New site navigation [Archive]

athos

2nd April 2002, 22:01

Doom9: I really like the idea of explorer-like menues, and have created two dhtml pages for this:
* http://athos.n3.net/explorer - this one is created dynamically (through js) using a javascript file (items.js).
* http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/xntrik.html - this one is "static" in that it is not built on the fly. this example is a really big file because it is the index of an ftp, but when there are less items it is a lot faster than the previous one.

I just tested these two again, its been some time since i wrote them, and it seems that the first one only works in IE, and the other one does work in both IE and NS6.2. It would be easy to modify the first one to work in NS too, because they are both supposed to be W3C CSS compliant.

Please let me know if you would be interested in using any of these approaches, I'd be happy to modify them, or assist you in modifying them.

primitive

2nd April 2002, 22:39

Originally posted by Doom9
@primitive: if you had read the whole thread you'd see that we're aware of the problem and already working on a solution. And since you're part of that less than 3% minority you should be just a little grateful for it because it's an awful lot of work for very little gain ;)

Hah.

The thought process for posting on a discussion board is read --> comprehend --> post; I posted before I both read and comprehended >.<

Something to think about for the "Why should doom9 support Mozilla browsers?" crowd: AOL's latest beta of their connectivity software is using the Mozilla core for its rendering engine instead of the Internet Explorer core. Having your page render incorrectly for these browsers could make your site inoperable for significant numbers of people.

cofferscuffs

2nd April 2002, 22:46

my 2$ (and im open to flames on this one!!):

AOL = Arseholes OnLine

Doom9

3rd April 2002, 00:20

well... it remains to be see if the release version will indeed not contain IE. At this point that is pure speculation as they're merely testing. Mozilla has yet a lot to show until AOL will make any commitment.

Refthoom

3rd April 2002, 00:21

Wow. A lot of good stuff raised here.

I made the menu for doom9. I focussed mostly on something that doom9 could administrate himself easily because he doesn't master javascript or DHTML. This would explain why it's probably not the best script around. However, I _did_ test it with IE 5.5 and NS 4.7

@athos & in general: The menu is in a frame and you can't go over the 'edge' with DHTML or scripts. That's why the menu is rather 'compact'.

@doom9: You should've started this thread earlier ;-) BTW, you quit your email-address at ifrance where I sent you the latest. Did you get it?

primitive

3rd April 2002, 00:49

Originally posted by cofferscuffs
my 2$ (and im open to flames on this one!!):

AOL = Arseholes OnLine

I do in fact agree with you. (NOT AOL)

However, the browser stats stated previously aren't fine-grained enough to be able to tell how many visitors were using AOL and how many weren't. Therefore, no one's really sure at this point how much difference a core switch would make in the hit data.

Doom9

3rd April 2002, 01:00

@ref: yup.. I got it

@primitive.. well.. I have isp stats, too ;) but aol doesn't stand a chance against t-online.. they rule the stats with almost 20%..

Stebet

3rd April 2002, 05:24

Just wanted to plug a friend of mine since you're looking for a good site navigation. He has actually made a pretty cool semi-cross-browser navigation tree, which has become quite popular since it's completely free.

check it out at www.destroydrop.com

b.t.w, thanks for a wonderful site there Doom9.
Keep up the good work!

fisix

3rd April 2002, 06:06

the new look is reasonable, especially if it ends up using less bandwidth to find the specific guide someone might want. i can never decide if i want the forum to show up inside the homepage frame, or if i like the automatic new window. i think i like the frame option, even though i feel a little claustrophobic.

always, go for the lower bandwidth option

-fisix

fisix

3rd April 2002, 06:13

also, i would prefer that you do not have open branches close when a new branch is opened in the menu. i typically want to view links in multiple branches at the same time. the auto close thing has always aggravated me.

-fisix

avih

3rd April 2002, 08:23

Originally posted by athos
...* http://athos.n3.net/explorer - this one is created dynamically (through js) using a javascript file (items.js).
* http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/xntrik.html - this one is "static" in that it is not built on the fly. this example is a really big file because it is the index of an ftp, but when there are less items it is a lot faster than the previous one.
..

confirmed, both work on mozilla 0.99

Faro

3rd April 2002, 11:56

Well both menus are quite heavy (see the code - doom wants to reduce bandwidth and not waste it.

let's see - i'll post my results this evening

athos

3rd April 2002, 12:15

I think my two examples are not that bandwidth demanding.

The first one has the drawback of creating the items on the fly with javascript, which can be cpu intesive if there are a lot of items, but it is easier to configure because all items are just entered into a javascript array.

The second example is a very large file, thus bandwidth demanding, but this is because there are a huge amount of items in my example. Doom9's menu would never grow this big i think. It should be less cpu demaning though, given a reasonable amount of items. Though it is harder to configure.

I think it might be better for Refthoom to just modify his menues to work with all the browsers, because i understand they should be easier for Doom9 to configure. A good idead (in theory) is to start with the W3C DOM and CSS and then try to make as small modifications for each browser as possible. However, after having done my share of DHTML development i must say that it is not this easy in practise. When you think you've got everything right, try it on MAC in IE..

Faro

3rd April 2002, 13:51

the second one is, because it loads the entire menu, although it might not be used by the user (;)).
So what i'm developing is a menu build on demand (or on the fly as you said).

I think it it would be difficult to modify the dhtml to fit the wc3 rules, ns4 is simply unable to interpretate the complete html 4.01 and css.2 tags/definitions.

Faro

athos

3rd April 2002, 15:55

well building the menu on demand is interesting, but im not sure it is necessary since these menues will never have too manu items (like >100). my first example is "on-the-fly" because it creates the dhtml elements at runtime using the data in the array, while the second example has all elements hardcoded. So both really "load" the menu at render time. well, i still think you have an interesting idea, and it is worth a shot.

In my opinion, we should ditch support for NS4. The browser is very old and i would say obsolete. when it comes to dhtml support it is inferior. Simply puy: Netscape below 6 does not support dhtml. it supports some fractions of dhtml, and it is possible using various ways around to make some things work, but the code will be very ugly and errorprone, and imho its not worth it because very few users still use ns4, there are several alternatives (all free of charge). If NS4 and IE<4 (maybe <5) is not considered, it should be possible to write w3c compliant code with only slight modifications (for example i dont think IE supports the standard event handling as ns6 does).

Doom9

3rd April 2002, 16:56

faro: checked your menu.. looks nice.. though we have to cut down the description length to make the left frame shorter (I never uploaded the new version that I shortened down).

How is it realized? I had the feeling it took a bit when I clicked on a plus sign.

