Creating new themes

I created a new theme for a vertical glow menu. The graphics should be completely compatible with a horizontal menu.

When I try to use a horizontal menu with this theme, the WA preview is vertical, the DW preview looks right, and the page has a vertical menu.

I looked at the source files in the config shared folder, and I cannot figure out how the different views are generated for the existing themes which all default to horizontal. I am afraid of overwriting my vertical theme.

How do I generate ONE theme that can be displayed vertically or horizontally like the included themes?

Also, I would like to include a feature request. I think there should be an option for adding an icon, like an arrow, WHEN there is a sub-menu and a different icon (or no icon) when there is no submenu.

Are you changing the orientation in the design tab for the menu? If not you should edit the current design that you have and in the design tab change it to be a horizontal orientation.

Check the preview to ensure that it looks correct, then save this theme as a new horizontal theme for the menu.

I tried this out starting with a vertical glow style menu and it worked for me.

No change. It says horizontal in every dialogue, but the menu is vertical.

What I di was

1. take a vertical glow;
   
2. Create and change in the design interface new images for left right and middle;
   
3. change some padding and made the items 130px wide.
   
4. Saved the preset.
   
5. On a new page in the site, I inserted a menu and selected glow and my preset as horizontal. It says horizontal in every interface, but it comes out as a vertical menu.

It looks to me like when I created a new vertical theme, I got a vertical and a horizontal. At least my preset theme is available in both vertical and horizontal, but the horizontal is not vertical.

I can try taking the glow/default in horizontal and changing the images and item width, etc and save it as the same preset I made for vertical and see if I lose my vertical menu, but the menu should have been fine either way I think.

It may have to do with how you are editing the menu as I'm not able to get this result with a similar set of steps. I would suggest that you create a new menu and specify it to be a horizontal menu all along the way and when you save the preset include Horizontal in the title so you know to use that one for the horizontal applications.

Originally Said By: Eric Mittman

  It may have to do with how you are editing the menu as I'm not able to get this result with a similar set of steps. I would suggest that you create a new menu and specify it to be a horizontal menu all along the way and when you save the preset include Horizontal in the title so you know to use that one for the horizontal applications.  

That appears to be it. I made a new menu and started horizontal. Then I could change it to vertical without a problem. It still seems to be a glitch. I should be able to create a menu with a separate default vertical and horizontal profiles. If I want to make a menu with some space between the menu and the fly-out menu, those settings have to be different between vertical and horizontal, but it does not appear to do that (or gives me no confidence that it is doing that). I should be able to pick a theme and switch between vertical and horizontal menus that both match the theme look and feel without adjustment.

Right now I made a vertical and horizontal version. I have not made many yet, so I might be missing something.

I have logged this for CSS Menu Writer and made reference to this thread so that it can be reviewed.

I came across a couple of other things you might want to add.

When I tried to put an image below the menu in the 3-col fixed layout, the image showed at the top of the column overlapped by the menu. I had to add this:

<div><?php require_once("../CSSMenuWriter/cssmw/menu.php"); ?><div class="clearFloat"></div></div>

To get the image to appear below the menu. The menu extension, I think, should produce a block level element that I can shoose to float or not float. I take it the extension produces a floating menu.

Also, I started with the category of Glow. I noticed that this category has a background image behind the menu (bg.png), but the GUI does not, as far as I could tell, allow me control of the container the menu resides in. That would make it easier to create and control themes.