Always over my head

..but how else does one learn?...

[Granny]

In other forums where I've asked for help, I've been ignored in favor of those who have more experiance; I hope that some one here takes pity on my poor old soul..

Still a newbie, I've used a script (allowable) that I found in an article that some of you may know of ('Smith Menu'). In any event, I have two small issues to resolve with it, and the author is not to be found. I believe that this menu script was originally designed for NS browsers, although it claims to be cross browser. It might even be an old srcipt..there was no date on the article.

Issue 1) I've used a table to position the menu, which is fine; IN ORDER to open the MenuItems below the menu images, I have to assign coordinates to each, which I am afraid will throw them off in different resolutions. I try to avoid this, and am looking for a better way..

Issue 2) Scrolling over the menu items highlights each item, as is typical; but the effect seems slow. I have tried to reset the showMenu time (am I saying this right?)in the source code, with no effect. It's sluggish.

OR, does anyone know of a "better" script?

[graphic_house.tripod.com...]

If anyone can have a look. The "menu.js" source is in the same directory, too. Pay no attention to the slow load, or the messy links..it's a site in the beginings, and I am focusing on this stupid menu first.

[Marcia]

Hi Granny, welcome to WmW.

I can't help with JS, I try to stay away from it since it's always given me browser problems.

Being a beginner, you'd probably be better off staying with as simple a site as possible. To be honest, since you're doing a graphics site, in your place I'd just use some navigation buttons. I have a little graphics site, just backgrounds I make for relaxation, and all it has is text navigation. If you've got the graphics and can get some traffic, people will use your site.

As a beginner it's very hard to be floundering "out there" alone on the internet with no help. You can't find better webmaster and promotion information anyplace than what you'll find here, but you'd probably enjoy being in a community with other beginners or ladies who have a lot of fun doing sites, rather than professionals whose focus is on business.

Tripod has some good features, but no help. As long as you're just starting out, I'd suggest giving iVillage.com a try, where the sites are exactly the same as Tripod, and there are a number of message boards specifically for help with the member web sites.

Sorry I can't help with your specifics; I'm a big believer in keeping things as simple as possible when starting out, just to get that first site up and running. Then enhancements can be added - it's a progressive learning process. It's a great feeling to see that first one live!

[tedster]

Hats off to you for jumping in "over your head", Granny. That's a condition I'm very familiar with...in fact, it's been my only learning method for decades.

I agree with Marcia about wrestling with that javascript code for your first site. I use javascript all the time, and I was cringing when I got a look at the length of it...I'd leave that particular script alone even now. It's just too nasty to deal with, and it carries a 1997 date. That's about 4 centuries ago, at least!

Those one-size-fits-all scripts are really tough going, especially before you can tell a user declared variable name from a method from the basic syntax. And it seems like they're bound to blow up on some combination of browser+operating system.

Elegant simplicity works wonders in all things, including javascript. In fact we have a generic javascript thread [webmasterworld.com] you may want to refer to.

And welcome!

[Granny]

Oh..I'm not a newbie at site building, exactly. I do have 4 other sites. I have used borrowed scripts before, and made them work. But I consider myself a big newbie at LEARNING javascript itself, of making changes to fit, and still in the baby stages of proper Css use.

Sigh..

I COULD use simple individual buttons, and link to a page from there, but my site is catagorized so that that won't work. I mean, in the "buttons" catagory, for example, I have static buttons, animated, round, rectangular... and I wanted the user to be able to choose from the main menu, instead of surfing two or three pages to finally get there.

1997? The script is that old, huh? I do have an alternate DHTML menu that I might use instead..but I really wanted the graphics "buttons".

Yes, the source script is LONG and difficult..all the more challenge; that's what makes it so much fun. Thanks for the help, anyhow; at least ya'll answered me. If anyone else knows of a "workable" script that I can achieve my goal with, please let me know.

[Marcia]

I'm wondering what the relative difficulty and suitability is between JS and DHTML menus. There are a lot of very nice menu choices at Dynamic Drive [dynamicdrive.com]. They're DHTML, but a lot say they're cross-browser compatible.

I use NS 4.7 with JS disabled to check sites, and Granny, it didn't display the nav on your profile page at all. I think that's supposed to be a pretty buggy version, so I stay with it. Best to check for compatibility, and just in case, have some alternate text navigation.

Read through here, there's a wealth of information and lots of creative new ideas to pick up.

[joshie76]

ISSUE 1)

Yes, a favourite of mine this one. I encountered this in my last reworking of our site (check my profile). You'll see that we use drop-down menus too - originally the site was centred in the browser window (like yours) but this conflicted with the menu layers as they have to be positioned absolutely (specify coords). As you know this means everything slips when you resize your browser window.

I see only a couple of options here...

A) Forget them and go for something else

B) Left align your site. You always know how wide your images are so you can hit your targets spot on. BEWARE... if you have text above your images then, depending on the size the font rendered in the users browser can push your menu buttons down/up so your layers appear too high/low.

C) :0 This is the evil one. There is a way to centre absolutely positioned layers but it involves a bit of maths and some advanced JavaScripting. Because the JS is advanced it's only gonna work in IE4+ and NN6 but I thought I'd tell you about it anyway. To cut it short (I'll let you work most of it out for yourself) - You can 'read' the width (in pixels) of the window and using this figure you can find the horizontal centre and move your menu layers appropriately. The menu layers would need to be moved onLoad and onResize.

To get the window width & height for IE:
document.body.clientWidth
document.body.clientHeight

For NN6
document.body.innerWidth
document.body.innerHeight

to move a layer you write to the style properties using:

document.getElementById('layername').style.left = x;
document.getElementById('layername').style.top = y;

I [big]STRONGLY[/big] recommend you go for options A or B!

ISSUE 2
This is almost entirely client dependant. Some visitors have bigger/better computers and some browsers have faster run-time engines for JS. Your menu's are silky smooth on my cray-3;). Obviously you can tweak JS to run faster but this is even more advanced stuff - particularly for a big piece of code.

Best of luck and if you need any help or clarification on what I've said don't hesitate to ask:)

<aside>Marcia - aren't JS menus and DHTML menus exactly the same thing?</aside>

<added>Completely forgot - welcome to the board</aside>

[Granny]

Thanks Joshie, and I believe that I've already decided to go with a simple menubar..at least until I find something better that I can work with. (In the meantime though, I am going to work the one which we've discussed..and try some of your suggestions).

I appreciate everyone's help; like I said before, other forums that I requested help from have ignored me. I like it here so much, that I'll be back from time to time!