v6 Navbar shuffle woes - I maybe missing something :-)

[joolz]

Ok so after mucho frustration and rework I have surmised the following…

The Navbar Properties dialog/Treeview (where you link your buttons to pages) is directly linked to the Xara document page NUMBERS.

For example a Navbar button entitled ‘Page 10 button’ is linked to document Page 10 which is called ‘I am page 10’

The problem I am seeing is that if I add a new Xara document page so that it now becomes the document Page 10, this totally screws all the following Navbar links which all get incremented by one.
So the page entitled ‘I am page 10’ is now at Xara document Page 11 and pressing the Navbar button ‘Page 10 button’ no longer activates the page entitled ‘I am page 10’

In my case this rendered the following 40 page links useless and requiring a total reworking of the buttons and menu tree… It almost required a new screen too as I was tempted to put my foot through it in frustration LOL ---- this was before i figured the above out lol

Is there any way to turn this effect off?

Actually, what I would like to see is the Navbar links linked to the page NAMES and not numbers. In that way if I move pages around in the document the navbar would not be screwed up and require rework

The only workround I can see at the moment is to NEVER add pages in the middle of a document if the navbar is already set up AND most important never switch on the ‘Site navigation bar’ option as this can totally re-work (I.E hose) your navbar

Maybe there is a switch I am missing?

If not, can I pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease request that the Navbar links to page TITLES and not numbers (which are more likely to change than titles)

Thanks for any pointers or just for your sympathy xxxxx

Julian

[JONLAKE]

Hi Joolz!

Hope i understand your problem correctly... What i do to keep from getting muddled is to go to the 'Page and Layer Gallery' (Which i keep open all the time because it's so useful), and add new pages in as logical an order as possible.

I then name the new page so that i can easily identify it when working on the navbar settings. With site navigation turned on, a button will be added in exactly the right place on the navbar according to where i placed the page in the gallery.

The existing navbar buttons will still link to the same pages as before, and my new button will link to the new page i have just created.

Naming your pages before working on your navbar will help you maintain order because you can then just ignore the numbers that appear in the navbar dialogue. The numbers actually just refer to the page order in the 'Page and Layer Gallery'.

With that many pages however, you might want to create a drop-down menu... but that of-course depends on your design.

Hope this helps... otherwise let me know if i have misunderstood and i will see if i can help.

[joolz]

Cool thanks Jonathan

Well thats pretty much what I am doing TBH (page gallery, naming pages etc)

So consider this (which I have now) --- FYI its at http://www.ezfatigue.com/temp/Report-02.htm

Imagine you have a 30+ page site with your navbar set up correctly in Xara...

But--- You then add a new page somewhere in the middle of the Xara document ....

Does your navbar still work for the pages beyond the one you just added?

Basically in my Xara doc web preview/export it doesn't, and all the links beyond the added page are screwed and need re-doing.

But If I add the 'new' page at the end then all is well---

Maybe its a settings thing for me?

It's all cool because I am now adding new stuff at the bottom.

I also found that turning off and on the 'Site navigation bar (automatically links to all pages....' check thingy, totally screws any sub level menus and places them at the root level -- V baaaaaaad LOL



Thanks again

Julian

[JONLAKE]

I could be way off, but have you checked to see if you have a 'phantom' navbar hiding behind the one that is visible...? Try dragging your navbar down and see if there is another one below it.

In a case such as this, your MouseOver will be messed up when adding a new button in the middle, because the 2 navbars will be misaligned. If your button was added on the end, the hidden navbar won't show because the first few buttons are still aligned, and the last one is not above it.

Also check your mouse-over layer to see if there are no phantom MouseOver elements (if there is no obvious hidden navbar on the MouseOff layer).

Phantom navbars could be a side-effect of turning the site-navbar function on and off... Once the offending navbar is deleted, then you will hopefully be able to continue as per usual. Adding pages in the middle of the page order shouldn't create problems if there is only one navbar in the same space.

Just a shot in the dark...

[joolz]

Thanks once again Jonathan

So your statement 'Adding pages in the middle is ok' is good news and points to an error on my part

I'll do some digging based on what you have said now I know that its my issue and not the software :-)

Thanks for taking the time to comment

Julian

[joolz]

Thinking about it further you may be on to something

The way I have been creating new pages is to right click on a page in the Page Gallery and create a duplicate. This creates a new navbar -- Maybe I actually have 30 navbars instead of 1 repeated...

There certainly arn't copies on top of each other on the individual pages.

Ill create a new site from scratch and test this..... Im clearly doing something wrong here

Julian

[JONLAKE]

I know exactly what you mean now. If you add a page anywhere in the page order, other than at the end, all the sub-menu links after the new page on the navbar are changed and are no longer accurate. Only the main buttons on the navbar maintain their original links.

I reckon you're correct in saying that the only solution at present is to add new pages to the end of the page order so that they don't interfere with the navbar sub-menus.

I hadn't realized this, because i have not used drop-down menus until my latest site, and in that one, i have worked in a logical progression, so haven't had the need to add pages between others in the page order yet. Only by experimenting to replicate the issue you brought up, did i realize that this is in fact how the site-navbar works.

Perhaps there is something that both of us are missing... anyone else have a more
conclusive answer?

Ps. Don't worry that duplicating a page will create additional navbars on top of one another... it would just create one copy of the navbar from the page you duplicated, so not the cause of the problem.