Need help with custom navigation bar

[FluffyGoo]

Hello!
I'm having some difficulty creating a custom navigation bar.
It could be because I'm doing some steps out of order.

Anyway, I wanted to make a custom navigation bar with my own spacing and mouse-over effects.
I managed to get all of that to work but when I go to "create navigation bar.." option, it isn't available.
So it's essentially just text with links and effects but I need to have access to the sub-menus.

For some reason I can un-group everything and add say "Home" text to group with a box and then the create navigation bar option comes up. (For some reason ONLY if I group it to a box)
However, if I were to continue with that and just create more buttons from "Home" then it creates a navigation bar with terrible spacing, etc.

Is there anyway I can create sub-menus from just my text?
I've already been through every youtube and tutorial video on the subject but none of them seem to account for the create navigation bar option NOT showing up or wanting to have your custom spacing.

***Working with Web Designer 9 Premium

Thanks!

Lindsay

[FluffyGoo]

Also, I was wondering how I get all the mouse-over effects I applied to work on every page without having to do them by hand?

[gwpriester]

Basically to create a button with mouse over states, create a shape with text and group both.

Copy and paste in place (Edit > Paste > Paste in Place) a copy on the MouseOver layer. Make your changes to shape and text color.

Select the MouseOff layer. Then marquee select both button states and from Arrange, select Apply Soft Group.

With this button selected (the status bar will read, Two Groups (Soft Group).

Now go to Website Properties > Create Navigation Bar

[FluffyGoo]

Basically to create a button with mouse over states, create a shape with text and group both.

Copy and paste in place (Edit > Paste > Paste in Place) a copy on the MouseOver layer. Make your changes to shape and text color.

Select the MouseOff layer. Then marquee select both button states and from Arrange, select Apply Soft Group.

With this button selected (the status bar will read, Two Groups (Soft Group).

Now go to Website Properties > Create Navigation Bar

I cannot find "Create Navigation Bar" under "Website Properties" anywhere. I find it under Arrange but it won't let me select it even after soft grouping both groups.

[FluffyGoo]

I actually found where it was under Website Properties. However, it is grayed over and still won't let me select it.

[gwpriester]

Can you upload your file? Sometimes it is easier to see what is wrong by looking at the actual document.

[gwpriester]

Here is a simple button for you to reverse engineer. It is linked to # (reloads the page) so you can see it work in Preview Page.

[jamesd]

The objects on each layer need to be grouped. Then soft-group the objects from both layers together

[FluffyGoo]

Here is a simple button for you to reverse engineer. It is linked to # (reloads the page) so you can see it work in Preview Page.

Sure, I'll attach the file. I'm positive it's just some simple layering issue.
Thanks for all the help!

[gwpriester]

Hmmm? Quite a mess you created.

OK the attached works.

Here's what I did.

I am not sure how you went about this but the process is much simpler.

Create and group one button (Home in this case).

Copy the group, select the MouseOver layer and Paste in Place. At this point you have only two buttons, a MouseOff and a MouseOver.

With both button state layers visible, marquee select both buttons. The status bar will show two groups on two layers selected.

From the Arrange menu, select Apply Soft Group. Now you have one button with a MouseOff and MouseOver state.

With this soft group selected, NOW select the Create Nav Bar tool.

Check Adjust Button Widths to Labels. Un-check All Buttons the Same Width.

Check Site Navigation Bar (this adds the navigation bar to all pages you have created).

I added 6 pixels Button Spacing.