Faro

3rd April 2002, 17:12

Originally posted by Doom9
How is it realized? I had the feeling it took a bit when I clicked on a plus sign. It loads the submenus on demand - so on the fly when click on'em. This will reduce bandwidth.

The small delay comes from your internet connection. Whith (T)DSL it shouldn't be noticeable (i think so).
And fortunenatly after you clicked on it a first time, the delay will not repeat after clicking a second time.

The code is smaller than your first try published in the news section. And of course - cross browser compatible (only a javascript enabled browser is required - if you like i could add a non javascript part - so these people can view the menu, too - but i will not suggest it!)

the menu is easy to administrate (in my eyes *g*)

I'll work on the code later.

Oh - and would be nice to hold back other people from making new menus ;-) - this was quite a bit of hard work (had to look up the whole script reference *g*)

Faro

Doom9

3rd April 2002, 17:24

hmm.. I guess if you put the script in an external file I could add it to the ref check.. and since there's no download link that would effectively stop people from getting it.

Faro

3rd April 2002, 17:26

Athos: There are definitly more people using NS4 than NS6 - so I think it would be unfair to give them a blank page instead of a working menu. They still seem to have reasons for using ns4 (though i cannot understand them *g*). So why don't make it possible to build this kind of menu.

It *is* possible - doom9 could acknowledge

Faro

P.S.: i post the URL later, it's not that perfect at the moment - but will be - hopefully.

Faro

3rd April 2002, 17:29

Doom9: What do you mean? Main parts of the script *are* in an external file.
But this will btw. not help to stop people see the code (-> they can look the location up in the source).

perhaps i got something wrong with your post...

Faro

Doom9

3rd April 2002, 18:15

say your script is called menu.js and is in the root of my site

if I put *.js in the ref check.. menu.js can only be loaded via a http get that originates from one of my servers... so putting a http://www.doom9.org/menu.js in your browser to download it will not work (you'll get an unauthorized download message).. the only problem with that could be that if the browser gets the javascripts and stores it in the cache.. there's no stopping the browser cache.

about NS4... right now they're not supported either.. the counter javascript stops the left frame (it shows up until the counter has loaded.. then all you get is an error message)... you can get around that disabling javascript but that will also disable the quick links and the upcoming menu. Officially my site only supports IE5+, NS6, Opera6 and Mozilla (always the latest ;) Some people have to be forced to upgrade, it's in their own best interest even if they may not see it.

athos

3rd April 2002, 18:38

Faro> Having to reload the menu for every click in it will definately be slow. Take a look at this for example (in swedish, but just look at the tree menu): http://www1.skribofont.se/prislistan/
It makes no sense with files as small as this (couple of kbs), it will make navigating the menu slow for the users, and it will send a lot of extra http requests to the webserver.

Faro

3rd April 2002, 19:10

Ok, i see, Doom

So how do we go on now?
Be compatible or be mighty? ;-)

So with stylesheets my Menu needs 7kb - the original one needs 13kb - and is not compatible to some browsers.

Update: now the left frame including the code for the menu is 6.08 kb - what about this one? ;-)

Choice is to make...

to athos: it looks like this menu working serverside (with asp - urks) there you see a reload on every click (also to close the menu).

My menu just loads on *one* click. The click the user needs. It is, if you summarize as fast as downloading the whole menu onLoad of the site.

Faro

athos

3rd April 2002, 19:26

faro> ok i thought you meant like the site i pointed to.

i implemented doom9's new menu into my javascript here: http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/doom9/

the entire menu is 22kb, whereof the images are 10kb. i changed the script slightly so it now works in NS6.2. As you can see, all configuration is done in items.js (http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/doom9/items.js) and its pretty easy, however you have to keep track of id numbers so the "parents" (folders) gets the right "children".

Faro

3rd April 2002, 19:42

well looks like the windows explorer (is there any need of rebuild this ugly thing on the web? ;-) ).

so still my menu is smaller in filesize and the administration is as "easy" as in your one. So why not use my menu - or better combine the features in a new one -
Maybe we build a new one together...?

Then doom9 didn't have to do the work...

just send us your layout (the structure of the menu).

comments on that?

Faro

athos

3rd April 2002, 22:28

Sure, i'd like to help anyway i can. i do not necessarily have see doom9 use my menu, i just wanted to show it since i had allready made it.
The files used are:
index.html (http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/doom9/index.html) very simple, just loads the other files
explorer.css (http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/doom9/explorer.css) the stylesheet, including hidden and displayed items
explorer.js (http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/doom9/explorer.js) the program; preloading images, sorting items (disabled here) building the menu (creating dhtml elements and structure), opening and closing folders.
items.js (http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/doom9/items.js) the data file, items have the form [ID, PARENT, NAME, LINK (if not folder)].

I think it should be pretty easy to have a different look by just adjusting the stylesheet, and maybe the images. Of course it would not be hard to remove the connectors and lines, but this would require some changes in the code.

Maybe this menu is not the way to go for this site, but perhaps there are parts or ideas that could be used? If someone else wants to use this code for their sites, they are free to do so ;)

Doom9

4th April 2002, 00:18

hmm.. one one hand I really like athos' menu.. people are used to explorer and know how to navigate.. on the other hand I wonder if the images are really necesary.. how about we try it just with the pluses and minuses? it would take up less space so I wouldn't have to enlarge the left frame or make it scroll horizontally.

athos

4th April 2002, 00:25

Maybe if i remove the icons, and just keep the plus/minus and connectors/lines. I kind of like the lines, what do you think? I will try this tomorrow, too late now (1:25 am)

Doom9

4th April 2002, 00:58

yeah.. worth a try.

godnatt

Faro

4th April 2002, 09:25

I think the connectors are redundant.
People will recognize the structure of the menu even without these lines.

Still where do you think my menu has disadvantages?
The small delay is really unnoticeable! But the code easer and much more compact.

Faro

athos

4th April 2002, 12:17

OK, i have now removed the folder etc icons, changed colors to match this site, including changing the color of the plus/minus/connectors. i do not agree that the connectors are redundant, also they take very little space (in bytes) and also little space on screen because if we remove them there should probably be white space there to indent the submenues. i think the connectors make the navigation clearer.

http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/doom9/

i also removed the images that are not used, total size is now 12kb.
so what do you think? i looked at the source for the current menu (of the new design) and too me mine seems even easier to configure (but i guess im biased =)

Faro> would it be possible for me to see your approach? send me a pm if you dont want to post it in public.

thought: i find myself sort of trying to compete here, and i dont think this is right. i think we should collaborate to get the best results. we should try to get the best ideas from everyone, thats why i would like to take a look at faro's work.

another note: ot would be very easy (one line, allready implemented but commented out currently) to make the entire menu alfabetized. good/bad?

