NorCascade - Another Automatic Cascading Menu for Actinic 5 or 6

[NormanRouxel]

NorCascade - Another Automatic Cascading Menu for Actinic 5 or 6 - site navigation with a single click.

This program is capable of creating a set of cascading drop down menus for navigating all the sections of an Actinic V5 or V6 site. It works with live Catalog or Business sites and also with page Previews. This is a little more modern than HV_Menu that powers NorTree and implements quite a few additional features like Drop Shadows, Semi Transparent Menus, Fade Effects, etc.

I've written a full Graphical Configuration Utility so configuration should be real easy.

This is an alternative to NorTree and uses the TwinHelix Designs ( www.twinhelix.com ) popup menu v5.2beta as the DHTML engine. You'll have to download the NorCascade package ( see www.rouxel.cwc.net/actinicstuff.html and follow the NorCascade links ) and also visit www.twinhelix.com for the core code. The TwinHelix code isn't free ( it's "Donation Ware" ) so please honour this.

Read the www.rouxel.cwc.net/norcascade/norca...integration.txt for installation instructions and www.rouxel.cwc.net/norcascade/norca...nfiguration.txt for configuration and usage help.

Norman


I was going to save this as a Christmas present but somone was just asking for transparancy so here it is a few weeks early.

[Redspan]

Hello Norman,

That's a very handy freebie. Thanks very much. I have now installed it and it's a very useful addition to my site:

http://www.redspan.com/acatalog

Happy New Year

Ben

[NormanRouxel]

You're welcome. I took a peek at your site and it's working fine. I see you used NorTree.

Norman

P.S. Do you know that you've got a lot of comments in there from Actinic? These are useful when debugging a new site but make the pages quite big.

If you go to Design / Options / Misc. and check "Compact HTML/CGI" then the pages will be much smaller.

[a_j]

norman,

I dl'd norcascade and followed instructions in the 'intergration.txt'

how do I get the menu to appear on a page?

thanks,

amit

[NormanRouxel]

You should also read the Configuration readme and run the NorCascade program to set up some files on your Site pages.

If that doesn't work then post a URL so I can have a look.

Norman

[a_j]

norman, I sent u a message via yr profile on this board. did u get it???

amit

[NormanRouxel]

Yes. They're in there with the other 865 unread messages.

After a brief look you seem to be directly asking me to help you completely re-work your site (no mention if you want to pay for such effort either).

Requests for my direct help for things the Forum deals with get a very low priority here.

You'd be much better posting this to the forum as a new topic e.g. "Site Redesign Wanted" and letting everyone CHOOSE to look at it rather than sending directly to someone and EXPECTING them to look.

Norman

[pinbrook]

I second Norman's feelings here. Whilst Norman, myself and others are more than happy to help people out in the forum we do this quite voluntarily.

Like Norman I too have to ignore all private pleas for help, otherwise I would be inundated.

Please allow us developers choose which questions we answer....we feel good then!!

[a_j]

point taken... apologies

[Tony Moore]

Originally posted by NormanRouxel

If you go to Design / Options / Misc. and check "Compact HTML/CGI" then the pages will be much smaller.

Hi Norman, is it generally wise to do this on any Actinic site?

Thanks

[pinbrook]

yes it is .....

I tend to have uncompacted code whilst in development so I can see the code, then before uploading I compact it

[Tony Moore]

Thanks I'll do that right away


Originally posted by pinbrook
yes it is .....

I tend to have uncompacted code whilst in development so I can see the code, then before uploading I compact it

[ewolff]

I have to say, your programs are top-notch. I am integrating NorCascade into a current project and it looks great.

[Mike Hughes]

I did notice on redpans site that you have to watch out for how it behaves in smaller browser windows.

If it doesn't have room in the window to open a third level menu then it seems to overlap the second level menu, making it impossible to get at other items on the second level menu.

OK. I just checked this again and it actually appears to only be a problem on the 'dlink' submenu's. looks like it may be a bug (or configuration error). What happens is that when you hover over the second level menu, the second level text is repeated to the left of the menu and the third level stuff is written on top of the original second level menu. Very Strange behaviour.

Mike

P.S. please excuse my terminology. I hope it's clear, but it'll probably only make sense if you go and look at it.

[NormanRouxel]

Redspan is actually using the older NorTree menu and not this threads NorCascade.

I think he just has a fundamental problem in that his menu descriptions are so long (at every level) that there's probably no feasible way of displaying them all on smallish windows.

You could use skinnier but taller cells for the second and subsequent levels and that may help.

NorCascade does allow for different cell sizes for each of the 1st 3 levels so that may be also of some use.

Norman

[ewolff]

Is there any wat to do that without going in and writing the code for each subsection?

[NormanRouxel]

Eric,

Are you writing about NorCascade or NorTree? As there are now several conversations going on here simultaneously could you let me know exactly what you need to achieve.

Ta . . . Norman

[ewolff]

I am using NorCascade. The store I am developing has eight main categories. Some of the categories have a long name (Aquatic Supplies) and some are small (Apparel). I would like to be able to specify the width for each of the top level cells so the nav bar is not so big. I would pont you to an example of what I am working on, but it is on a server behind a firewall which does not allow outside access.

[NormanRouxel]

I assume you have a horizontal layout of the top-level cells and want to make some of them smaller when they contain less text.

Unfortunately the way these menus are generated requires all cells at the same level to be the same size.

Norman

[NormanRouxel]

Actually It can be done but you'll need to patch the JavaScript.

In your Site folder (usually site 1) edit norcascade_pop_tail.js

look for the line

var link = urls[I].sURL;

Add the following code underneath it.

// Auto Width of Horizontal Menus patch
if ( (! orientation) && AutoWidth )
{
var thistext = names[I].sName.replace(/&#\d+;/g,"-"); // replace escape sequences with minus
var numchars = thistext.length;
LineHeight = Math.floor((CharWidth * numchars) + Buffer);
}


Save that file.


Run NorCascade

In Advanced / Extra Vars add the lines.

var CharWidth = 7; // width of a character in pixels
var AutoWidth = true; // true enables auto width or false disables
var Buffer = 15; // padding to add to all lines


Now do Save Settings / Create Vars and you should have auto width horizontal menus.

You can adjust the character spacing by setting CharWidth higher or lower. Fractional values are OK.

Buffer add some extra spacing to allow for navigation icons. Use integer values.

You can turn off the feature by setting AutoWidth to false


Norman

[ewolff]

You are the man. If I lived near you, I'd buy you a beer.

Thanks for the help.

[NormanRouxel]

I've now added the Auto Size option for horizontal menus to the download. You can now configure via the GUI it for each menu level. See www.rouxel.cwc.net/actinicstuff.html for the update info.


Norman