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Feature Suggestion: Drop down Menu

 
 


mackeymedia
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Nov 11, 2006, 9:36 PM

Post #1 of 16 (2711 views)
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Feature Suggestion: Drop down Menu Can't Post
Are there any plans on implementing drop down menus as a standard feature in future versions of AM?

edit by dave: detached thread and changed title.


(This post was edited by Dave on Nov 13, 2006, 9:54 AM)


ross
Staff / Moderator


Nov 12, 2006, 4:43 PM

Post #2 of 16 (2688 views)
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Re: [mackeymedia] Drop down Menu [In reply to] Can't Post
Hi there.

I don't think that’s on the current feature request list yet, but I'll make sure it gets added for you Smile.

Just out of curiosity though, how were you envisioning this to be setup in Article Manager? Or, more specifically, how would you like this to be implemented in Article Manager?

I look forward to hearing from you Smile.
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(This post was edited by ross on Nov 12, 2006, 6:05 PM)


mackeymedia
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Nov 12, 2006, 5:39 PM

Post #3 of 16 (2685 views)
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Re: [ross] Drop down Menu [In reply to] Can't Post
Ross, thanks for the heads up! horizontal landscape is at a premium on my alot of my web site designs. My sites generally utilize lots of images, so I'd love to have the option to to use a smaller horizontal area for more efficient use of space to show images. The present domain that I am working on moving to AM2 is http://www.gbweekly.com I'd appreciate it if you have the time to view it and could suggest how I would also be able to work with the advertising content in AM2, as I have no shortage of advertisers supporting this domain. I plan to move gbweekly to http://www.thebahamasweekly.com (now being prepped for gbweekly.com).


void
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Nov 13, 2006, 2:55 AM

Post #4 of 16 (2674 views)
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Re: [mackeymedia] Drop down Menu [In reply to] Can't Post
I would also REALLY like a drop down menu feature. Ya' know .. some control that could be inserted into the templates where one would like the menu to be located. Its one of articlelive best features, btw.

And if interactive tools were to include the ability to make static pages (like a built-in version of Page Publisher) where pages could be placed into a menu hierarchy, it could serve as a full CMS. Oh well, it'll probably never happen.


(This post was edited by void on Nov 13, 2006, 2:57 AM)


mackeymedia
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Nov 13, 2006, 7:43 AM

Post #5 of 16 (2653 views)
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Re: [void] Drop down Menu [In reply to] Can't Post
Void, you've explained it better than I and have added the static page option which is awesome! Article Live was an excellent example of how I would need the dropdowns implemented, although I do prefer AM. Ross in an earlier response assured that dropdowns will be added to the AM wish list, hopefully static pages will be also. My short time on this forum has shown me that the Interactivetools team are quite receptive to enhancement suggestions to take AM to the next level.


Dave
Staff / Moderator


Nov 13, 2006, 9:53 AM

Post #6 of 16 (2644 views)
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Re: [mackeymedia] Drop down Menu [In reply to] Can't Post
So, just so I'm clear, the requested feature you'd guys like to see is drop down menus as a "menu format" that can be selected for the published site (not for the admin backend).

So, for example, it would show the top level categories and then let people "drill down" by clicking or hovering over the menu names?

This could certainly be done, even without any modifications to Article Manager. There's a lot of different styles of drop down menus though. So I'm not sure how we'd do it in a way that made everybody happy. Maybe we could write up some tutorials on how to integrate some free drop down systems.

Dave Edis - Senior Developer
interactivetools.com
 


mackeymedia
User

Nov 13, 2006, 12:48 PM

Post #7 of 16 (2627 views)
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Re: [Dave] Drop down Menu [In reply to] Can't Post
Dave, what I'd love is an option that allows the main categories page to reside on a thin horizontal strip underneath the main heading with a dropdown option to use (as needed) to take the surfer to the sub categories. Thereby freeing up all the space that the categories list presently occupy on the left side of the page.

Dave, as you said: "So, for example, it would show the top level categories and then let people "drill down" by clicking or hovering over the menu names?" This is it!



(This post was edited by mackeymedia on Nov 13, 2006, 7:51 PM)


void
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Nov 14, 2006, 6:20 AM

Post #8 of 16 (2608 views)
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Re: [Dave] Drop down Menu [In reply to] Can't Post
Yes, we are talking about the published site.

What I would really like, is to have the category hierarchy presented in a drop down menu thingy - supplied by Interactive Tools. All those categories without parent category are top level and shown vertically, etc. Just like you would expect.

