Presales Questions

Hi
Firstly, much kudos to WebAssist for the new site design and the improved Forum layout.

I have created my own CMS based on what is now Adobe's ADDT. It allows me to create dynamic site navigation menus. I can elect to use either dynamic Spry based menus if the design will work with text based links. If the design requires images for the top level then I have to fall back on the old Interakt CSS Menus which supports selection of either text or images for the top level. I can also control the offsets for the second level menus easily in the wizard or adjust manually in the on-page code.

Q1 then is: Can CSS Menu Writer 2 support the inclusion of images at the top level and control offsets for the second level ?

Next, I had a look at the CSS Menu Writer 2 Feature Tour and it was not clear to me how second level navigation is defined. In my recordset I use a self-foreign key for the second level.

Q2: Can this approach be employed with CSS Menu Writer 2 ?

Thanks.

Yes I believe this is all possible with version 2 assuming I understand you correct... I had to make a few assumptions to answer with a yes.

I'm assuming by control offsets you mean margins and padding... and by inclusion of images you mean background images and encapsilating images for effects like rounded corners... and I'm assuming your self referencing table is still limited to a certain number of levels and you don't need varialble levels of recursive parent-child relationships.

Hi Ray
Many thanks for your reply. I should have been a bit more clear on my questions. My apologies. So, to clarify:

1. I would like to have the ability to use images for the nav at the top level so that the design is cast in concrete. Not just backgrounds which I can use for effects. The benefit this has is when a user changes their text size setting in their browser, it does not impact on the nav menu and potentially break the design layout. This is usually critical with horizontal menus that extend the full width of the page. This I cant do with background images - unless there is some way that I have not yet discovered.

2. I typically use a single table for page data which would look something like this:
id_pag - Primary key
idpag_pag - Self foreign key to PK. Only supports 2 levels so far.
menulabel_pag - the label for the menu item. The Interakt CSS Menus extn uses this for the actual link text in the case of text links for the nav and in the case where images are used at the top level, it grabs the image and displays it.
urlparam_pag - the URL parameter for the page
file_pag - the file used by the page.
......
......
active_pag - a Y/N toggle
order_pag - to control the order of presentation.

I did not see how the sub navs are setup in the Feature Tour - hence my original question.

3. By offset I am referring to the amount of offset for the second level nav list. For example, I recently had a case where I needed to position the sub menu 6px below the top level. Often, I need to tweak a little here or there in the relationship between the top level and second level. If I recall correctly, Spry menus have a similar capability. Is this capability supported in CSS Menu Writer 2 ?

My stuff was developed around what is now ADDT which I have been using long before I discovered Webassist. Sorry.

BTW: I subscribe to threads using the Instant email notification option but never get an email advising of a new post. Have I missed something ?

Regards,

These are not included features and would require hand edits to get working. I would be interested in researching this requirement more with you if you have the time.

Do you have a sample of what the resulting menu might look like with a url so I can see. If not maybe you could send me an email directly and we could set up a phone conversation. I'd like to research whether we might want to consider tackling these scenarios in a future version if they are hard to add now. Really I'm not sure that I fully understand, so I'd appreciate if we could go through some examples to demonstrate what it is you need.

Originally Said By: Ray Borduin

  These are not included features and would require hand edits to get working. I would be interested in researching this requirement more with you if you have the time.

Do you have a sample of what the resulting menu might look like with a url so I can see. If not maybe you could send me an email directly and we could set up a phone conversation. I'd like to research whether we might want to consider tackling these scenarios in a future version if they are hard to add now. Really I'm not sure that I fully understand, so I'd appreciate if we could go through some examples to demonstrate what it is you need.  

Hi Ray
Many thanks for your reply to my post - AND ! I received an email of the new post to the thread ! Bonus ! Unfortunately I am not sure how to locate your email address so I will give you some examples here. If you would like to follow up I trust you can obtain my email address from my forum display name. I certainly have the time to give to you and can walk you thru the process via Adobe ConnetNow if that helps.

This first example uses images at the top level: www.outsourceplanning.com.au.
As does this example at www.lovedalehuntervalley.com.au - Note that on both of these examples an offset is used to position the sub-menus as required.
Whilst www.kv.com.au uses text links instead with a background image for the top level.
This one is a work in progress but instead of using CSS Menus from Interakt uses dynamic spry menus: schoolhill.intellinet.com.au - It uses the same MySQL table structure for the nav and page data as the above examples with an intermediate XML data source. With the recent advent of a streamlined SpryData.js file from the guys at Spry, this is a good alternative for me when text only links are required.

It is worth noting that many people, like me who are not PHP developers, were left out in the cold when Adobe decided not to continue development of the Interakt CSS Menus 2 product. Whilst an otherwise excellent product, it does have its problems. These problems are the reason I turned to exploring the Spry alternative some time ago, but rejected until the new SpryData.js file became available.

Thanks again Ray. Email me if you would like to pursue this further.

Just to let you know, John, Ray's on vacation this week. Feel free to post again and I or another of the WebAssist team will be happy to help you if we can.

Best - Joe

Thanks Joe. I will re-post again next week when Ray returns from Vacation.
Best regards.

Hi Ray
Just wondering if you are still interested in exploring futher the above.
Cheers

Yes, I am. Please contact me directly. Just dial the main webassist number and use the dial by name directory.