The first thing
Web Programming need for the drop down navigation menu is to put the following JavaScript function somewhere in your web page, before the actual menu itself. For example, you can put it in the <head> section of your document, or if you prefer, immediately before the drop down menu itself (see later). The function takes a single argument - the form object. It then proceeds to extract the selected value from the object and load the page from that URL.
Please change the "baseurl" given above to the domain name of your site. I did not terminate the URL with a slash because all my filenames in the menu below start with the slash. If you terminate your URL here with a slash, do not start your filenames below with a slash.
If your site is designed with frames, you will need to use "top.location.href" instead of "location.href" if you want the new document to replace your all your frames. You can leave it as it is if you want the document to appear in the current frame. Alternatively, if you want it to be in another frame (sibling of the one in which the menu appears), just replace "location.href" with "parent.your_frame.location.href" where "your_frame" is the frame named "your_frame".
Now for the menu itself. Since the exact URLs for your menu and the names of the pages will differ for your site, you should modify the code given below for your situation. Please note the following about the menu code above: This menu code goes into the portion of your web page where you want your menu to appear, The action attribute for the <form> tag is required under HTML. Since our form never uses it, you can place some dummy value there, as I have done above, It is helpful to put something like "Select a Page" as the first item in the menu so that visitors looking at the drop down box will know that it is a menu. I have set the "selected" attribute as well for that item to ensure that it is shown as the default selection when the page loads, The "Miscellaneous" menu item illustrates the use of subtitles or separators in the menu. They serve as organising tools to help visitors see the various sections in the menu. Many modern browsers will recognise the "disabled" attribute and not allow visitors to select that item. However, if you want to be sure, you can set the value of such item to your main page or your site index. And You will, of course, have to change the filenames in each of the option "value" tags as well as the description of those files.
03-10-2009, 05:56 PM
Constructing Your Drop-Down Menu
Linear Mode