Doom9

4th April 2002, 12:27

how about we let the readers decide? present them the 3 options we have now... faro's menu, athos' new menu and the old explorer-like one. I'd also like if you could present the updating process to me so I can decide for myself what I like better.. and of course in order to show it to the public I'd have to reconfigure the menus somewhat so they all show the same..

would be great if you guys could put a working page together so that people also can see how large the navi frame has to be..

tommysch

4th April 2002, 13:09

New menue design works (!) and looks good in NS 4.6. But probably only until you put the counter in, right ? ;-)

@Doom9: You do read c't ? Are you german or is there an english version ?

tommysch

Faro

4th April 2002, 13:34

Hi again,

athos: http://www.e96.de/doom

Your current menu does not work with ie6, mozilla 0.9.8 and not with NS4.7. I can see it but it does not collaps or expand.

thought: i find myself sort of trying to compete here, and i dont think this is right. i think we should collaborate to get the best results. we should try to get the best ideas from everyone, thats why i would like to take a look at faro's work.

sure - thats what i think, too.

Sort the Menu entries by name order is a good idea, but could also be done manually i think - don't waste a line of code *g*.
But sorting the entire menu alphabetized is against the idea of a tree menu. The user should decide which section he wants to open and then go deeper by the topic not by the charackter.

To the connectors - maybe we could get away from these windows explorer like dotted lines.

I'll work on the menu tomorrow evenening - hope you don't have new ideas till then ;-)

Doom9: can you send us your excel sheet, so we both have the site structure?

tommysch: c't and the heise Verlag are publishing many (the big ones) articles in english language - read them at http://heise.de/ct/english/
also the great newsticker is available in english:
http://heise.de/english/

but i guess doom9 is just translating the paper magazine ;-)

Faro

Doom9

4th April 2002, 13:50

here's the latest xls.. I'm not a 100% on the structure yet.. maybe there's too many options.. maybe something has to be re-ordered.. but I kinda need to see it in a menu to make the final decision.. my main concern is not having too many options but still covering all important areas.. and of course I can create new overview pages and dump old ones.

one point to consider.. how about if you click on a category it not only opens the category but also shows a category overview page in the right frame (a la winxp explorer)?

and I read the german paper version of ct (and the german newsticker). I've studied german since first grade ;)

rui

4th April 2002, 14:08

o.k, i have IE6 in the comp i am right now.
I tested both the Faro site and athos site.
Before i started, i cleanned all internet temp files, so each one would have a fresh start when loading the pages. I must say that athos one is a little faster when opening the left menus. Just my 2 euro cents. :)

athos

4th April 2002, 14:28

ok i had a look at faros menu (also talked some on icq). i like that other menues close as you open a menu.

I have put my menu in the doom9 frameset here: http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/doom9/index.html
(menu html is now in http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/doom9/left.html)

the updating process:
you edit items.js (http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/doom9/items.js). the format of an item is [ID, PARENT, NAME, LINK (if not folder)], for example
items[items.length] = new Item(1, 1, "Old News");
ID is 1 (just increment), PARENT is 1 (self, so it is a root item), name is "Old News". The reason you have to keep track of id's yourself is so that you can connect the right children to the right parent. It has no LINK so it is a folder.
items[items.length] = new Item(2, 1, "2002","http://www.doom9.org//Old_news/march02.htm");
ID is 2 (incremented from 1), PARENT is 1 ("Old News"-folder), NAME is "2002" and LINK (so it is not a folder) is "http://www.doom9.org//Old_news/march02.htm" (this will open in the right frame by default).

by sorting the menu alphabetically i do not mean change the structure, there would be the same menues and submenues, but they would be listed in another order.

Update: Changed so submenues are only rendered when necessary, so the initial loading of the menues is a lot faster now. when you click a submenue for the first time, its visible content are rendered and then cached so it wont have to be rendered again.

Faro

4th April 2002, 16:41

We are now developing the menu together, so wait until we present a working menu.

Doom9: "how about if you click on a category it not only opens the category but also shows a category overview page in the right frame (a la winxp explorer)?"

Thats possible but would be definitly a waste of bandwidth. On the other hand then the user can see a detailed overview of the short points in the menu.

but lets do these things later.

It looks like we'll take athos menu because of the faster usage and administration.

But there are still a few things to do which my menu could provide and athos not (atm).

To answer like the Duke Nuke Forever Developers - Coming "When it's done"

Faro

athos

4th April 2002, 17:43

I have tried to optimize the page further, so that as much as possible of code execution is executed "just-in-time" namely finding the "children" of a folder and creating the dhtml elements. it should now load even faster (or rather downloading is about the same, but the actual rendering in the browser is faster).

i have also prepared for overview html so that clicking on a folder, in addition to opening the folder in the menu, could open an overview page in right frame.

items can now be
Item(ID, PARENT, NAME, URL)
or
Folder(ID, PARENT, NAME, [URL])
where URL is optional for Folder. Only Folders can have children (obviously). If an url is specified for a Folder, this will open in the right fram when the name is clicked, and the folder will open. The plus/minus will always open/close the folder without opening a page to the right. If no url is specified, this is the same behavior for the name.

Doom9

4th April 2002, 21:45

@athos: looks nice but we may have to increase the font size.. it's a bit tiny.

how about cross-browser compatibility? Sitemeter doesn't work with NS4 anyways.. but NS6, Opera and Mozilla should be supported

Faro

4th April 2002, 22:40

Well, we kicked NS4 support now.
Then athos code is more advanced than mine. It uses a different kind of technique to render the menu.
Now it's nearly as fast as mine when it comes to loading time.

NS6 and Mozilla ist supported

Faro

P.S.: look at www.e96.de/doom2 to see athos' menu without the lines.
Forgot to increase font size - i'll do that tomorrow

athos

5th April 2002, 13:20

I have increased font size to 10pts now. I also inserted some spacing above the menu to fit with the design.

One problem is that the menu does not handle word-wraps well, so either the menu frame has to be widenened (as i have done here) or some of the item names have to be shortened (for example Format Conversions -> Conversions).

Because the code is (supposedly) w3c compliant, it works without modification in IE6 and NS6.2, Mozilla 0.99 (these I have tried). It should work in IE5 and hopefully IE4 too. Opera Software say they implement the W3C standards, but I have had problems with Opera and DHTML before. I will download Opera and try. I am glad we dropped support for NS4 because this would require the most modifications, lots more code.

About the lines: I feel strongly that they should be there, Faro feels equally strongly that they should not, so I think we need more opinions from doom9 and the readers on this issue.

