problem with Css nested horizontal nav

[addled]

Hi there, after reading posts here for a few months, I've built the
courage to see if someone can see where I"m going wrong in the webpage
I've been working on.

In particular the horizontal nav bar accross the top of the page.
viewd here http://foundations.port5.com/currprojects/babylon.html

I am running win XP and have tested in both Avant (MSIE) and Opera
7.23
the result is a different problem in each.

Avant makes me play chasey with my drop downs, never letting me get my
mouse on to select a link

Opera opens the sub nav weird, and doesn't display the list properly
on first mouseover.

I have a feeling the problem is being caused by a combination of the
javascript positioning and maybe it's dependance on some css that I
modified in the original source code I used.

Of course, I could just not have a clue in which case feel free to set
me straight :-)

On a different note..... Im not a fan of tables, but they are needed
due to later maintenance requirements which will be out of my hands.

Okay, tell me how iit is! dont hold back on other comments if you
have them btw... I'm learning.. teach me!

Addled

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Quoth the raven named addled:

Hi there, after reading posts here for a few months, I've built the
courage
Hey, jump right in with both feet!
to see if someone can see where I"m going wrong in the
webpage I've been working on.

In particular the horizontal nav bar accross the top of the page.
viewd here http://foundations.port5.com/currprojects/babylon.html
Ok, I see a horizontal nav bar: Menu1, Menu2, etc...
I am running win XP and have tested in both Avant (MSIE) and Opera
7.23 the result is a different problem in each.
You should add one of the Gecko browsers to that list: Firefox and/or
Mozilla, which work differently than IE and O in a lot of CSS issues.
Avant makes me play chasey with my drop downs, never letting me get
my mouse on to select a link
What drop downs?
Opera opens the sub nav weird, and doesn't display the list
properly on first mouseover.
Sub nav? OH! JavaScript is required. Wait one while I go find that
option to turn it on.

Hint: the Googlebot does not know JavaScript and will not be able to
index your site. Likely 10-20% of your visitors will not have it
available.

Yeah, you are correct. In Firefox, I cannot reach any of those sub
menus. They are unmouseable.
I have a feeling the problem is being caused by a combination of
the javascript positioning and maybe it's dependance on some css
that I modified in the original source code I used.
I'm not sure either. You have three style sheets and it's hard to view
them all at once. :-(
Of course, I could just not have a clue in which case feel free to
set me straight :-)
We aim to please.
On a different note..... Im not a fan of tables, but they are
needed due to later maintenance requirements which will be out of
my hands.
Why do you say they are needed?
http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?Tableless_layouts
http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?AnySizeDesign

Look here and find a template that you like.
http://nemesis1.f2o.org/templates.php
Okay, tell me how iit is! dont hold back on other comments if you
have them btw... I'm learning.. teach me!
Well, since there isn't any content yet, all we can really bash is the
layout. <g> Kinda dull...
Addled

Heh, we have all been that from time to time.

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.

[addled]

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 03:07:37 GMT, "Beauregard T. Shagnasty"
<a.*********@ex ample.invalid> wrote:

Quoth the raven named addled:

Hi there, after reading posts here for a few months, I've built the
courage
Hey, jump right in with both feet!

Seems I have

to see if someone can see where I"m going wrong in the
webpage I've been working on.

In particular the horizontal nav bar accross the top of the page.
viewd here http://foundations.port5.com/currprojects/babylon.html
Ok, I see a horizontal nav bar: Menu1, Menu2, etc...

I am running win XP and have tested in both Avant (MSIE) and Opera
7.23 the result is a different problem in each.

You should add one of the Gecko browsers to that list: Firefox and/or
Mozilla, which work differently than IE and O in a lot of CSS issues.

Avant makes me play chasey with my drop downs, never letting me get
my mouse on to select a link

What drop downs?

Opera opens the sub nav weird, and doesn't display the list
properly on first mouseover.

Sub nav? OH! JavaScript is required. Wait one while I go find that
option to turn it on.

For this site the SubNav isn't 'essential' as secondary nav will also
be available from the Side navigation panel
Hint: the Googlebot does not know JavaScript and will not be able to
index your site. Likely 10-20% of your visitors will not have it
available.
I hear what you are saying, however the javascript function is purely
to add 'extra' functionality to Top-Level navigation.

I've coded the actual menu and associated href links using straight
html unordered lists in the page...... Will Googlebot ignore them?
Yeah, you are correct. In Firefox, I cannot reach any of those sub
menus. They are unmouseable.
When u say unmousable, do you mean you are playing chasey with them?

