[thelist] dhtml menus

[Peter-Paul Koch]

>ok, marketing now wants dhtml menus. i have explained to them that these 
>are *heavy.* they want them anyway.

They don't need to be heavy.

>our webmaster likes the dhtml menus from web reference, because they are 
>well-documented, widely used, and free. see
>http://www.webreference.com/dhtml/column53/LoadMe.html

I happened to study this one a few days ago. It contains far too much code, 
of course, and in addition it achieves the pseudo-mouseover effect (hovered 
link gets different colour) in Netscape 4 by constantly rewriting the 
layers. Although this is no problem when the menu is the only DHTML on the 
page, I shudder to think what might happen if you add an additional 10 
layers for your own DHTML stuff. Netscape 4 might easily crash.

>however, these require a minimum 38K download(!) just for all the scripts, 
>not to mention the in-page stuff. i have corporate clients with T1 lines, 
>but still. . .

That's the problem: far too much code. A good DHTML script doesn't need to 
be heavier than 3K. On the other hand, I think the actual data for the menu 
(the text and hrefs of the links) are included in the 38K.

>i have looked at the wonderful fireworks 4 menus, which are just(!) 24k to 
>download. however, there are several bugs. . .such as every different menu 
>must have its own 24k file. . .<sigh>

How lovely. Fireworks  = no go. I've noticed the totally ridiculous way that 
it slices up your images while there's no reason for it, combined with this 
DHTML nonsense it means to me that you shouldn't rely on Fireworks for your 
client side code.

>i have made a simple menu in DW4 that works in all browsers and is 20k, 
>just by hiding and showing <div>s. nope, must have dhtml.

Hiding and showing DIV's *is* DHTML, it's the changing of the visibility 
style declaration by means of JavaScript.

DHTML = CSS + JavaScript

Maybe you should change some little detail, say you've rewritten it so that 
it does "real" DHTML instead of just hiding layers and show it again.

>arguing them out of this won't work, and they hate flash. can anyone give 
>me the URL of a *light* dhtml menu? or am i just being a sissy? is 38k not 
>a problem, really??

I can only offer you my own try:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~ppk/js/index.html?dhtmlnavi.html

It doesn't have the pseudo-mouseover effect on links in Netscape 4, though, 
while the webreference script does.

ppk

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