Doom9

5th April 2002, 13:37

Ogg Media Streams -> Ogg Media
Format Conversions -> Conversions

that should allow us to make the frame quite a bit smaller... I'm not particularly keep on getting linewraps either.

avih

5th April 2002, 14:11

www.e96.de/doom2
is very slick and very fast to load.
working very nice in my mozilla 0.99 and IE6 (not with opera 6.0 though)

i think it's a good thing to have compatibility with 'alternative' browsers since this site is somewhat alternative itself, and ppl here, more than other places don't 'like' M$ too much, so forcing to use IE is a bad choice for such a site imho.

keep up the good work
avi

ps -OT
i'm using mozilla 0.99 as my standard browser for few months now, and i must recommend it as beeing better than IE in many (all??) areas. it doesn't crash, has very good multilingual built in support, very good compatibility with IE sites, and can use the latest j2re1.4 from sun. plus a handy set of built-in features like tabbed browsing, [controlled] pop-ups-elimination, toolbars/menu visibility, google (or others) search from the location field, skins and more. overall very slick and usefull in just 10M download. please don't comment and make it into a browser war thread. just go to mozilla site and give it a try, let yourself be the judge and ton't take my experience as granted. i think u won't get dissappointed.

athos

5th April 2002, 14:46

Originally posted by Doom9
that should allow us to make the frame quite a bit smaller... I'm not particularly keep on getting linewraps either.

fixed, the menu frame is now 155px which is only 5 more than before.

regarding lines or no lines, i think this is mostly an aestethical issue. the images are very small (alltogether ~ 700 bytes) and if we remove them we will still want whitespace (indent) there to keep the tree structure.

Doom9

5th April 2002, 15:23

now.. what does work with what? ns4 is out of the game.. but I want ie5, ie6, ns6, opera6 and the latest mozilla if somehow possible.

@avih: did you have a look at the image attached to this thread? most people visiting my site do indeed use IE... a whopping 98+% of 'em. I think people here are capable of making the distinction between not liking a company and using an inferior product just because they don't like a company. I have tried mozilla in late july after getting too pissed off about NS4.7 as it always crashed and the solaris boxes I worked on only had NS4.7. So I first tried opera, didn't like the navigation (v6 now allows you to set a mode that's similar to what you're used to from other programs so it's much better).. then I got mozilla (don't know if it was 0.9.8 by that time.. ).. but that one greeted me with a zillion of debug messages and was neither particularly fast nor stable so I ended up using IE5.5 for solaris which was not perfect (has the nasty habit of sometimes simply not loading pages and forcing you to reload and it wouldn't browse our intranet) but better than my alternatives.

just checked the browser share again.. I really don't know how sitemeter makes that.. now opera is suddenly in the list with 1.01% .. somehow I don't think this tracking is to be trusted too much. Anyways.. the webalizer stats on all servers also show only IE as top 15 browsers (webalizer makes a diff between the same browser on different operating systems).

Faro

5th April 2002, 15:39

ok, we need some input about the lines...

But what about the hover effects of the submenu items? I think we should keep the old style and only change the color not the decoration as i have done in my menu.

athos: good work (to put this comment to public ;-))

avih: hopefully more people will get noticed when the 1.0 releases are out. Many companies generally do not use 0.xx products. They simply don't want take the risk.

Faro

athos

5th April 2002, 22:26

Originally posted by Faro
But what about the hover effects of the submenu items? I think we should keep the old style and only change the color not the decoration as i have done in my menu.

Yes, i agree this would fit the rest of the site layout better, have changed it now (for folders too).
Originally posted by Faro
athos: good work (to put this comment to public ;-))
Thank you =)

fisix

5th April 2002, 23:12

1 thing as input, using the site:http://www.e96.de/doom2/
as the current iteration. also some comments.

1) text is too small. white space to keep tree/branch aspect
is not really important. if you reduce the amount a child
is moved over, you should have enough room to increase the font
size. the end font size should be the same as for the words "Date"
and "News" on the top banner of the news page.

speed is great, so to keep it that way don't consider opening
pages in the main frame to see info on the particular branch
you've just clicked on. if i was trying to find something
mentioned on the news page in the tree, i wouldn't want the news
frame to dissappear as i was trying to find the right
guide/link/whatever. also it would just slow the menu AND increase
bandwidth. of course the bottom of the branch would open the
proper page in the frame.

you have lots of verticle space. even with the site meter added.
you might be able to use that more and lessen the number of
generations in the menu. as a last resort you could lose the little
pluss-minus boxes and just use bold to indicate a parent.

let me finally state that it really looks good so far, and the
changes from the beginning models to now indicate you all are
putting a lot of effort. thanks guys!

-fisix

smok3

6th April 2002, 04:17

iam sure js navigation looks cool, but why kill the users of some older browsers (its not that cool)? This way you will end up by making different navigations for different browsers and thats real pain for a webmaster, just leave it the way it is or find some serverside solution, or even u can make multiple pages in the navigation frame that will kinda expand and collapse (but thats pain to administer again).., just my 2 cents :)

p.s. true progress imho for this page would be a cool search engine that would include page articles + forums into 1 search, but i guess for this to really work u will have to dump frames (would that hit the data transfer limit to hard?)

<FORM method=GET action="http://www.google.com/search" method=get name=f>
<input type="hidden" name="as_sitesearch" value="doom9.org">
<INPUT TYPE=text name=q size=36 maxlength=255 value="divx 5"><br>
<input type=submit name=btnG value="search doom9 with google">
</form>

athos

6th April 2002, 10:33

thank you for your feedback.
first: the latest version is http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/doom9/, while http://www.e96.de/doom2/ is an older version that Faro has modified to show how the menu looks without the lines/connectors.

fisix> the latest version has increased fontsize, the menu frame is only 5 pixels wider than it was before.

linking the folder names to web pages (in the right frame) will not actually slow the menu down, because loading the web page and expandig the menu can be done simultaneously. The entire menu is fully loaded the first time you enter, i just wait with rendering the parts that dont show for performance reasons (you can see this by marking the menu (like text), CTR-C and then CTRL-V in a texteditor. You will see that if you expand a branch and then collapse it, the items will show up in the texteditor). Still I agree with you that it is distracting if navigating the menu would open pages to the right when you just click a folder.

another thing i thought about is the closing of other folders when you click one folder. This sort comes for free with Faro's implementation, but would require some work with mine. Of course, I could do this if we really want it. Still I think this would be distracting to, i like to feel that i have controll over the menu when i navigate it. If it automatically closes folders that I have not explicitly chosen to be closed, it would feel like i have less control.

back to fisix. i have also noted that there is some vertical space, but i dont really see how this could be used for this kind of menu. Maybe having more items att root level or something. I am using 1280x960, so there people using lower resolutions should have less white space too.

smok3> the menu servers other purposes than looking cool: you can put more items in it and structure it more than if it was static (try expanding the entire menu). Currently there is only one code which works in IE6 (most likely 5 too), NS6+ and Mozilla. This is because it is using only W3C DOM and W3C CSS code, no Microsoft or Netscape specific. I am working on Opera, I hope it should be possible to make small adjustment so it works in the latest Opera too. Administration is pretty easy, just edit the items.js file. No server-side, no different code, no different pages. Also server-side or even "pseduo"-server side (like Faro, he used parameters in the url to control the menu) would be slower than DHTML. As we have seen from user statistics, the majority of users browse with a modern DHTML capable (NS4 does not count as DHTML capable) browser. IMO the advantages make it right to ask the few users of old browsers to upgrade. After all - it is free =)

I definately agree with the idea of a search engine.