In addition to this, imagine that a category could be marked as "static" and you could use the built-in editor to maintain the its (for example "About Us") content. Perhaps this could be done introducing a new category static check box, a new static template option, and content replacement variable.

This way, we could use the AM interface to maintain the static parts of our site without to much fuzz and even have it show up in the before mentioned dynamic menu control.

Can you see where I'm going? Beside from making me very happy, and my webmaster tasks easier, it would also open AM up to a new segment of customers.


(This post was edited by void on Nov 14, 2006, 6:22 AM)


Dave
Staff / Moderator


Nov 14, 2006, 10:41 AM

Post #9 of 16 (2598 views)
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Re: [void] Drop down Menu [In reply to] Can't Post
With Article Manager 2, we have a rock solid foundation to build on, so you're going to see a lot more updates and features. A lot of things we wanted to do just were not possible with version 1 because the foundation didn't support it.

Adding more general CMS features and the ability to enter and publish content for different site sections besides just articles is something we have planned. I'm not going to go into much more detail than that but we have the foundation now that supports adding these features so there's lots more to come.

Regarding the drop down menu. There's lots of free ones out there. Could you just pick one of those and have the category list published in whatever data format it required? We don't really want to box people into one format. That's why we created an open ended publishing system.

We could certainly help you figure out how to publish in whatever format was required.

Dave Edis - Senior Developer
interactivetools.com
 


void
User

Nov 14, 2006, 10:49 AM

Post #10 of 16 (2596 views)
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Re: [Dave] Drop down Menu [In reply to] Can't Post
Sounds great :)

I would like to see an example dynamic menu and its counterpart AM2 feed as an example somewhere. I think that would help those of us with this requirement.



Thanks
Tim


mackeymedia
User

Nov 15, 2006, 10:56 AM

Post #11 of 16 (2571 views)
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Re: [void] Drop down Menu [In reply to] Can't Post
I'd love to see an example of how to do this (drop downs). Sorry to hear that AM will not offer this as an option though, it would've been nice to have a choice right in AM rather than having to seek a generic script from a 3rd party.


void
User

Nov 15, 2006, 11:08 AM

Post #12 of 16 (2570 views)
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Re: [mackeymedia] Drop down Menu [In reply to] Can't Post
Me too. A published AM2 site would benefit from an alternative menu principle. Like this one. It makes it easier for end-users and would be customers to visualize other kind of sites that can be modelled with AM2. But I'll settle for a good tutorial based on a free (or commercial!) menu component. It just think Interactive is missing out.


Dave
Staff / Moderator


Nov 16, 2006, 8:54 AM

Post #13 of 16 (2542 views)
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Re: [mackeymedia] Drop down Menu [In reply to] Can't Post
We've been looking at a few different options for this and what we're going to do is add some features to the next version to make it easier to publish the menus as unordered lists, eg:

Code
<ul> 
 <li>Category 1</li> 
  <ul> 
   <li>Subcategory a</li> 
   <li>Subcategory b</li> 
  </ul> 
 <li>Category 2</li> 
</ul>

We've seen some nice free drop down menus that use this format to store the menu hierarchy and it should make it pretty easy to create down downs. Note they don't actually display like that, they just use that format to build the menu. Stay tuned.

Dave Edis - Senior Developer
interactivetools.com
 


alyates
User

Nov 16, 2006, 10:36 AM

Post #14 of 16 (2539 views)
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Re: [Dave] Drop down Menu [In reply to] Can't Post
I haven't yet tried to replicate this using AM2 but on a site I'm developing in AM1 I have created an automated horizontal menu system using this DHTML menu script: http://www.twinhelix.com/dhtml/fsmenu/

You can see it in action here: http://www.barkeepersfriend.com/staging/bkf/products/bkf.htm

I'm using the categories for each of the main items and then a list of article headlines for each of the subitems. This is nice because if the end-user changes a category name or adds or removes an article it is all automated. The left navigation in each section is also called the same way.

Just thought I'd pass this along.


void
User

Nov 17, 2006, 3:10 AM

Post #15 of 16 (2523 views)
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Re: [Dave] Drop down Menu [In reply to] Can't Post
Quote
Stay tuned.
Will do!


void
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Nov 17, 2006, 3:27 AM

Post #16 of 16 (2518 views)
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Re: [alyates] Drop down Menu [In reply to] Can't Post
Quote
Looks like a nice script, and I like the way you've integrated it. Thanks for the example. It is something along these lines I'm looking for. Especially when coupled with static pages.


(This post was edited by void on Nov 17, 2006, 3:28 AM)