Mega Menu

[Brightstar]

Hi Everyone,

I am looking to implement a menu (mega menu?) something like the one here:

http://www.johnlewis.com/

Has anyone done this in Actinic, is it difficult, is there a plugin or software anyone can recommend?

[JGLIGHTING]

There used to be a pugin on Teclan's website but i can not find it now, so you could try and contact them to see if they still do it.

The way I would do it is find a menu in google that i like and then hard code it in to Actinic. Not the best way as there is a lot of work setting it up and you need to change the menu code every time you change a section.

Here is a couple that i found

http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menus/ipad-droplist-delay.html

http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menus/pro-droplist.html

Someone could do or make a more automatic menu so there will be less coding to do for you.

Elliott

[leehack]

Anything other than an automatic solution in this area is suicide, find a menu you like that works with plain html and you're halfway there at least. Actinic can relatively easily be made to produce the html you need. Manual maintaining navigation is a recipe for disaster, if you have to do it, make sure you xenu link sleuth.

[malbro]

Someone could do or make a more automatic menu so there will be less coding to do for you.

Elliott

Some time ago Gabe published some PHP code to generate menus, that code can be easily modified to auto generate a menu structure such as the one at John Lewis from a standard Actinic section layout. This would remove the need to hard code the menu content.

[NormanRouxel]

You got me interested and I've started on one based on Mega Menu.

See http://www.drillpine.biz/v10-multicolumn_menu/ for the test site. Only the Electronics section is populated.

Email me if you want to try a copy.

[jont]

The tabs across the top of http://www.cookingexpert.co.uk/ are fully automated from the Actinic sections and subsections

[NormanRouxel]

Jont. Great minds, eh! I used the same MegaMenu. Had to add some tweaks so that the user could define the number of second level sections to show across the page and to reposition the menu if the rightmost item had many columns. Also gave it a 3-level capability.

[jont]

The biggest challenge on the courses tab was due to the large number of subsections it contains and getting them to flow into 3 columns automatically.

For note the usual block if range declaration eg >= 10 AND <20 would not work in a list setting calling sections and subsections from a block so had to use 2 separate block if to test the greater than and a child block if to test the less than.... another little quirk of Actinic.

[NormanRouxel]

Jont. I added a variable that lets you choose the maximun number of columns, settable globally or per top-section. That way the user can decide how to display each top-level entry.

[fergusw]

The biggest challenge on the courses tab was due to the large number of subsections it contains and getting them to flow into 3 columns automatically.

Our latest Mega Menu has multiple options for users to configure it:
e.g.
- Users can set the number of top level menu items that appear
i.e. If they had 20 top level sections they can choose the top X to show, with the remaining sections appearing in the last drop down
- Users can set the minimum number of items per menu "column"
- Users can set the preferred number of columns
- Users can set the min width for each column

These last three options basically allow for a very flexible menu which dynamically changes based on what has be configured.

e.g.
- With columns set to 3 and minimum number of items in column set to 3:
If section had 4 sub-sections then there would only be 2 columns showing, 1st with 3 and 2nd with 1.
If section had 9 sub-sections then there would be 3 columns with 3 items in each
If section had 12 sub-sections then it would fix at 3 columns therefore each column would have to contain 4 items.
If section had 30 sub-sections then there would be 3 columns with 10 items in each

and so on. Not yet a plugin available online, but coming soon!

[jont]

Jont. I added a variable that lets you choose the maximun number of columns, settable globally or per top-section. That way the user can decide how to display each top-level entry.

Yep - that's how I handled the second version I did should I ever get my slack arse around to releasing all these as plug-ins rather than using them for client builds.

[jont]

Not yet a plugin available online, but coming soon!

I have that phrase copyrighted

[fergusw]

I have that phrase copyrighted

Oops - Sorry Jont.

"Not yet a plugin available online, but coming soon!" (© Jont!)


I'll post an example up today

[NormanRouxel]

Mine is available now. Fully integrates with some of the modern Themes and picks up their colouring. Highly configurable and can optionally incorporate the Brochure pages.

See http://www.drillpine.biz/v10-multicolumn_menu/ for a demo.

Details on http://www.drillpine.biz/actinicstuff/

[fergusw]

I'll post an example up today

As stated, two examples here:
http://www.teclan.com/examples/megamenu/index.html
(suitable for sites with the need to show top level and only 1 sub section level)

http://www.teclan.com/examples/megamenuv2/index.html
(suitable for sites who want top level, sub section and sub-sub section levels displayed)

Both have a simply 3 step copy/paste install and allow configuration of the menus e.g. number of columns, what sections to exclude, width of columns etc.

Norman, your menu really good Norman. I like the inclusion of the brochure page list in there, along side the sub-section headers with sub-sub-section list menus.

A selection of different ways to do this. We're spoilt for choice!