| Depending on the type of menus you're going to build,
certain preparations need to be made to your web site.
DHTML Menu Builder can be used to
create a toolbar, or you can create menus which appear using
elements that already exist on your web pages.
If you're going to use a toolbar created by DHTML Menu Builder,
there's no need to do any additional preparations to the pages
on your web site and you may continue to the next section: Project Properties
Using your own text and graphics
One of the most unique features of DHTML Menu Builder is the
ability to attach menus to text or graphics which you have already
placed in your web pages.
This feature lets you build your own custom toolbar using your
favorite image editing program, and then have the menus react
when the user activates an element from your toolbar. It is
important to understand that the toolbar is the only element of a
menu that is always visible to the user and its design should be consistent
with the general layout and design of your web site.
When using your own toolbar, you
need to set up each hotspot in a special way so than DHTML Menu Builder
can later attach the menu groups to them. This
setup is known as converting the hotspots into null hyperlinks.
Converting your hotspots into null hyperlinks
A hotspot can be an image or just some text. To convert your
hotspot into a null hyperlink, simply create a hyperlink on that
element and make it point to itself; this is done by using
a hash (or pound sign) character "#" as the target of the link.
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Let's say this is one
of the images you're going to use to display a menu.
The HTML code of the image looks like this:
<img border="0" src="images/sample_image.gif"
align="middle" width="50"
height="33"> |
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After converting the
image into a null hyperlink the code looks like this:
<a href="#"><img
border="0" src="images/sample_image.gif"
align="middle" width="50"
height="33" name="MyImage"></a>
As you can see, by moving the mouse over the converted
image, your mouse changes into a hand
indicating that the image is a link. Highlighted in dark
red you can see the code that converted the image into
a null hyperlink.
Also note that we have added a new setting,
name, to the image's code.
The name setting will allow
DHTML Menu Builder identify the image and perform automatic
alignment of the menus. You should give each image-based
hotspot a unique name so DHTML Menu Builder can identify it. |
This is all the preparation that needs to be done, so when you are
ready to implement your menus into the page that contains the
toolbar, everything will be ready to use the HotSpots Editor and
automatically make your hotspots
active and responsive to users' actions.
Once you have your web site prepared with all your hotspots
converted into null hyperlinks, you can now move to the next section
and start preparing your menus in DHTML Menu Builder: Project Properties
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