I have a feeling the problem is being caused by a combination of
the javascript positioning and maybe it's dependance on some css
that I modified in the original source code I used.
I'm not sure either. You have three style sheets and it's hard to view
them all at once. :-(

I thought about that on my way to work this morn. My reasoning for 3
stylesheets (logical to me at the time) :-)..... Was that each
stylesheet formats a different page section.... This is mainly for me
during design, so that I know what is doing what (supposedly) when I'm
'tweaking' .

I did think to name them according to their purpose however. The
style sheet in question is :

http://foundations.port5.com/currpro...cssmenutop.css

The other two are:

http://foundations.port5.com/currpro...babSideNav.css - Applies
formating to unordered list used in side navigation (backup secondary
nav)

http://foundations.port5.com/currpro.../babstyles.css - General
Page formatting

Of course, I could just not have a clue in which case feel free to
set me straight :-)
We aim to please.

Well if you can come back with some suggestions now that I've provided
the extra info, your aim will be on target ;-)

On a different note..... Im not a fan of tables, but they are
needed due to later maintenance requirements which will be out of
my hands.

Why do you say they are needed?
http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?Tableless_layouts
http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?AnySizeDesign

Look here and find a template that you like.
http://nemesis1.f2o.org/templates.php

Trust me I've looked... The table decision is part of the client
request.

Okay, tell me how iit is! dont hold back on other comments if you
have them btw... I'm learning.. teach me!

Well, since there isn't any content yet, all we can really bash is the
layout. <g> Kinda dull...

Addled

Heh, we have all been that from time to time.

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.

Waiting for a clue... Addled

[Brian]

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

Quoth the raven named addled:

Of course, I could just not have a clue in which case feel free to
set me straight :-)

We aim to please.

Yeah, but we shoot to kill. ;-)

--
Brian (remove "invalid" from my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

[Andrew Thompson]

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 09:21:30 -0400, Brian wrote:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

Quoth the raven named addled:

Of course, I could just not have a clue in which case feel free to
set me straight :-)

We aim to please.

Yeah, but we shoot to kill. ;-)

There is a difference?..

--
Andrew Thompson
http://www.PhySci.org/ Open-source software suite
http://www.PhySci.org/codes/ Web & IT Help
http://www.1point1C.org/ Science & Technology

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Quoth the raven named addled:

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 03:07:37 GMT, "Beauregard T. Shagnasty"
<a.*********@ex ample.invalid> wrote:

Sub nav? OH! JavaScript is required. Wait one while I go find
that option to turn it on.

For this site the SubNav isn't 'essential' as secondary nav will
also be available from the Side navigation panel

If it is not essential, remove it.

Hint: the Googlebot does not know JavaScript and will not be able
to index your site. Likely 10-20% of your visitors will not have
it available.

I hear what you are saying, however the javascript function is
purely to add 'extra' functionality to Top-Level navigation.

Are you planning to.. no, wait.. above you said it's not essential.
I'm confused as to why you even want these flashy non-working submenus?

Another point: these kinds of menus .. well, they piss me off. I've
read your current page, my mouse is somewhere to the right, I move the
mouse to the left to find another menu item, or go for my back button,
the mouse passes across window, and a half-dozen menus fire off.

Very, very distracting. Worse than blinking banner ads.
I've coded the actual menu and associated href links using straight
html unordered lists in the page...... Will Googlebot ignore them?
Gb will ignore any links presented via JavaScript. If the same links
exist within the HTML, Gb will (or should) follow them.

Yeah, you are correct. In Firefox, I cannot reach any of those
sub menus. They are unmouseable.

When u say unmousable, do you mean you are playing chasey with
them?

Unmousable means unusable. I cannot get the mouse onto the submenus.
They appear too far to the left of the "MenuX" and as I move the mouse
toward the submenu, it disappears.

I have a feeling the problem is being caused by a combination
of the javascript positioning and maybe it's dependance on some
css that I modified in the original source code I used.

I'm not sure either. You have three style sheets and it's hard to
view them all at once. :-(

I thought about that on my way to work this morn. My reasoning for
3 stylesheets (logical to me at the time) :-)..... Was that each
stylesheet formats a different page section.... This is mainly for
me during design, so that I know what is doing what (supposedly)
when I'm 'tweaking' .

One style sheet with three sections would be perfectly acceptable.