Note: I appreciate your opinions, and merely give my own here. If everyone wants the menu in a way that i do not agree with, i will of course do it your way. I can still use my way in my version of the script for other purposes ;)

Edit: I think i found the problem with Opera (quoted from http://www.opera.com/docs/specs/):
Modifying the document structure is not yet possible (ie. you cannot add or remove HTML elements).
Cudos for a very good explenation of the support and lack of from the Opera Developers. Anyway, this would mean alternative code for building the menu, maybe "document.write" might work. How important is Opera support? Added code is not only added work now, but inreases rish of bugs and more work if the script should be developed further in the future.

Faro

6th April 2002, 15:03

Hi again, (to athos - my icq has connection problems - that was the reason I were not "online" since yesterday afternoon).

Athos has answered a lot of questions and comments - here are my opinions:

about the compatibility:
My menu (www.e96.de/doom) is fully compatible, but does not use the power of dhtml (btw. DHTML itself does not exist - it's a combination of using the W3C Document Object Model, Javascript and CSS. Whereas most people think using layers is the only idea of dhtml). This power becomes an important role when benchmarking the speed of the menus.
I have not changed anything on my menu, since athos and I talked about the different positive and negative aspects.
So this results in developing only *his* menu further. Still as he sais it has a deficit in some features.
Coming to an end i would suggest: Why don't put a link in the menu frame thich referrs to the old menu (or maybe a new one - with the new sections - or a fully unfolded one without the possibility to collaps it). then leave this menu in plain HTML and every old fashioned user can navigate through our heaven of doom9 ? :-D

I'll do some design modifications on athos menu this weekend and post my results here again.

Have a nice day
Faro

athos

6th April 2002, 19:25

Faro> I was just thinking the same thing today. I could try if the browser supports dynamically adding html elements and if not just output the menu (using "document.write") without the collapsing etc part. This should work i think with every browser that supports java script and document.write, including Opera and Netscape 4 at least. IMO this would be better than a separate html-only file, because with my way changes in the menu only means editing items.js and not several files.

Also (again to Faro) please use the latest version of my script for modifications, because i have added some further speedup optimizations to it.

Refthoom

7th April 2002, 20:44

My 2cents:
@Athos, Faro: your coding capabilities clearly outmaster mine, good work! I couldn't add anything to that. Thought: couldn't you look at the sitemeter script to make it cross-browser compatible? Then maybe sell it to sitemeter? ;-)

About the menu:
- I too like the items to stay open and not collapse when opening another item.
- I like it without lines, with only plus/minus.

When the menu has reached its final version, I could try and make a tool for doom9, like the current excelsheet, to generate the array for him. If needed, of course...

And some dreams; I could make the next version of such a tool in MS Access, which would make it easier to use. Then, somebody in this forum might be able to programm that code that into a true tool and finally, the tool could perhaps be added to the download section (off-topic yes - but nice).

athos

7th April 2002, 20:47

I have updated the script at http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/doom9/ so if the browser does not support dynamically adding html elements (like Opera) it will use document.write to output the menu in expanded form without the expand/collapse functionality. Unfortunately this does seem to work in NS4 because the browser complains about javascript functions it does not recognize. Well, we dropped NS4 support anyway. The good thing is that since i use w3c standard to create elements, when future Opera versions start to support this part of the DOM, the real menu should work without modifications. I have tested the new script with IE6, NS6.2, Mozilla 0.99 (full functionality), Opera 6.01 (static menu only) and Netscape 4.08 (does not work).

What do you think of this solution? To me the biggest advantage to this and separate html pages for non-supported browsers is that to change the contents of the menu you only have to edit one page. Still this does require that the browser supports and has enabled javascript. IMO people should use a modern browser if they want get everything from the web, if you use a mono black-and-white tv you will not get surround sound and color, no matter how good dvds you buy.

refthoom> such i tool might be a good idea, you could take a look at the format of items.js (http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/doom9/items.js) allready, because i dont think the format will change much (assuming we use my menu).

Edit: Got the static menu working in NS4 now too, had to use an ugly check for document.layers but now it works. There are too much space between the line images in NS4 and Opera 6, will try to fix this later (if we want the lines at all).

Refthoom

7th April 2002, 22:23

@athos: I will have a look at it tomorrow.

athos

7th April 2002, 22:42

@doom9> Try changing
<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript">var site="s12doom9"</script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript1.2" src="http://s12.sitemeter.com/js/counter.js?site=s12doom9;var g_frames=true;"></script>
to
<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript">
var site="s12doom9";
var g_frames=true;
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript1.2" src="http://s12.sitemeter.com/js/counter.js"></script>
in left.html and the SiteMeter will work in NS4.

Doom9

7th April 2002, 22:55

I know that already... however.. sitemeter will not work properly in a framed environment unless you set this..

athos

7th April 2002, 23:11

but the necessary variable is still set? the variables are global, therefore you can set them before loading the external script.

fisix

8th April 2002, 07:52

alright, the menu is looking absolutely great! the font size has made me a happy camper and it now all seems to fit together nicely. the menu is still the last thing to load on the page, but once it's up, it is quick. i would try to measure what the difference is in bandwidth between loading the old page and the new so no-one is surprised (negatively) when the new menu is put in.

i hope d9 is happy,

thanks (to doom9 as well, as always)

-fisix

smok3

8th April 2002, 15:20

if i refresh the page menu collapses to original state, cant u use cookies or something to remember the state where i left it on my last visit of the site? :)

nice work btw, iam still not sure if its worth to kill those 0.2% of users who use older browsers tho, but if it is then make it the best ;) (whine, whine)

Doom9

8th April 2002, 18:50

nobody gets locked out that hasn't been locked out before already.. sitemeter takes care of people using NS4 ;)

And I hope that this thread illustrates why you should use an up-to-date browser.. if you're a webmaster you know what I'm talking about.. it's a major pain in the ass making things cross compatible if you want more than a very simple html page.

dsmith

8th April 2002, 19:09

I really like Athos' latest. Feels nice and snappy. Suggest putting the top "News" item in bold like the other top-level items, though. Yes, the only things bolded are the folders, so it doesn't match that. However it feels out of place as a normal font followed by bold fonts, it were an unimportant secondary item like the stuff at the bottom (links, glossary, forum). Unfortunately, without icons it's hard to provide any real emphasis for certain items in the list in order to focus your attention.

