navigation bar (for flash mx 2004)

[multi-media-marketing]

In order to replace a troublesome DHTML menu, I made up my mind to design the very same stuff with flash , despite I don´t know exactly how ;

The nav bar will have the following features :

- 6 items on the "main" menu , as the mouse rolls over one of them , it will drop down
its respective navigation buttons ;
- as the mouse rolls out the main menu button or one of its navigations button , the dropped down
menu in a couple of seconds is reseted to its original "neutral" position ;
- the menu items are (they´re already movie clip & instance names at a time ) by the order :

#1-mcenglish ,
#2-mcservices ,
#3-mcases ,
#4-mcprof ,
#5-mcontact ,
#6-mcflash ;

- mcenglish will have two buttons :
button bteng is responsible to collapse the bar , and
btenglish , which is a navigation button will be assigned with a geturl ;

- mcservices has 8 buttons :
btservices, btmaingoals , btsurvey , btsystan , bt const , bt homol , btimplan , btdatadm ;
btservices causes mcservices to run down the bar ;

- mcases has 6 buttons :
btcases , bthealth , btretail , btinsur , btindust , btarenautic ;
btcases runs down mcases ;

- mcprof is a diferent kind of bar , this one has a "sub menu" ;
it has 3 buttons :
btprofes responsible to run down mcprof , btprofile , and btrobvaz which opens to the right
the sub menu on which there are 3 more buttons : btresume, btprofexp ,btquotations ;

- mcontact has 7 buttons :
btcontact , btoplinks, btform , btemail , btsitemap , btwebmast , btwebdes ;
btcontact runs down mcontact ;

- mc flash , 2 buttons :
btflash and btsiteflash ;
bt flash runs down ;

I am not quite sure whether I´ve been clear enough ;

if I have not please take a look at the original DHTML menu @ :

http://multi-media-mkt.sites.uol.com...roj/index.html ;

I do appreciate any kind of help on this matter ;

Thank you very much ;

[multi-media-marketing]

In order to replace a troublesome DHTML menu, I made up my mind to design the very same stuff with flash , despite I don´t know exactly how ;

The nav bar will have the following features :

- 6 items on the "main" menu , as the mouse rolls over one of them , it will drop down
its respective navigation buttons ;
- as the mouse rolls out the main menu button or one of its navigations button , the dropped down
menu in a couple of seconds is reseted to its original "neutral" position ;
- the menu items are (they´re already movie clip & instance names at a time ) by the order :

#1-mcenglish ,
#2-mcservices ,
#3-mcases ,
#4-mcprof ,
#5-mcontact ,
#6-mcflash ;

- mcenglish will have two buttons :
button bteng is responsible to collapse the bar , and
btenglish , which is a navigation button will be assigned with a geturl ;

- mcservices has 8 buttons :
btservices, btmaingoals , btsurvey , btsystan , bt const , bt homol , btimplan , btdatadm ;
btservices causes mcservices to run down the bar ;

- mcases has 6 buttons :
btcases , bthealth , btretail , btinsur , btindust , btarenautic ;
btcases runs down mcases ;

- mcprof is a diferent kind of bar , this one has a "sub menu" ;
it has 3 buttons :
btprofes responsible to run down mcprof , btprofile , and btrobvaz which opens to the right
the sub menu on which there are 3 more buttons : btresume, btprofexp ,btquotations ;

- mcontact has 7 buttons :
btcontact , btoplinks, btform , btemail , btsitemap , btwebmast , btwebdes ;
btcontact runs down mcontact ;

- mc flash , 2 buttons :
btflash and btsiteflash ;
bt flash runs down ;

I am not quite sure whether I´ve been clear enough ;

if I have not please take a look at the original DHTML menu @ :

http://multi-media-mkt.sites.uol.com...roj/index.html ;

I do appreciate any kind of help on this matter ;

Thank you very much ;

[Albacore]

Why bother with Flash for these simple menu styles why not use Dreamweaver to get the same effect as it is very simple to get the same effect and it will not bloat your code. If you dont use dreamweaver and you use GoLive there are many tutorials out there do a search in Google for drop down menus and you will see how many results you will get.

I am no flash expert but I know without the use of action script here to produce navigational widgets you will be struggling. Have a look at "Flash MX Savvy" it is great for intermediate standard flash people and it does have a full chapter on this very topic with examples on the customary CD.

Sorry to be so negative at the start but that is my opinion. Best of luck with your project.

[multi-media-marketing]

Well Albacore , one reason I want to get rid of DHTML menus is that there is not any guarantee such menus (no matter what kind of software is employed to write their code ), will run in other browsers ; I´ve employed once a DHTML menu which was supposed to be cross browser , but it has proven not to work with Opera , and showed some discrepancies with Netscape Navigator ; I find a flash file much more reliable than other menus ;

[pknair]

Well, MMM, I'm afraid Albacore's probably got the right of it this time around. Your current DHTML menu lies overtop of some of your text. Flash, inherently, requires a set section of your page dedicated to the movie. You can't layer it on top of the page. So unless you want to change all your info to being presented within a Flash movie, then you're pretty much stuck with DHTML.

That being said, doing menus in Flash is a relatively basic task - you can find tons of tutorials or prebuilt menus on sites like www.were-here.com or flashkit - but for you to have your Flash movie sit above your text requires either an all-Flash site or DHTML...which would bring you back to your original problem.

Sorry, my friend, but Flash does not seem to be the tool that you need in this situation.

As for cross-browser DHTML, you may want to get a bit more familiar with JavaScript/DHTML and get in there to modify the scripts you have to better handle different browser types. Generally, though, if your scripts can handle Mozilla and IE, you're safe. You can never satisfy ALL browsers - try and satisfy those browsers that are in use by your demographic.


hth,
Deep (just a guy)
<font face="arial" size="2">
Pradeep Kumar Nair, B.Math
Content Manager
9 Story Entertainment
http://www.9story.com
ICQ: 39102360
</font>