Type of Navigation to use?

Forum Moderators: open

Message Too Old, No Replies

Type of Navigation to use?

pccentralny

6:45 pm on Mar 26, 2008 (gmt 0)

New to the forum but love it and have gotten many answers here in the past. I've been designing mostly static pages for about a year for different clients. Simple 5 page sites with a clean design. I'm just wondering what is the best type of Navigation to use. I design the site using CSS.

-CSS Nav
-Javascript Nav
-Custom Firework Created Nav

I mostly use CSS but when I need something a little more creative I use Fireworks to create one. But is using fireworks bad because of all the extra code (tables, img loading, ect...) that is included? Plus it sucks to update but I can be a little more creative.

Thanks!

cmarshall

7:00 pm on Mar 26, 2008 (gmt 0)

I use CSS wherever possible to do "active" navigation (like rollovers and effects).

This is because not all browsers support JS, and some companies force their users to turn it off (and some people just turn it off anyway).

Unless the page is a special page, I NEVER rely on JS as a critical aspect of my navigation. One of my tests is to turn off cookies an JS, and poke around the site.

I always roll my own, so I can't comment on Fireworks (I have it, but never use it -I always use Photoshop to prep my images).

pccentralny

7:54 pm on Mar 26, 2008 (gmt 0)

Cool thanks. Yeah I'm trying to stay away from Javascript navs and I like the ease and small file size of my CSS Navigation websites. Just wondering if anyone out there uses Fireworks to make navigation.

[edited by: pccentralny at 8:17 pm (utc) on Mar. 26, 2008]

cmarshall

8:14 pm on Mar 26, 2008 (gmt 0)

Yup. It can be done with CSS, but it isn't so simple to make it cross-browser.

I'm not a big fan of flyout menus.

BTW: You may want to disable the link before the forum mods get to it. We're not supposed to post external links [webmasterworld.com](except for some well-known ones).

Welcome to WebmasterWorld! Don't let the posting rules get to you. This is a great forum.

[edited by: cmarshall at 8:18 pm (utc) on Mar. 26, 2008]

pccentralny

8:18 pm on Mar 26, 2008 (gmt 0)

My bad. Thanks for the info though. Do you have any good tutorial sites on CSS nav? I have a few but there not the best.

Thanks!

cmarshall

8:24 pm on Mar 26, 2008 (gmt 0)

Stu Nicholls's CSS Play. There is some truly amazing stuff in there. However, it is not for the faint of heart.

SitePoint is a well-known source:

SitePoint's Tutorial [sitepoint.com]

The famed "Son of Suckerfish" menus (Can't find a single, good link, but try Googling it) are JS-based.

[edited by: encyclo at 5:16 pm (utc) on April 22, 2008]

Setek

11:25 pm on Mar 26, 2008 (gmt 0)

This stuff should probably be in the CSS forum [webmasterworld.com]...

But way back when I was learning how to write CSS Menus, I learnt from a website called Max Design [css.maxdesign.com.au] which had tutorials on the simple things, which slowly became more complicated with each sub-tutorial.

Other than that, I would just write a CSS navigation menu and have the CSS Forum lads tear it apart. I'm sure cmarshall & I would be happy to do so :)

[edited by: encyclo at 4:45 pm (utc) on April 22, 2008]

D_Blackwell

11:41 pm on Apr 9, 2008 (gmt 0)

I haven't been to Max Design a good while. Need to go back and see what's new. It was always a great resource for my purposes. No limit to what you can learn and apply from there.

<edit> Added note. </edit>
Missed the Stu Nicholl's reference. Yes, awesome. Cutting edge and not for the beginner, but setting a standard for what can and will be. And most of it works just fine even in IE right now.

Literary Moose (CSS Destroy), now logotenmoose is way out on the edge, but absolutely sound development. Want to be top gun in a few years (or even today) study at this site now. I have a site that does not even allow IE users; a private site for a small circle of friends. We all have a site that only allows Firefox or Opera users only, and what I learned from CSS Destroy goes there. (Since it doesn't work anywhere else:)) Banning IE users is as much fun as the CSS.

[edited by: encyclo at 4:48 pm (utc) on April 22, 2008]

SuzyUK

5:01 am on Apr 22, 2008 (gmt 0)

have followed the moose for ages! back when opera would only do the stuff we wanted to play with hehe.

as for menu tutorials - this search [google.com] reveals two of your very own moderators tutorials, for SE Friendly CSS menus - at the top of the SERPS ;)

[edited by: encyclo at 4:48 pm (utc) on April 22, 2008]

le_gber

3:09 pm on May 7, 2008 (gmt 0)

The famed "Son of Suckerfish" menus (Can't find a single, good link, but try Googling it) are JS-based.

Son of Suckerfish uses javascript only to make it work in IE6. If you remove /disable javascript it still works in Firefox and IE7. I've been using it a lot lately and find it quite reliable. Only had two issues.

One was on a vertical menu that had sticky popups / flyouts (known 'bug'), the other was on a horizontal menu with centred links. The flyout menus were off in IE (but that was fixed with a IE-only CSS comment.