I'll put my vote in for not liking the navigation that auto-closes other folders when opening a new one.

I like the forum coming up inside the frame instead of popping up a new window.

Hover statusbar text for folders shows stuff like javascript:folder(21) While technically correct, and hiding statusbar information is generally frowned on in certain circles, I think in this case it would be more appropriate to show something a bit more descriptive, such as the name of the folder (eg: "Other Guides").

On the subject of the lines: I like them, but then it's also reminiscent of using Regedit, which is perhaps not the best impression to give. Aesthetically, the version without lines is probably better. However, it feels a bit over-indented when the lines are absent. Perhaps if it weren't indented so much if it's a child node. It would be easier to compare if Faro's variant were updated with the new font size and general cleanup.

Minor quibble: in IE, the vertical line extending down between News and Old News is missing a dot so it looks partly broken.

On the cookies to remember the last open state, that might be nice if it can be done in a very streamlined fashion (ie: if it's as simple as a couple lines of code or so).

@Doom: if you tried Mozilla last July, it was probably around milestone 0.9.4 (what Netscape 6.2 is based on). Though Mozilla really started to become viable as a full-time browser in the early 0.9.x versions, the latest versions are a *lot* better (though not without flaws; eg: Faro's original menu causes the latest Mozilla to crash).

Tested all this in IE 6 (latest patches) and latest Mozilla nightly (4/8).

--
David

Faro

8th April 2002, 20:33

To dsmith: I've tested my menu with moz release 0.9.9 - don't have that bandwidth to download the nightly builds daily ;-)
Maybe it's just your build where my menu doesn't work. But i do not believe that - because the mozilla team freezes features since release 0.9.9... only bug tracking
Btw. I hope you understand we take athos tree menu, so I won't update mine anymore - its only online to have a look at for new people joining this thread.

to Doom: Well - being a crossbrowser webmaster can also be hard "simple html pages" - there are far more browser than ie 456 and ns or gecko... Ever tried to view your site with a webTV? I didn't have - but do you know what will it look like? ;-)
I think a webmaster like you (with your great site) can force the poeple to use some browsers - they will upgrade just for viewing this content.
You don't even have to bother - although it would be nice...

to athos: I feel so useless - I will try to create a php GUI script that helps to administrate the menu item file. And will create this while providing a simple and fast skin.

Faro

dsmith

8th April 2002, 20:57

@Faro: Yeah, it's possible it could just be my install. As for the version of yours I was referring to, it was the non-lined variant of Athos' (http://www.e96.de/doom2/), not your original menu. Presumably you could take Athos' code and just change the images it uses to get rid of the lines. Didn't mean to imply that you should update the first version.

--
David

athos

8th April 2002, 21:02

@dsmith> thank you for very good feedback!

Originally posted by dsmith
I really like Athos' latest. Feels nice and snappy. Suggest putting the top "News" item in bold like the other top-level items, though. Yes, the only things bolded are the folders, so it doesn't match that. However it feels out of place as a normal font followed by bold fonts, it were an unimportant secondary item like the stuff at the bottom (links, glossary, forum). Unfortunately, without icons it's hard to provide any real emphasis for certain items in the list in order to focus your attention.

I think we should reserve bold for folders to keep it more consistent and easier to identify what items are folders. I guess News could be below the folders, but still this item is pretty important. I think it looks pretty good without icons, expecially since it is now one color and mathes the rest of the site. removing the icons also saved some horisontal space.

I'll put my vote in for not liking the navigation that auto-closes other folders when opening a new one.

Me too :)

I like the forum coming up inside the frame instead of popping up a new window.

I noticed that too, and i totally agree with you. If i want something opened in a new window, I will do this manually.

Hover statusbar text for folders shows stuff like javascript:folder(21) While technically correct, and hiding statusbar information is generally frowned on in certain circles, I think in this case it would be more appropriate to show something a bit more descriptive, such as the name of the folder (eg: "Other Guides").

Yes, I like this too and it is really no trouble. Only thing might be that i think some people prefer seeing the correct url or such in the status bar (the default behavior).

On the subject of the lines: I like them, but then it's also reminiscent of using Regedit, which is perhaps not the best impression to give. Aesthetically, the version without lines is probably better. However, it feels a bit over-indented when the lines are absent. Perhaps if it weren't indented so much if it's a child node. It would be easier to compare if Faro's variant were updated with the new font size and general cleanup.

well, it seems most people who have posted something on the subject in this thread seem to prefer the menu without lines. i guess i can live with that =) i will remove the lines (save a couple of code lines and some bytes in download, which is never bad) and see what i can do about the indention.

Minor quibble: in IE, the vertical line extending down between News and Old News is missing a dot so it looks partly broken.

yeah i have seen this. its weird, i think the top item needs to be bottom aligned or something.

On the cookies to remember the last open state, that might be nice if it can be done in a very streamlined fashion (ie: if it's as simple as a couple lines of code or so).

well it should not be too hard to do, but do we really want this? some people might get suspicious of big brother tracking surfing habits when they see cookies, and why would you reload the menu anyways? i will put this last on my to-do list and wait for more opinions on the matter.

@Faro> dont feel useless! you have made big contributions to this little project. for example, your modification to remove the lines from my menu was a very good thing, because then people can easily see what it means to remove the lines, and as you see most (all?) seems to prefer the menu this way. also a GUI for administring the menu should be very convenient for doom9. Perhaps we could sort of wrap up this whole solution and make it available for other people?

@doom9> i really think that my modification of the SiteMeter script call does work, and i have taken the liberty of adding the sitemeter to my menu (http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/doom9/). imo this does not generate false stats, because all the frames except the menu fram are the live ones on your site. as you can see the site now works in NS4 (allthough some styles seem broken, NS4 does not have very good CSS support). please let me know if this was wrong of me to do, and of course i will remove the sitemeter immediately. i just wanted to show that it works.

dsmith

8th April 2002, 21:53

Originally posted by athos
I think we should reserve bold for folders to keep it more consistent and easier to identify what items are folders. I guess News could be below the folders, but still this item is pretty important. I think it looks pretty good without icons, expecially since it is now one color and mathes the rest of the site. removing the icons also saved some horisontal space.

