WD6: submenus in nav bar are not showing

[ogary]

I could use help with the submenus in my navigational bar using WD-6. I don't know what i'm doing wrong but the submenus in my navigation bar on the site I'm designing are no longer showing. They were showing when i first started the site. Is there a limit to the number of pages designed by WebDesigner6? Is that the problem?

I want to have 9 or 10 tabs in the nav bar and then under some of them, like the "My Books" tab, I want to list the various books this author has published. Here's the work i've done so far but unless I can have the submenus showing I can't use WD-6, even though my client is LOVING the whimsicality we can add to her site by using WD6
http://www.marypeacefinley.com/wd6/index.htm

I've typed below what I want under the "My Books" nav bar button. Is there a limit to the submenu structure in WD6? I would want to go down 3 levels as follows (I'm using the dashes to show levels, not bec i'm going to use them in the submenus):

---The Midnight Ride of Blackwell Station
--------Reviews
--------Chapter One
---The Santa Fe Trilogy
--------Soaring Eagle
-------------Reviews
-------------Teacher's Guide
-------------Chapter One
--------White Grizzly
-------------Reviews
-------------Teacher's Guide
-------------Chapter One
--------Meadow Lark
-------------Awards
-------------Advance Praise
-------------Reviews
-------------Chapter One
---Little Fox's Secret
--------Chapter One
---Tiger Tales
--------Chapter One
---The Matchbox
--------Prologue
---Fernitickles
--------Chapter One
---Fireflies
--------Luciernagas (Fireflies in Spanish)

Thanks, in advance, to anyone who can help me figure this out.

Olgy

[steve.ledger]

Thread moved to Talk Web > Web Designer / Xtreme >

[jimhanus]

ogary,
There are no pages listed in any of the sub-menus of the actual nav bar. That's why nothing is showing up as dropdowns. My guess is that you edited one of the navigation bars (or added a blank one) with the box checked "Site Navigation Bar". This would override your previous nav bar. Either open a backup with the correct nav bar or just rebuild it. The pages are there, they just need to be linked.

Jim

[ogary]

Thanks for your reply, Jim, but it's still not working. I went ahead and just deleted the nav bar from all the pages. I then inserted a new nav bar which I took from inside the alpha template components. When I placed it where I wanted to I then clicked it so it would be a site-wide nav bar. As soon as I did that, it added all the pages as buttons. I then went in and built up the hierarchy I wanted the pages to be in, under which button i wanted them to be in. Then I deleted the extra buttons the nav bar had created. I save. and still nothing shows.

I'm attaching the revised .web file. What am I doing wrong?

[ogary]

EDIT/UPDATE: I tried adding the books hierarchy of submenus to another nav button and there it works. So I've deleted the original "Books" nav bar button and changed names of the other button that was working to "My Books" and now the nav bar is behaving properly. I don't know why a nav bar button would stop working but this fix of deleting that particular button and making a new button out of an existing one seems to have fixed the problem.
http://www.marypeacefinley.com/wd6/index.htm

[jimhanus]

Glad you found a fix. I just noticed the nav bar that you are using is the same one I'm having a problem with (sub menus disappeared for me also). I wonder if there's a problem with that particular nav bar/template code? Anyone else experience strangeness with this nav bar?

Jim

[ogary]

Jim, I did and I didn't find a fix. Between my refusal to watch all the instructional videos on how to use this new Xara product and the fact that I'm also thinking this particular nav bar is buggy, I have spent hours and hours doing and redoing my nav bar all to no avail.

Now I've got it working but only because I gave up on having more than one level down in the submenus.
http://www.marypeacefinley.com/wd6/index.htm

So now, rather than having submenus like I wanted:
My Books > Santa Fe Trilogy > Soaring Eagle > Reviews
or
My Books > Santa Fe Trilogy > Soaring Eagle > Chapter One

I now have:
My Books > Soaring Eagle
I gave up on grouping the three titles that belong under the Santa Fe Trilogy and just list all the books under the My Books button. I also gave up on coloring the background and text in the submenus. It seemed like every time I did that things went haywire.

So having given up with having more than one level in the submenus, when visitors land on the page for the book Soaring Eagle, I have there graphics that link to either Chapter One of the book or Reviews of the book.

I absolutely LOVE how easy it is to manipulate images in WD6, how easy it is to group and ungroup things, to place an image anywhere I want on the page, rotate it, make it repel text or not. The program is amazing in what it can do for the price Xara is charging for it. But the bugginess of this particular nav bar (and it is a beautiful one!) just about drove me crazy these past two days.

I'm going to keep subscribed to this thread because if someone figures out why this nav bar acts up the way it does (or what is it I've been doing wrong) I'd love to learn about it.

Olgy

[gracehjs]

I have no problem going down two extra levels.

[jimhanus]

ogary,
I'm still having some issues but have worked around it, as the site is only 8 pages total. My usual work flow is to make a duplicate page of my last page and then modify it as needed. I had a page (#2) without a link but with a dropdown menu. When I would duplicate the last page I worked on (#5) the nav bar would link it to #2. I would have to go in to the nav bar and remove the link for page #2. Once I fixed it then it was OK. Same thing happened with page #6, linked itself to #2 and I would have to go back into the nav bar menu and correct it. I still need to make 2 more pages that are supposed to be dropdown links from the page #2 button. We'll see what happens when I do them.

Jim

[ogary]

Hi Jim,
Yes. That was my problem as well. Plus I realized that not only did I have to delete the button that had been created in the nav bar but I also had to reset all the page links within the nav bar because by adding a page in the middle of already established pages the page links had all moved down the number of pages I'd created. I'm about to go live with my site and when I do I'll change the links in the nav bar buttons and sub menus from "pages" to actual URLs and in this way it won't matter how many pages I add in the future, the nav bar buttons and submenu links will be set to actual URLs and not "pages" within the site.

It took me countless hours to figure this program out but I must say that at the end of it all it's been totally worth it. I was looking for an easy way to create a whimsical/colorful/engaging site for a client of mine, who is an award-winning author of books for children. WebDesigner-6 has totally allowed me to do this and my client is thrilled with the results. It's just so darn easy to add drop shadows, rotate images, write your own text within an already existing image, etc. Things that would have taken me hours to create using photoshop, etc, I can do in seconds with WD6.

I do have a question regarding .htm vs .html but I'll setup a new ticket for that.

Olgy