Creating Menus
A  DHTML Menu Builder menu is comprised of three items:
  • Groups
    The groups are containers and control the space used to hold commands and separators.
  • Commands
    These are the basic items of your menus. The commands are the options that user selects to navigate through your web site using the menus.
  • Separators
    The separators are a special kind of command whose only purpose is to create a separation, with a thin line, between two commands.

In other words, a Project is made of menus. Each menu is made of groups that contain commands and separators.
The illustration below diagrams this relationship:

Since it is the most general item, the project controls the way the menus will work on your web site. The group is a container; it controls the background color, images and borders of the menus. The commands control the actions of the menus; the color and font used by the menus is also controlled at this level.

Of course, these are just the most basic settings of each item. Later on in this Help, you will find that DHTML Menu Builder provides unprecedented formatting options to let you make your menus look exactly they way you want them to appear.


Adding, Renaming and Deleting Groups

After a  project is created, you must next create a group. Once you have created a group, you will then be able to add commands and separators to it and this will complete the creation of a menu.

A project can have as many menus as you need.

To add a group, do any one of the following steps:

  • On the Menu menu, click Add Group.
  • Press the F6 shortcut key.
  • Click the Add Group icon from the toolbar.

When you create a group, DHTML Menu Builder will add an entry in the left side of the main window and will wait for you to type a name. This name is an internal reference for DHTML Menu Builder and is independent of the actual caption of the added item. Both the name and the caption can be the same if you wish.

After entering the name of the group, DHTML Menu Builder will auto fill the Caption property for you. Change it if you need to. The Caption is the actual text that will be displayed when your menu is viewed with a browser.

To rename the group, just select it and then choose Rename from the Edit menu. Alternatively, after selecting the group name, you can also press F2 or just click it again (after a short pause so it is not interpreted as a double-click) and you can edit in place. Note that if you have already set the caption for a group, DHTML Menu Builder will not update its caption when you rename the group.

To delete a group, select it and then choose Delete from the Edit  menu.
It is important to note that when you delete a group, you will always delete any command(s) created under it. This is because groups are containers that hold commands; if you delete the container, all the commands under it are deleted as well.

To learn more about groups, click here.

Adding, Renaming and Deleting Commands

In order to create commands, you need to have at least one group in your project.
Each command represents an option in your menu. Commands can have actions associated with them to perform functions when a user activates them with the mouse.

A command can instruct the browser to open a page (and optionally to display it in a new browser window), to send an email,or to display another group and create what is known as a submenu.

To add a command, do  any one of the following steps:

  • On Menu menu, click Add Command (or click Add Separator to add a separator).
  • Press the F7 shortcut key (or press the SHIFT+F7 shortcut key to add a separator).
  • Click the Add Command icon from the toolbar (or click the Add Separator icon to add a separator).

Right after the command entry has been added, DHTML Menu Builder will let you name the command. Again, this name is just an internal name used by DHTML Menu Builder and is not the actual text that will be displayed on the menus when these are viewed on your web site with a browser. To change the text to be displayed for this item, just change the caption.

To rename a command, just click over it to select it and then select Edit form the menu and then Rename.
Note that if you have already set the caption of this item, DHTML Menu Builder will not update its caption.

To rename a command, just select it and then choose Rename from the Edit menu. Alternatively, after selecting the command name, you can also press F2 or just click it again (after a short pause so it is not interpreted as a double-click) and you can edit in place. Note that if you have already set the caption for a command, DHTML Menu Builder will not update its caption when you rename the command.

To delete a command, select it and then choose Delete from the Edit  menu.

To learn  more about commands click here.