mouse over drop down navigation bar...noobie help!

[Suavedg]

Hey guys,

first post here, nice community.
Anyways I'm knowledgable in HTML and Flash but interested in Javascript. A friends dad wants me to help him finish his mediator website of his. Someone started it and the template/layout is there but just need to put in the content.

the webpage is: www.fongmediate.com ( which for whatever reason appears to be down at the moment...crappy. )

On the pages there's a navigation bar (horizontal) with text such as: "service, contact, history" etc. Then once you mouse over the next a small drop down menu appears with more texts (sub contents of "service, contact or history for example") In the drop down menu is where you click the links to go to the corresponding page of course.

I've never used Javascript before and I'm just wondering a few things. If I have access to the source code (which I should) will it be fairly simple to edit? like just change a variable to say the right text and link to the right page? Or if I have to re-do the page from scratch how hard is a menu such as this to do, or find? Nad for that matter does anyone have or seen any tutorials or source code for this style navigation bar?

thanks for your time.

[Pittimann]

Hi!the webpage is: www.fongmediate.com ( which for whatever reason appears to be down at the moment...crappy. )Well - it is down and due to that, it is impossible to see the code and to tell you, what to modify.

Whatever menu script is used on the site, you should as well provide navigation for people who browse there with javascript disabled.

Are you able to get the code from your friend's dad and post it here, so that we can have a look at it?

Cheers - Pit

[Suavedg]

I'll definately give him a call tomorrow to get access to the webspace he has. Hopefully though the webpage will be back up soon...odd though it was just up last night. Wonder what happened.

[Pittimann]

Hi!

So just post the code here, when you got it or - if the page happens to work - tell us...

Good luck - Pit

[Suavedg]

http://www.fongmediate.com/welcome.htm

the link is back up now for whatever reason. Take a look.

[Suavedg]

Pittimann? little help?

[theBody44]

Okay, here is a little break down of the menu and what you will have to do to change the stuff - Pit, if I miss anything, feel free to correct it!
First, the 'Psychology', 'Mediation', 'Arbitration'...links across the top of the page are simply pictures embedded into <a> tags. They are GIF images, so if you want to change the text, you will have to create a new picture (with different text on it). They all use the MM_swapImage() function to change to the gray image when you hover over them. You can find these images/links starting at line 106 in the source code. For the MM_swapImage() function, the first argument must be the name of the image inside the <a> and </a> tags. The second argument must be '', the fourth must be 1. The third argument must be the relative path to the new image (the gray one). Line 106 will be the line you refer to the most. In the "onMouseOut" function you will see MM_startTimeout() added to the commands - this starts the timer which will hide the menu if executed completely before you go back to the menu. In the "onMouseOver" function you will see MM_showMenu(window.mm_menu_0312231307_0,0,22,null,'FinalNav_r2_c1') as one of the arguments. This is how you display the menu. The first argument is the name of the menu which is declared at the top of the page - starting at line 10. "0,22" is the X,Y offset for the menu relative to it's parent image. "null" is telling the javascript file that there are no child menus - if there are, you must place the name of that child menu in this position. "FinalNav_r2_c1" is the name of the image to which you are attaching the menu - the embedded image. Editing just the text shouldn't be that difficult. For colors, you will have to coordinate. The menu properties are assigned at line 10 (all the arguments in the "Menu" constructor assign values to it). They are pretty self-explanetory once you look at the mm_menu.js file - the first function creates the menu and assigns the arguments to style variables, so you should be able to interpret these pretty easily.
I hope this helps you a little and reply back if you run into trouble when updating this stuff. Good luck!:D

[Suavedg]

Thank you so much.
So to my knowledge as long as I can find the correct lines, and create .gif's with the text I want on them that are the correct width x length things shouldn't be too bad.

I'ver never done java before so it could be a lil frusterating or a good lesson to learn. Either way I'm sure I'll be back here sooner or later to possible post the code and ask for help.

Thanks a million.