Comments on: The Right Way to Make a Dropdown Menu

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:18:20 +0000

@CSU-Bill “I have seen and am currently working on using a pure CSS drop-down menu that does not flicker. If you want to see it, visit http://www.grc.com/menudemo.htm and you can also read the information about the menu. I am trying to add another level so that it matches my current menu.”

Sorry dude, but your menu does not do what you said. Narrow windows do not see the right side menu slide out. If you want it to be handled in narrow viewing, I suggest you make the right side slide to the left not right.

By: greg

greg — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 17:10:30 +0000

I find my clients want the animation and look of flash menus. This would be great for alternative div content though.

By: awasson

awasson — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:08:43 +0000

James,
Nice menu!

I joined the conversation much earlier but didn’t have time to have a good look at the menu until this weekend. I’ve spent a couple of hours reviewing/modifying it because there is a lot in it that I’m not all that familiar with and it is great! I really like the keyboard controls and the delay. Good article and a really great piece of code to play with!

@memco: Use Firefox with the Firebug plugin to get a good idea of what part of the stylesheet controls the menu at various mouseover points. The stylesheet is really well structured for editing and after you get the hang of it, it shouldn’t need any commenting. You can add your own via your sleuthing with Firebug

By: Josh Bowes

Josh Bowes — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:11:18 +0000

Great post. I had to change the CSS position attribute from ‘absolute’ to ‘relative’ to work in my situation. I also found that in IE6 the menu did not work well if embedded in a table, although it may have been some funky js or CSS that was being executed and I was unaware of.

Thanks again!

By: brothercake

brothercake — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:19:19 +0000

Why is there so much in the “structure” that breaks the menu even though it seems unnecessary?

Because it is necssary. I'm sorry if this isn't what you need. These demo were not really intended to be a ready-packaged solution that you can just take and make your own with 2 minutes customisation. If that's what you want you'd be better off looking at a commercial solution, like this one. These demos are here to illustrate a set of general principles, but if you're prepared to look on this as a learning exercise, well then -- what problems are you having?

By: memco

memco — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:33:41 +0000

I tried to implement this just now as I was excited to have a pre-built solution that handled everything for me. Then I tried to style this–it’s horribly documented. Why is there so much in the “structure” that breaks the menu even though it seems unnecessary? Perhaps a more in depth explanation of the menu or just better comments in the source would be good.

In the meantime, can anyone recommend a good unobtrusive JS menu that does offer keyboard navigation?

By: brothercake

brothercake — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:38:21 +0000

Anyway … mouse and keyboard navigation – so the lesson here is that the script really shoud cater for that situation. It should be able to deal with events wherever they come from, and not assume (as it does currently) that a menu which was opened with the keyboard will inevitably be closed with the keyboard too.

By: brothercake

brothercake — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:30:45 +0000

Oh, what that means then is that I’m getting emails in the wrong order! That’s a relief – it means the comments are displaying correctly; notification emails are a far less significant issue! Thanks for the confirmation.

By: Damian Edwards

Damian Edwards — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 04:48:16 +0000

When I posted my first comments there were none others displayed on the page. Not sure if that means I was first though.

By: brothercake

brothercake — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:38:26 +0000

@Damien – You know I’d be fascinated to know actually, how many people do use the web with the mouse and keyboard combined. It’s one of those things I’ve never thought it worth scripting before because I didnt think it would actually happen, but hearing you say that you do it regularly I’m not so sure anymore.

Food for thought :)

btw – dunno why these posts aren’t coming through in the same order i’m getting emails about them – I suspect that the emails are in the right order, and the posts are in the wrong order, some timezone weirdness perhaps. But you posted your last comment after Tarh’s comment, right, even though in the thread it’s several comments before? And your first comment is right at the top, even though around a dozen people posted before you, is that right?