nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Menu Builder

ziggy1

Are any one of you using some sort of menu builder to control the navigation on your sites ?
I´ve been working on creating one, using teamsite templating. It allows a menu with 3 levels and a presentation template that creates XML for the whole menu.
I don´t know DHTML very well so I am not sure how I am going to use the XML, but that´s another problem Smiley Wink

The thing that is troubling me is the DCT. It becomes so complicated when the menu grows... and it is almost impossible to see the relationship between the elements, what subelements belong to what elements !

I was wondering if there was any way to alter the DCT page in a way to make it more readable.

I already tried to change a CSS, where I am able to change the color of the subelements, but the "padding" doesn´t seem to work, which is kind of the thing I need.

Perhaps what I need is something totally different !
What are you guys using to maintain your navigation, just plain HTML ? or is anyone trying to do a simular thing ?

Perhaps there are some neat external tools I could use instead. Anybody know about a good one ?

//Ziggy

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Comments

akshathp

Yes, your idea about using Templating for this is nice. And ofcourse with the use of callouts you can create dynamic menus as per users choice.

For one project I developed javascripts to create menubars and items within them. But that was way back in business. But now there are zillion tools available for downloads which give you a UI to drag and drop items and create a dhtml menubar. It will generate Javascript code for you on its own and that you can place in your toolkit for your site.

I recently checked a menubuilder tool called "AllWebMenus". Try searching for it on web and they have free downloads too (not sure if they still have it or not).

Hope this helps!

Akshat Pramod Sharma
Interwoven Inc.

ela

Hi,
I know this thread is old, but the issue has become relevant to us, as we would like to look at other ways of creating and maintaining our website menus. I would be very happy if somebody could share their experiences on how to create dynamic menus, preferably with use of TeamSite Templating, or if you've got tipps about good menu builders (software). I've found several freeware or licensed menu builders on internet, have downloaded 2-3 free trials, but haven't really found the thing yet!

Our present solution is actually not bad ! ;-) We have a template with text fields for:
- menu ID
- content ID
- title in German
- title in French
- title in Italian
- sequence (text area; comma separated listing of submenu ID's)

In TeamSite we've got a structure with Level1, Level2 and Level3 menu files (i.e. main menus, submenus, sub-submenus). It's quite easy to create and maintain every single menu, but the drawback is the lack of a total overview. Perhaps creating an index of all the menus could be an option. What have others done?

On the web application server it basically works like this: the content and menu metadata is added in a database when the files get published. A menu appears only if the content exists, and the current language parameter decides in which language the menu title appears. The submenus are opened when the parent menu is clicked. Instead of this we would like to have mouseover dropdowns, for instance like on this page http://www.interwoven.com/solutions/ (upper main navigation).

What did YOU do?

Eldbjoerg

ela

Nobody with menus???

ela

I would appreciate to hear from somebody!!!

gzevin

what do you want to hear?

e.g. I've implemented a SSI-based menu builder that leaves HTML pages intact and lets you include new menu items/subcategories, etc without any need to regenerate the rest of the web site...

Greg Zevin, Ph.D. Comp. Sc.
Independent Interwoven Consultant/Architect
Sydney, AU

ela

THANK YOU!

I'm so happy to get an input!!!

Sounds like a very good solution. Could you provide some more details about the software? Did you buy it or did you write it yourself?

gzevin

it's been implemented under my guidance (I did some initial coding as well) in a number of accounts using TeamSite Templating and sometimes using some special workflows to propagate the changes. Even though I met some initial 'business' resistance in a few cases, the solution is gaining momentum, and is to be employed by my current client for a number of sites.

Greg Zevin, Ph.D. Comp. Sc.
Independent Interwoven Consultant/Architect
Sydney, AU

cmatsyk

Sounds great! Do you use TS to manage that file(s)? Does it hadle publish and expire dates of the content, etc.?

gzevin

yes, it's Teamsite of course.. As for the copntent expiry - it's also done in TeamSite, but has nothing to do with the menus themselves

actually, yesterday I spoke to a former client of mine - they also are thinking about some sort of a visual menu builder... even though they are using my SSI technique at the moment (and modifying it slightly).. because when you have multiple sites, you need something of a CAD... to build the menus

Greg Zevin, Ph.D. Comp. Sc.
Independent Interwoven Consultant/Architect
Sydney, AU

ela

Do you then normally create the whole menu tree in one DCR, or a main menu with sub menus in one DCR, or each menu in separate DCRs?

We have 5 sites at the moment, most of them in three languages. I've browsed and downloaded some trial versions of menu builders, but so far I haven't found any which manage easy creation of multilingual menus. If you or others have tips about that it would be great.

Cheers,
Eldbjoerg

gzevin

In my solution I've got everything in one DCR (we call it 'primary nav component'). And I could see that you can add multiiple language menu names there.. easy...

In the other (older) site there is a different component, that uses a few DCRs

Greg Zevin, Ph.D. Comp. Sc.
Independent Interwoven Consultant/Architect
Sydney, AU

ela

WOW, you're really fast!!!

Thanks a lot! I'll try it out with one DCR for the whole stuff. I was afraid it would then be a quite large DCR, but a redesign of the sites with e lot less menus is planned, so that would make this a good solution I think.

By the way. are you working 24 hrs a day???

gzevin

well

some people might think so, but I don't

Greg Zevin, Ph.D. Comp. Sc.
Independent Interwoven Consultant/Architect
Sydney, AU