Unread 10-17-2007, 10:39 PM
dcon64 dcon64 is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 6
  #1  
Default Help with Menus-new to dropdowns

Hello:

I am working on a pro-bono website for a local high school baseball team and decided to try using a drop down menu. I got the menu configured in the visual format that I want, but it seems to be very erratic in its functionality.

So far I've got the home page and one subpage (Schedules) built out in html. I want to make sure these are working correctly before I build out the rest of the site pages(which will be based on the "Schedules" page. The address is: http://www.studiographx.com/client/t...ite/index.html

I've tested these 2 pages on Mac: Safari and Firefox, and Windows: IE7, Netscape 6.2 and Firefox. In no single platform does the menu work 100% correctly, which has me baffled.

Mac Safari: Works the best in--some text does not show on the drop down menus(SCHEDULES)-you can see the text only when you roll over the items.

Mac Firefox: The arrow gifs don't display properly in the level 2 menu (ROSTERS>VARSITY>PLAYER PROFILES), even though I've tried numerous path links and they work OK in Safari.

Windows IE7: The dropdowns don't work at all

Windows Netscape 6: The dropdowns don't work at all

Windows Firefox: The dropdowns work, but the text is missing on some menus (SCHEDULES)-you can see the text only when you roll over the items,. The gif arrows don't display right(ROSTERS>VARSITY>PLAYER PROFILES)-again, this is odd since they work in Mac Safari.

Any help would be appreciated, as I am more of a graphic designer than a programmer, AND this is my first attempt at using a drop down menu in a website.

A bit of trivia: this is the school featured in the film "We are the Titans"

Thanks,
Don
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Unread 10-18-2007, 01:03 PM
dcon64 dcon64 is offline
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  #2  
Default Fixed Text Issue--But Menu Still Not Working in IE,NN

Dear UDM:

I found the issue with the missing text: it was a visited link color issue. But the menu is still not working in Windows IE7 and Netscape 6.2, as far as displaying the drop downs. Also, the arrow gif in the secondary menu is not always displaying correctly.

Any help on this would be appreciated.

Thanks
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Unread 10-18-2007, 08:03 PM
bcarl314 bcarl314 is offline
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  #3  
Default

Have you checked the HTML for the menu in a validator? This causes about 90% of the problems.

Try this.

http://validator.w3.org

and let me know if you get a bunch of errors on the ul / li menu.
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Unread 10-19-2007, 01:11 PM
dcon64 dcon64 is offline
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  #4  
Default Ran Page through validator

Bcrl314

Thanks for you reply. I ran my index page through validator.w3.org. The only thing it flagged was a lack of "alt" tags, but nothing wrong with the UL and LI menu tags:
------------------------
Line 39, Column 94: required attribute "ALT" not specified.
…adow_top.gif" width="802" height="20"></td>
?
The attribute given above is required for an element that you've used, but you have omitted it. For instance, in most HTML and XHTML document types the "type" attribute is required on the "script" element and the "alt" attribute is required for the "img" element.

Typical values for type are type="text/css" for <style> and type="text/javascript" for <script>.
-------------------------
I don't get it.
The menus work(except the arrow gif indicator) on Windows/Mac Firefox, but not Windows IE or NS.

The menu arrow gif indicator works only on Mac Safari, but nowhere else. Its like those browsers can't find the path to the arrow images. Why can't they find it, but Safari can?

Could it have something to do with the DocType? The page is currently set as follows:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
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Unread 10-19-2007, 08:26 PM
dcon64 dcon64 is offline
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  #5  
Default Pages check out as valid

UDM:

I ran my pages through validator.w3.org and they came though as valid html 4 transitional.

Any ideas why the menus won't work in IE or NS?

Thanks,

Don
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Unread 10-22-2007, 07:39 PM
bcarl314 bcarl314 is offline
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Posts: 141
  #6  
Default

I think there is some type of validation issue with your UL LI lists. When I replace your udm menu with the default menu, everything seems to work. I've uploaded the sample code that works for me.
Attached Files
File Type: txt sample.txt (18.8 KB, 1 views)
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Unread 10-23-2007, 02:37 PM
dcon64 dcon64 is offline
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  #7  
Default

I did some more troubleshooting:
I had a gif file acting as a seperator element in the list--a graphic showing three vertical dots to go between items in the menu bar. I had these tagged as list items as shown here:

<li><img src="images/seperator.gif" alt="seperator" width="3" height="18"></li>
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Unread 10-23-2007, 02:47 PM
dcon64 dcon64 is offline
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  #8  
Default

Sorry--my reply got cut off.

I did some more troubleshooting:
I had a gif file acting as a seperator element in the list--a graphic showing three vertical dots to go between items in the menu bar. I had these tagged as list items as shown here:

<li><img src="images/seperator.gif" alt="seperator" width="3" height="18"></li>

I removed the graphic and the menu does seem to work in Windows IE (still will not work in Windows NN 6.2). I assume this means you can't have graphics in your lists, or the dropdowns won't work--no big deal, I'll use borders to make seperators. (The graphics version did work in Mac Safari and Mac/Win Firefox)

However, the arrow on the Rosters:Varsity:Player Profiles submenu is still not working in Mac/Win Firefox. It looks like the menu can't find the path to the graphic and it is displaying a generic icon. This is odd, since it looks fine in Mac Safari and Windows IE. Any ideas on this?

The link is http://www.studiographx.com/client/t...ite/index.html

Thanks,

Don
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Unread 10-24-2007, 09:59 PM
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  #9  
Default

One thing to try would be closing the image tag...

Code:
<img src='/path/to/image.gif' />
Another thing to try might be to do something with CSS...

Code:
<li class='spacer_line'><span></span></li>
then in your CSS:

Code:
li.spacer_line {
    height:5px;
    background-image:url("/path/to/image.gif");
    background-repeat:no-repeat;
}
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