To emphasize W3C valid code and lean pages, neither Flash nor JavaScript are generally considered to be favourable. Many (drop down) menu solutions make use of one of these two. There are a number of techniques one can use to get more visually attractive (drop down) menus, almost solely using cascading style sheet (CSS) and limiting the use of Javascript.
All use unordered lists (ul) to create the menu. An often-used solution is the drop down menus called “Suckerfish” or "Son of Suckerfish." It's pure CSS, very lean, hack free and employs just 12 lines of JavaScript to fix some problems with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and earlier. You can see a
demo of what can be created with Suckerfish. More detailed guides about the Suckerfish technique can be found at
htmldog.com and
alistapart.com.
In order to let Suckerfish function well, you need your menu in the form of a good clean list. It just so happens that there is a module out there to do this. It's called Extended Menu (Module Type: mod_exmenu-j15). You can find it
Extended menu and in the
JED.
Download and install the module. Now let’s set it up:
In the main Joomla interface, open the Extensions menu and choose the Module Manager.
Select your newly added Extended Menu Module by clicking on its name - it'll probably be fairly close to the bottom of the list.
• Assign a Menu suffix and a Module class suffix of "mainnav" (unless you change the CSS, below)
• Set Menu style: Tree List
• Set Expand Menu: Yes (don't worry about the tooltip description here - the CSS code takes care of hiding and showing the sub-menus, so they need to always be visible.)
• You can leave the other settings here at their defaults.
In order to see it in action, you will likely want to select a set of menus for it to display.
The Cascading Style Sheet
You can either add these CSS selectors to your existing template.css or create a new CSS file. If you create a new file be sure to include a reference to it inside the <head>..</head> section of your template's index.php file.
#twocols{ /* The columns that gets dropped down over yours might be different. */
z-index:20;
}
#leftcol{ /* The columns that gets dropped down over yours might be different. */
z-index:10;
}
.moduletablemainnav { /* I have absolutely positioned the module, you might have a different scheme. */
position:absolute;
top:187px;
left:20px;
z-index:100;
font:0.9em Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
margin:0;
padding:0;
}
#mainlevelmainnav,#mainlevelmainnav ul {
float:left;
list-style:none;
line-height:1em;
background:transparent;
font-weight:700;
margin:0;
padding:0;
}
#mainlevelmainnav a {
display:block;
color:#f90;
text-decoration:none;
margin-right:15px;
padding:0.3em;
}
#mainlevelmainnav li {
float:left;
padding:0;
}
#mainlevelmainnav li ul {
position:absolute;
left:-999em;
height:auto;
width:11em;
font-weight:400;
background:#36f;
border:#00C 1px solid;
margin:0;
}
#mainlevelmainnav li li {
width:11em;
}
#mainlevelmainnav li ul a {
width:11em;
color:#fff;
font-size:0.9em;
line-height:1em;
font-weight:400;
}
#mainlevelmainnav li:hover ul ul,#mainlevelmainnav li:hover ul ul ul,#mainlevelmainnav li.sfhover ul ul,#mainlevelmainnav li.sfhover ul ul ul{
left:-999em;
}
#mainlevelmainnav li:hover ul,#mainlevelmainnav li li:hover ul,#mainlevelmainnav li li li:hover ul,#mainlevelmainnav li.sfhover
ul,#mainlevelmainnav li li.sfhover ul,#mainlevelmainnav li li li.sfhover ul {
left:auto;
z-index:6000;
}
#mainlevelmainnav li li:hover,#mainlevelmainnav li li.sfhover {
background:#039 url(../images/soccerball.gif) 98% 50% no-repeat;
}Make sure you have the z-indexes set up properly. Also remember, in order to have a z-index, the element needs some sort of positioning. If not absolute, then relative.
The JavaScript File
You need to insert a reference to the JavaScript file for early versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer into the head of your template's index.php file.
<script type="text/javascript"><!--//--><![CDATA[//><!--
sfHover = function() {
var sfEls = document.getElementById("mainlevelmainnav").getElementsByTagName("LI");
for (var i=0; i<sfEls.length; i++) {
sfEls[i].onmouseover=function() {
this.className+=" sfhover";
}
sfEls[i].onmouseout=function() {
this.className=this.className.replace(new RegExp(" sfhover\\b"), "");
}
}
}
if (window.attachEvent) window.attachEvent("onload", sfHover);
//--><!]]></script>
The second approach is to implement a Drop Down menu using the mod_mainmenu module that comes with Joomal 1.5. I've played around with the “suckerfish” and CSS to make this work. This work perfectly in IE 7 as well as Netscape.
1. Create your Menu with the following Hierarchy:
Menu 1.
– Menu 1 Sub Menu 1.
– Menu 1 Sub Menu 2.
– Menu 1 Sub Menu 3.
2. Make sure the mod_mainmenu parameters are set to:
• Menu Style is set to List.
• Always show sub-menu Items is set to Yes.
• Menu Class Suffix is set to san - you can pick you own, but then make sure you change it in CSS & JS files.
3. Insert this piece of JS in your template index.php <head> tag, or in Javascript file that’s called from index.php
/* ********* drop down menu Java script code - start **********/
<script type=”text/javascript”><!–//–><![CDATA[//><!– // don’t need this line if using .JS file
sfHover = function()
{
var sfEls = document.menusan.getElementsByTagName(”LI”);
for (var j=0; j<sfEls.length; j++)
{
sfEls[j].onmouseover=function()
{
this.className+=” sfhover”;
}
sfEls[j].onmouseout=function()
{
this.className=this.className.replace(new RegExp(” sfhover\\b”), “”);
}
}
}
if (window.attachEvent) window.attachEvent(”onload”, sfHover);
//–><!]]></script> // don’t need this line if using .JS file
/* ********* drop down menu Java script code – end **********/
4. Here's the corresponding CSS
Either add these CSS selectors to your template's existing template.css file or create a new CSS file, name it and include it between the <head>...</head> section of the index.php.
/****************** Dropdown Menu styling starts here **************/
.menusan
{
/* Use these parameters to positions your menu. */
position: relative;
left: 10px;
}
.menusan, .menusan li, .menusan li ul { /* all lists */
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
list-style: none;
}
.menusan li a {
display: block;
width: 10em;
color:#FFFFFF ;
background-color:#BC031F;
border:2px solid #BC031F;
text-decoration:none;
}
.menusan li { /* all list items */
float: left;
width: 10em; /* The width is needed by the Opera browser. */
border-bottom:1px solid #ccc;
}
.menusan li ul { /* second-level lists */
position: absolute;
width: 10em;
left: -98%; /* Use left instead of display to hide menus; display: none isn’t read by screen readers. */
}
.menusan li a:hover {
border:2px solid #8C7AD6;
background-color:#8C7AD6;
color:#fff;
}
.menusan li:hover ul, .menusan li.sfhover ul { /* lists nested under hovered list items */
left: auto; /* change this to 10px, 20px, etc for indenting the sub menu */
}
/* **************** Dropdown Menu styling end here ***************/
5. Save all.
You can use a single menu to create multiple drop downs menus. Just create the menu in the following hierarchy and you’ll have 2 drop down menus, Menu 1 & Menu 2.
Menu 1.
– Menu 1 Sub Menu 1.
– Menu 1 Sub Menu 2.
– Menu 1 Sub Menu 3.
Menu 2.
– Menu 2 Sub Menu 1.
– Menu 2 Sub Menu 2.
– Menu 2 Sub Menu 3.
You might have to play with CSS a bit to work out the positions of the second menu etc. (Note: This did not work on the Chrome Browser 5.0.)
