Navigation Bars/Menus

[mathare]

I have a feeling this isn't that hard to do really but I am struggling so I have come here for help.

I am in the process of creating my own website and to be quite honest I am struggling. I have all the content in my head and some of it written up already. But I am struggling with the navigation.

It has been recommended to me that I use pages with a 2x2 table on, with the top 2 cells merged to give me a title bar and the bottom left cell can then be my navigation bar with the main content going in the bottom right cell. I understand that much.

Ideally I would like two different methods of navigating around the site:
1) a navigation bar on the left hand side that can expand/collapse like a folder structure in Windows Explorer, i.e.

Home
Page1
Page2
Sub-page1
Page3
Sub-page2
Sub-page3
Sub-page4

2) a navigation system at the top of the main content area along the lines of:

my_site > page3 > sub_page2

where page3 would be a link to the relevant page and my_site would be a link to the site's home page.

How on earth do I go about implementing these? :doh

I have had a brief play about in Dreamweaver and FrontPage and neither seemed to do what I wanted very easily.

I'm very keen to get this sorted as then I will be happier getting on with the rest of the site so any help is very much appreciated

[MarcusMel]

You coud try starting with a dropdown box as with the fast links shown on the main page of this site.

[zomby]

Hi Mat,

1) You'll need to get a javascript or DHTML scirpt to do that stuff - I'll post a link to sample code if permission is granted from the powers that be.

2) That's simple enough to do (if I understand what you're asking) but I'm not sure why you'd want to have links down the side of the page and the same links along the top of the page.

[MarcusMel]

Yeah its ok to post code. If you doit right the forum will actually run the code!

[zomby]

I was gonna post the link to a tree-menu script....ie:

http://www.treemenu.net/

There's some demos of the different things it can do in the err...uhhh "demo" section :)


Link allowed - Moderator Marcus

[zomby]

If the previous link didn't look very good, try the menus at:

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex1/index.html

There's a bunch of them there. Some of them have "wizards" that will create the code for you.

[mathare]

Cheers all. I'll have a proper look at the links later.

Zomby - the reason for the two nav bars is they contain slightly different information. The top nav bar would provide links to the parent page and home page only whereas the side nav would offer links to all pages at the same level as the current page and all pages at the parent level.

[MarcusMel]

How about one link to a site map with all the links on that page?

[vegyjones]

Pages and links...

are we talking Home Made Christmas Decorations??? :doh

[mathare]

How about one link to a site map with all the links on that page?
I could do but I'm not that keen on site maps. I know some people prefer top navs and others like side navs so I was trying to cover both options at once

[vegyjones]

In other words Mat,

you're just being greedy! :D

[MarcusMel]

Personally when it comes to web pages the less clutter the better IMHO. I tend to get put off when I see load of moving pictures and words. I want to look, quickly comprehend and move on. - Hmmm this should go in the rant section:D

[mathare]

Personally when it comes to web pages the less clutter the better IMHO. I tend to get put off when I see load of moving pictures and words. I want to look, quickly comprehend and move on. - Hmmm this should go in the rant section:D
I know exactly what you mean MM and I thoroughly agree. I will be keeping to a minimum the pictures that take ages to load. There will be no huge images as backgrounds either. Fancy fonts will be kept to a minimum too.

I am after good clear content that is easy to see, read and understand making up a site that is easy to navigate, hence the top and side navs.

Then when I code it all up and find it means none of those aims I will rewrite it all :box