonic site, so all up I wonder if Ajax support has been officially released or is still a work in progress.

Thanks

Pete

Re: Using Milonic menus with AJAX

Poster: Andy
Dated: Thursday March 6 2008 - 11:59:16 GMT

Hi,

The Ajax menu is fully support and is quite sturdy now.

There was a new release yesterday adding a "Menu Loading" feature and fixing a couple of bugs. Try downloading another copy of the menu and updating milonic_src.js, mmenudom.js and mm_browserapi.js and see if that helps with any issues you may have.

There is a demo of the Ajax menu at http://www.milonic.com/ajaxmenus/

please let me know if there is anything else we can help you with.

Re: Using Milonic menus with AJAX

Poster: magicpix
Dated: Sunday March 9 2008 - 12:07:56 GMT

Hi Andy thanks for the great support!

The updates scripts certainly seem to have addressed the bulk of the bugs in the Ajax menus. You can see my current implementation at http://www.rfactorcentral.com

Thanks for the addition of the 'Menu Loading' option - you'll see at the above url quite a few of the child menus are quite large, it definitely comes in handy.

I do have a question though regarding the placement of the Menu Loading indicator - Is there a way atm the Menu Loading indicator can automatically appear directly across from the menu item the user is mousing over, automatically taking into account varying width menus? Just like the child menus do.

Atm it seems as though the Menu loading indicator can only be positioned using top and left offset. The width of all my menus vary enormously and often - as users submit content, the titles of which appear in the menus, with the site updating the scripts automatically

e.g. at the moment this is the compromise I have, using a fixed top and left offset to control the location of the loading indicator for every sub menu:



but the placement for the loading indicator I'd really like to have happen automatically, regardless of menu width, is:



Apologies if this is already possible and I've missed something obvious.

Thanks again!

Pete

Re: Using Milonic menus with AJAX

Poster: sjm133
Dated: Saturday April 5 2008 - 17:41:02 BST

Hi,
I have downloaded the trial version and putting it through some testing. I am very interested in the ajax capabilites but I can't seem to find a good step-by-step of how to build it. I see the samples of calling a static server-side text file that contains the menu items, but to me that's not ajax. Ajax is for dynamic content. So what I am interested in doing is instead of calling the text file, as in the examples, I want to call a server-side script to build the content. The script would get data from an Oracle database. I've tried building it but all I get when I mouse over the menu link is the "...loading.." message so I'm not sure what I'm missing. Anyone done this? Any help would be great. Thanks

Re: Using Milonic menus with AJAX

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Saturday April 5 2008 - 19:50:13 BST

Hi,

You will need to contact Milonic directly on this unless someone with ajax and menu use knowledge sees the post. I just wanted you to know that you weren't being ignored. I just don't have any knowledge of ajax.

Ruth

Re: Using Milonic menus with AJAX

Poster: sjm133
Dated: Saturday April 5 2008 - 21:15:52 BST

I appreciate the response. However, I can't get support without having purchased the product. We are still evaluating right now. I thought I figured out how to make it work by using the examples and one of the websites in this thread but I could not get it to work the way I thought it would. Hopefully someone will come across this and have an answer.

Re: Using Milonic menus with AJAX

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Sunday April 6 2008 - 1:12:06 BST

I have posted a question to Milonic. You should be able to contact Milonic and ask if the menu can do what you want. Though I would bet it can. It can be set up to do so much. The ajax menu example says that the menus could be written dynamically using any server side scripting language i.e. php, asp, cf, jsp etc. So, I would think you can build the menus dynamically.

Ruth

Re: Using Milonic menus with AJAX

Poster: magicpix
Dated: Thursday June 5 2008 - 10:24:05 BST

Hi Milonic, I've just renewed my Milonic DHTML Menu professional support and upgrades license for the next year. Could someone please respond to my question posted in early March?

If this is not the appropriate forum for the question, please point me to the correct one.

Thanks.

Re: Using Milonic menus with AJAX

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Thursday June 5 2008 - 19:17:57 BST

Hi Pete,

Try using the support system for those with valid current support licenses. This is something that Milonic will have to address. There are directions for how to access this system at the link. You need to log in under the name you use when you upgrade.


http://www.milonic.com/support/

Ruth