drop down menus

[covoxer]

Some clarifications.

The reserved names that you want to remember for this tutorial are as follows:
MouseOff, MouseOver, and MouseDown.

MouseOff is not reserverd. This layer name means nothing to WD. It's just a marginally chosen name for a usual static layer that we have in our templates. It can be renamed to anything else.
Every name that starts with "MouseOver" or "MouseDown", with any number of leading spaces and case not sensitive, is a special layer name that identifies the Rollover layer.
For example: " mOuSeOveR 9934 x24" - is also a reserved name.

Then create another layer called MouseOver popup1. Notice that MouseOver has a space before popup1.

This space is not required. So that the "MouseOver_popup1", or even "mouseoverPOPUP1" are also legal names for the Rollover layers.

If you made the layer without the space, then the MouseOver effect would not work.

This is not true.

[Xhris]

The video that shows on YouTube is hard to understand and is very fast and the information I was reading seems very complicated.

Hmm, maybe I should think of a better way to instruct this in a new video. Might do two: a really basic one with one button and a more complex one more representative of a full navbar with all mouse over/off states and gloss and stuff.

[razzle0146]

John,

Thanks for clearing my mistakes up.. From my understanding, I thought that the MouseOver and MouseDown had to be seperated from any other characters.. Guess I should have tried it before posting it... I knew someone would come along and pick the post apart for me.... Thank you and all that you do to help us better undersdtand XWD... Everyday is a learning adventure...

[Sheila]

Having difficulty under:

Part 1
Getting layers to interact with one another (the fourth dot).

After several attempts I am unable to get the button to disappear off the canvas, I did the cut and paste and still could not get the button to disappear.

Part 2
Q: How can the MouseOver Popup1 be highlighted when you have to go to popup1 and right click (only one thing at a time can be highlighted)?

Q: When I right click on the popup1 button and select copy the Layer name says Copy of popup1, what do I do with this copy?

Q. In the end do I replace Popup1 with the name of one of my links?

I think I'm going to be on this subject for a while - I need to get this right for now and future web sites. Thanks for your help
Sheila

[razzle0146]

Sheila,

As for the first problem, on the layers gallery select the popup1 layer to make sure it is highlighted, then select the button, then on the layers gallery click move and that will move the button to the correct layer.

Second part, when I say click on the button and select copy, I mean right click on the button and select copy from the popupmenu, don't select copy from the layers pallete. Otherwise you will get the same results that you are getting now...

As for highlighting items in the layer gallery... You click on a layer and it shows you that by highlighting it in blue, then you click on a button and the button is selected, if you look at the layer gallery, you will see that the layer is still selected, but instead of being blue it is gray... That is what we want and what I mean in my post...

In the end you can rename popup1 to whatever you want, just be sure to update your web properties also, otherwise your popup will no longer work..

[himagain]

EEEK!
I didn't think for one moment that drop down menus would be soooo difficult in X.
The excellent informative help given by razzle 0146 is unfortunately, more like a short novel!

Could we use as an alternative an external simple program like from http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex1/
or even http://coffeecup.com ?

I haven't even looked into this aspect yet as I just would not have expected it, but I like most - certainly need drop down menus....

Himagain
The eternal search for perfection .... just cut n' paste.

[covoxer]

They are simple. Very simple. You just have to understand how to make them. The step-by-step instructions may be as long as you want though.

Forget about them. Think about it - every dropping down menu is just a popup layer. That simple!

You'll have to learn what the popup layer is and what the rollower layer is. These are main concepts of all the visualisation effects made with WD. If you don't know how to create a popup layer and how to use rollovers, you'll never understand any step by step tutorial on menu creation. So I suggest you open the help and read about popups and rollovers. And when you understand it, you'll be able to easily create not only multi level menus but a lot of interesting effects! Without tutorials.

Good luck!

[himagain]

Hi John,
I've only got 3 weeks left of a project that requires a lot of research, editing, proofing and small matter of a new design in a new program (X) ....... oh, and 40,000 words of original content.
Fatal error: boasted a week ago that after looking at X demo, I would finish in a month... "no worries", as we say downunder as the crocodile tries to roll you over....

Think I do need to know if I can just plop the dhtml code in as it is ..... just cut n' paste.

[cursor]

Hi himagain.

Can you provide either a written description, or a prepared graphic, that
clearly outlines how you would like your navigation controls to work. Perhaps we folks can help you work through an example that is directly applicable to your current project.

[Sheila]

Hi Razzle:

Thank you so much for all your help and the steps for dropdown menus. I looked up popups and rollovers and read the people's comments and looked over the manual. I'm still not getting it.

I'm the type of person that needs exact steps - very detailed like learning court reporting. I will be using a lot of dropdown menu's like the web sites I put together with Webstyle 4 example: www.thetruthisinjesus.com. I feel that I can't continue on with my website in XWD until I get the concept of how to do the dropdowns.

I get most of Part 1: I did go to the layer gallery and clicked move and I'm stuck from there. I wish someone would put a video together what the steps are so we can keep reviewing the video until we get it. If one step is left out we won't get it. Help.