Sorry, didn't want to imply that there _should_ be icons; I prefer it without them. It's just that icons would more easily distinguish the types of items in the menu, and that option isn't there for you.

Yes, I like this too and it is really no trouble. Only thing might be that i think some people prefer seeing the correct url or such in the status bar (the default behavior).

If it were an actual URL, then yes, I'd want to see that. But if it's just a javascript command, I don't like it as much. On the other hand, there's the risk of trying the 'open in new window/tab' which will fail since it's javascript, not a link; something I've had to get used to dealing with at sites that use javascript to eg: popup a window with an enlarged picture, etc. Probably not a big deal, though.

well it should not be too hard to do, but do we really want this? some people might get suspicious of big brother tracking surfing habits when they see cookies, and why would you reload the menu anyways? i will put this last on my to-do list and wait for more opinions on the matter.

It's not a matter of reloading the menu specifically, but of reloading the page. It's not likely to be a common occurance, but it'd be nice if it could keep track of where it was. It might also be nice to have it open to the DivX FAQs if that's where I left off last time, for example. But yes, I can see where people might be a bit leery of that. And there's also the consideration that if you reload the page, you might -want- it to collapse everything back to the starting state. Overall, it's a nice gee-whiz feature, but probably not really necessary.

Note on the Sitemeter on the sample page, I'm getting two copies of it showing up in Mozilla (both script and noscript?), but not in IE. Appears to be a bug in Mozilla, but I'm not sure exactly what. Could just be a problem in the latest nightlies, but it might generate spurious usage information. If it works for others (eg: Faro using .9.9) then just take this as a random beta-tester bug. Quibble: where you're including the image specifically, you should add title="Site Meter".

--
David

Doom9

8th April 2002, 22:12

http://sm6.sitemeter.com/default.asp?action=help&area=FAQFRAMES

is basically why I put that tag there.. now after having re-read it I think it only affects the referal stats which would be okay as I have these (and a lot of other) stats as part of my server stats. But that still leaves NS4 out from the navigation menu.

I'm against using cookies.. they leave a sour aftertaste and should only be used where really necessary (like the forum).

athos

8th April 2002, 22:21

@doom9> i think you put the var g_frames=true; in the url of the external script when it should be in the script before the external script.

as you can see, ns4 now works with my menu, including sitemeter and the rest of the site. the menu is not dynamic though, i just added this static menu for older browser so users who refuse (or for some other reason) to upgrade can still have access to all the links.

Refthoom

8th April 2002, 22:32

Well, I made a new version of the excel sheet as a tool for editing the items file. But reading the follow-ups in this thread it seems wasted time :-(

@Faro; I don't think your contributions were useless either. And a php gui would be nice for doom9 since he doesn't like M$ office apps. It would have been nice though if I new this earlier. Could have saved me the time working on the Excel sheet.

Anyway, I think it best to leave it to you guys (faro & athos). Happy coding ;-)

ephemeros

9th April 2002, 00:15

guys, I'm sorry to interrupt at this time - should have been here earlier...

http://www.e96.de/doom is still the only script with Opera6 support, athos's latest just gives the complete (unfolded) tree. Faro's code looks small, fast and just plain working to me -I didn't read all posts though, you can hit me on the head if I overlooked something :)

greetz,
eph

athos

9th April 2002, 09:55

ok i will try to explain the disadvantages of faros script. first let me just say that i think it is an interesting approach, i have even done some consulting work for a large swedish company using this same approach. for this menu, however, i feel that my script is better:
Faro's script passes information on what folders are open through the url. like i said, this is pretty cool, but imo not for a menu that you want to navigate fast.

one effect of this implementation is that reloading the frame will give the same open folders. another effect that some find positive is that other folders will close when you open one folder.

it also has the negative effects that the menu has to be reloaded (not necessarily donwloaded because it is cached, but i think the browser might check to see if there is a never version on the server. this means extra http calls) and rerendered for every folder that you open. even though the script loads pretty fast, navigation is slower than mine, because mine does not have to reload.
Far's script can only handle two levels, wheres mine can handle theoretically infinite (limited by space and memory of course)
i have not examined the code very closely, but i think it is not as easy to configure as mine. to change the menu you have to make changes in several places and you have to keep track of what parameters sent through the url maps to what folders.

Faro of course knows his own script best, so please correct me if im wrong.

About Opera support, i think that Opera will implement the features of the w3c standard that are not yet supported, and then the script will work fully for those users too.

Faro

9th April 2002, 11:32

Hi guys,

athos, you get my approach pretty right - although as you can see, thats not may approach - i'm sure there are a couple of other tree menus working this way (mainly the older ones).
Well I know the problems of writing DHTML code cause DHTML is a big hairy scary monster *g*
Fortunately athos has shot it down. So let's end discussing which menu to take, just try to eleminate bugs in athos menu.

by the way i've found a tree menu at http://inspire.server101.com/js/ecms/ should also be cross-browser compatible and fast enough - just have a look if your interrested in ;-)

to athos: well, my menu could perhaps handle more levels, but that would actually slow down it more.
The administration is easier than in my one, but this is not really important, I could also set the variables somewhere else so the administrator only has to edit a kind of item.js file like in athos one.

I'll try to code an item editor in php this week...

Have a nice day

Refthoom

10th April 2002, 18:19

Just a thought: Here http://www.asp101.com/goto.asp?name=nf94x3browserapi is a rather uncommon approach to handle the browser differences.

I know this isn't a cut'n'paste solution, but perhaps it's useful.

Doom9

20th April 2002, 00:50

any progress guys?

I've just been browsing the proposed menu using mozilla 1rc1.. looks good.. and the counter works too. I think I'll keep testing this mozilla.. maybe I'll make it the 2nd suggested browser for my site.. I already like it better than opera. What I don't like is having to click in a winodw before I can use the mouse scrollwheel to scroll.

athos

25th April 2002, 01:13

I like mozilla too, a lot more than Opera. It bugs me a bit that Opera Software brags about supporting all standards, when in fact they do not (hence the DHTML problems with my menu).

About progress, Ive been quite busy, but now i have time to try and rewrite the menu using some older dhtml, which should hopefully make it work even in NS4. No promises though.. I will also remove the lines, only keeping pluses/minuses for folders.

avih

25th April 2002, 02:18

for what it's worth, i like the lines.

cheers
avi

athos

25th April 2002, 16:21

I have dedicated most of today to try to implement the menu using old (non w3c) style dhtml, but i could not get it to work.

IMO Netscape4 and Opera (any version) are not DHTML capable browsers. NS4 supports a pathetically small subset of DHTML, and it handles this subset rather poor. Opera does handle stylesheets rather well, but the dynamic aspects of DHTML are sadly missing. Until this is implemented into future versions of Opera, I advice people not to use this browser (if you are planning to surf to sites with more than just plain HTML). Nobody should ever use NS4. If you dont like MSIE or you are using some OS with no version of IE available, I would advice people to use Mozilla (which looks very good in my eyes) or possibly Netscape 6.

