Repeating objects and highlighted tabs

[planetsquid]

Hello

I'm trying to look for an easy way to create a website that contains tabs which have a mouseover effect, but stay highlighted when they are clicked on.

I have created the tabs with mouseover and mousedown effects and have made them repeating objects so they appear on all pages. When clicking on, for example, the 'Solutions' tab I would like it to remain highlighted so that my users know that they are viewing the 'Solutions' tab. (see screenshot below)

http://www.oasisjersey.org.uk/temp/tab_screenshot.png

I have tried changing each page on the site so that the appropriate tab on each page has a highlight, but as soon as I make a site-wide change and click on 'Arrange > Update repeating objects' all this highlight detail is lost.

As far as I can tell, this kind of design doesn't work very well with XWD's concept of repeating objects.

Any ideas?

Rich

[covoxer]

Instead of editing your current tab, which is a repeating object and will be updated, simply put the static object of the active tab on top of the tab button.

[planetsquid]

Hi John

Thanks for your quick reply. I have experimented with doing exactly this - it's a bit fiddly but seems to work OK. I was hoping to get my tabs sorted at the beginning so I could concentrate on the content, but it will probably have to be the last thing I do before publishing the site.

This seems to be quite a common site design feature and was just hoping there may be an easier way to do it. Could you not program in an additional layer (similar to mouseover and mousedown) which contains the 'selected' graphic? But then you would have to find a way of letting XWD know which button belongs to which page so it could export the HTML correctly. Would probably make things way too complicated... but would be a useful feature.

Rich

[cursor]

Here is one example where toyed with the same tab concept. Repeating:objects are not used, however. Don't miss the instructions page.

Another (more simple) solution would be to include the button/tab text as part of the static content that is displayed on user-pick — like in the upper right corner, for example.

[planetsquid]

Thanks cursor, that's really helpful. I think I'm wanting XWD to do everything for me.

Rich

[cursor]

Join the club ... I wish the same!

[PhilM]

Hi Rich,

When you've edited your highlight button why not just disconnect it from the repeating system by using the Names dialog to remove the "Repeating:" name from it? (It would also be a good idea to bring it to the front to ensure that Update Repeating doesn't put anything on top of it.)

That would prevent it from being changed by Update Repeating, which is what you want, but that could be a pain if you later change your tab bar and find the highlight button has the wrong text or is in the wrong place...

Just an idea - may not be a workable solution for you. [Edit: Thinking about it, for this to work you would need one page where you have a bar shown with no highlights at all. You would have to use that page as the source for all Update Repeating operations. So maybe this isn't such a good idea after all.]

Phil

[planetsquid]

...disconnect it from the repeating system by using the Names dialog to remove the "Repeating:" name from it...

An idea I didn't think of - but like you say, I would need a 'master' page in order to update the whole collection of tabs.

It looks like overlaying a 'clicked' tab is the way to go. It's just a shame it can't be soft-grouped so that:

- editing the text on the mouseoff layer tab will also change the text on the 'clicked' tab.
- moving the tab to a different location/order will also move the 'clicked' tab to the same location.

Rich