/* Top Menu */
/* Side Menu */
/* General Content */

(Take care in the placement, or order of things...)
....

We aim to please.

Well if you can come back with some suggestions now that I've
provided the extra info, your aim will be on target ;-)

We hope so...
....
Trust me I've looked... The table decision is part of the client
request.
Are you saying that the client is going to take over maintenance of
the site? Adding pages? New menu items? Changing content?

Perhaps .. if you were to train the client in structured CSS layout,
using a good template, using Included files for menu etc, so that
nothing remains on each page /but/ the content, s/he wouldn't need to
worry about tables.
Waiting for a clue... Addled

Sorry, only vowels are for sale.

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.

[addled]

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 14:45:45 GMT, "Beauregard T. Shagnasty"
<a.*********@ex ample.invalid> wrote:

Quoth the raven named addled:

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 03:07:37 GMT, "Beauregard T. Shagnasty"
<a.*********@ex ample.invalid> wrote:

Sub nav? OH! JavaScript is required. Wait one while I go find
that option to turn it on.

For this site the SubNav isn't 'essential' as secondary nav will
also be available from the Side navigation panel

If it is not essential, remove it.

When a client is paying for it...it becomes essential

Hint: the Googlebot does not know JavaScript and will not be able
to index your site. Likely 10-20% of your visitors will not have
it available.
I hear what you are saying, however the javascript function is
purely to add 'extra' functionality to Top-Level navigation.

Are you planning to.. no, wait.. above you said it's not essential.
I'm confused as to why you even want these flashy non-working submenus?

Because the 'target market' for this website demands 'added
functionality'. .. How do I know this?... Research
Another point: these kinds of menus .. well, they piss me off. I've
read your current page, my mouse is somewhere to the right, I move the
mouse to the left to find another menu item, or go for my back button,
the mouse passes across window, and a half-dozen menus fire off.
Yep, I agree... hence my request for help FINDING the BUG in my code.

I Have however, finally found a work around myself... take another
look and tell me if you have the same problem
http://foundations.port5.com/currprojects/babylon.html

Very, very distracting. Worse than blinking banner ads.

I've coded the actual menu and associated href links using straight
html unordered lists in the page...... Will Googlebot ignore them?
Gb will ignore any links presented via JavaScript. If the same links
exist within the HTML, Gb will (or should) follow them.

Have you even looked at the coding behind the page? There is NO,
repeat NO links in the javascript... I design with the intention of
finding a balance between functionality AND accessibility

Yeah, you are correct. In Firefox, I cannot reach any of those
sub menus. They are unmouseable.

I'm not sure if the linked css files will work in firefox at this
stage... If not, I've got a workaround anyhow.

When u say unmousable, do you mean you are playing chasey with
them?
Unmousable means unusable. I cannot get the mouse onto the submenus.
They appear too far to the left of the "MenuX" and as I move the mouse
toward the submenu, it disappears.

I was asking for an explanation of your statement.. I can not see the
results on your monitor, so your statement was of no help in
determining the problem... and as I said above.. fixed. One style sheet with three sections would be perfectly acceptable.

/* Top Menu */
/* Side Menu */
/* General Content */

(Take care in the placement, or order of things...)
A fair recommendation... We aim to please.
Well if you can come back with some suggestions now that I've
provided the extra info, your aim will be on target ;-)

We hope so...
...

Trust me I've looked... The table decision is part of the client
request.

Are you saying that the client is going to take over maintenance of
the site? Adding pages? New menu items? Changing content?

The client will be 'Updating Content" on a daily/weekly basis.
The client does not WANT to learn html/coding.
The Client is paying ME to design and code a website to suit their
(business) and their CLIENTS (users) needs.

If the Client decides at a later stage they want structural changes
made, then my services will be available to make any major alterations
required.
Perhaps .. if you were to train the client in structured CSS layout,
using a good template, using Included files for menu etc, so that
nothing remains on each page /but/ the content, s/he wouldn't need to
worry about tables.
This page is a test file for what will BE the TEMPLATE. This Client
has specific, requirements for being able to carry out regular updates
on the content... Requirements which need to be considered in the site
structure.

Waiting for a clue... Addled
Sorry, only vowels are for sale.

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Quoth the raven named addled:

I Have however, finally found a work around myself... take another
look and tell me if you have the same problem
http://foundations.port5.com/currprojects/babylon.html

Yes. It is now working as you intend it to work.

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.