That said, I have taken away the lines from the menu now, hope you people like this better.

Edit: Removed some unused code to speed up downloading (slightly).

Scipio

16th July 2002, 14:05

any chance of seeing Doom9 implementing your menus?

I read some pages of this long thread but it stopped in April without a result. I'd like to see another menu system than the old left frame static one... If this becomes reality, I would have to copy it to the german site, too.

Thanks for your efforts anyway. Pretty nice.

athos

16th July 2002, 14:21

You can navigate the site using my menu (i do :)) by surfing to http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/doom9
only the frameset file and the menu file are mine, the rest is the actual site. in my opinion the menu is finished, unless i hear otherwise.

Scipio

16th July 2002, 14:24

so far, so good...

but it would be certainly nicer to have all updates implemented..
On the other hand, the menu isn't updated that often, so you're right, one could really use your menu, but I doubt many of doom9's visitors know of it.

Scipio

28th September 2002, 16:23

Originally posted by athos
You can navigate the site using my menu (i do :)) by surfing to http://hem.passagen.se/nsane/doom9

Due to a javascript implemented on Doom9.org your menu doesn't work anymore on most browsers (with js enabled).

Could you make a new demo site with fixed content, just for people to see? When I first looked at it I found it to be nice, so I'd like to see it again... maybe Doom9's opinion changed? ;)

athos

29th September 2002, 16:32

ok i copied the front page from doom9 today, so the link works, but the javascript will set in when you navigate to another page.

dsmith

19th June 2003, 11:36

Man, I hadn't thought about this project in forever, but a little item I came across recently reminded me of it again. I went ahead and recreated the side menu (more or less as envisioned before) myself using just unordered lists (ul,li,span,a are the only tags), CSS, and a single javascript function. Can't say just how cross-compatable it is since I only have Mozilla and IE6 here, but it sticks to CSS1 and what I think are pretty simple DOM references. Had fun doing it anyway. So, was this project dead, or might it still happen?

--
David

Refthoom

19th June 2003, 19:33

@dsmith
As you can see, the last post was from sep 2002. And I haven't seen any inclination from doom9 to adopt the menu while this thread was active. So... I'd say it's dead.

Which doesn't stop me from being curious of course ;-)
Got it online somewhere?

dsmith

19th June 2003, 22:54

Sure, you can see it at

http://msp-dsl-148.datasync.com/doom9/index.html

I copied the top, left, and right frames onto my system; had to get rid of the frameset javascript code to be able to deal with it. The rest of the links point back at Doom9, though some of them probably need to be updated. I based the contents mainly off the listing Athos did. Cleaned up some of the other stuff as well.

--
David

athos

19th June 2003, 23:41

This looks very good, dsmith! Very nice and clean code.

dsmith

20th June 2003, 00:10

Little addendum:

Also, there's nothing requiring a sequential order of ID's. As long as they're unique, and the doSwap function next to it uses the same value, it'll be fine. So, rather than the mn1, mn2, etc that I used, you could just use the name of the folder it's attached to (oldnews, ripguides, etc), and not worry about tracking ID numbers at all. Makes maintenance a lot easier.

It's also fully accessible, if a bit ugly, if stylesheets aren't applied. Could simply hide them from NN4 if support for that is still desired (or selectively limit them, if someone can find out what NN4 -does- support).

--
David

Refthoom

20th June 2003, 21:29

This looks really good!

It works fine in IE6.0 and Opera7.1 (identified as Opera).
In Opera I got some curious error message though when clicking on a link (not a menu option):
<quote>
Inline script thread
Error:
name: ReferenceError
message: Security error: attempted to read protected variable
</quote>
It's not major since it only appears because I set Opera to show all errors and it doesnt influence the functionality.

But now something else. It appears to me that doom9 created a javascript to circumvent the menu's like athos made. Since it's his site it's his right to do so. However, maybe we can persuade him by casting votes here?

So, all in favour of dsmith's menu, say Yes, Jippy, Yae, Da or whatever ;-)

Scipio

20th June 2003, 21:57

It appears to me that doom9 created a javascript to circumvent the menu's like athos made.

Actually, I made that script and proposed it to him.

The idea behind that is: When people link directly to a page or a guide on Doom9.org, the whole doom9 frameset will be loaded so that people can see that they're on Doom9.org.

So it's also a means to avoid abuse - some guys just linked to guides in their framesets and visitors didn't see that it was actually doom9.org where they are...

example: http://www.doom9.org/mpg/dvdshrink2-main.htm

If you click on it, the menu and the top frame are loaded. Without the JavaScript, they are not... I don't think that a poll will change Doom9's opinion, but you can try anyway. :)

dsmith

20th June 2003, 23:31

Originally posted by Refthoom
In Opera I got some curious error message though when clicking on a link (not a menu option):
<quote>
Inline script thread
Error:
name: ReferenceError
message: Security error: attempted to read protected variable
</quote>
It's not major since it only appears because I set Opera to show all errors and it doesnt influence the functionality.

I'm not sure I understand. You mean clicking on one of the +/- folders brings up the error? 'Cause the page items are pure anchor tags, nothing fancy attached (other than CSS). The javascript function in the menu will automatically pop up an alert if an exception was thrown, so it'll be immediately apparent if there's an error in a particular browser. I added a "Menu error:" text to it to distinguish it from general error messages from the browser. Can you see if it's really internal to Opera?

Of course, at the moment I can't seem to connect to the core doom9 site at all. Not sure whether it's just down, or it decided to lock me out because of this little test page. Put in an extra disclaimer just in case.

--
David

Refthoom

22nd June 2003, 21:29

@scipio
Thanks for the explanation. :-)

@dsmith
Sorry, that's just my cranky description. I'll try to do better:

- The error occurs when I click on a 'real' link, not a +/- folder.
- The error occurs with all 'identities' of Opera. I assume you are familiar with that function of Opera. So, when I let it identify itself as Opera, IE6 or Mozilla 5, the error's the same.
- The error is still the same as before.

About not being able to link to the core, I guess its the same as with the other script that scipio explained about. Probably some script to prevent leeching. When I was working on the menu before, I downloaded the whole site (once) for testing purposes. To such a script, this would seem as leeching. Maybe you did the same for your testing?

I know there have been several tries for a menu-tree of some sort. There MUST be one that is A) easy to maintain and B) works in (almost) all browsers. Maybe this is _the_one_ ;-)

Edit: I had a stupid question here, deleted it.