Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/29551 Post a follow up: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/29551 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: menu system Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: nedjo Updated by: Crell Status: patch (code needs review) I would much prefer the danwebb approach on simple usability and accessibility reasons. On-hover menu appearance is very bad, from a usability perspective, and the deeper the menu the worse it is. Even assuming all of the position detection is working perfectly, the user still has to then be very careful in how he moves his mouse. One slight slip off track and the menus all close and shift and change on him. That pisses me off to no end when dealing with Start Menu-type menus. :-) If a person doesn't have very good fine motor control in their hands, then slipping off track is almost guaranteed. In contrast, the danwebb approach is click-based. It doesn't matter how you move the mouse to get there, just the click itself. That's much more user-friendly and accessible. It also means the new menu items persist for as long as the user wants them. If I'm just browsing through various options, that's much easier as I don't need to keep perfect balance on my mouse hand, and can even switch away to an IM window or similar without losing my place. Crell Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 24 Aug 2005 15:43:24 +0000 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/expandable_menu.patch (2.16 KB) One or more unneeded page loads are often required to bring up the desired page through the navigation menu (e.g., administer > settings > content types). Using CSS, this patch introduces automatically expanding menu options. E.g., holding the mouse over "create content" will dynamically expand the menu, revealing the available options ("page", "story", etc.). Issues & questions: * Is this a desired behaviour? * Page loads are slightly larger, since they include hidden menu portions. * Not supported by, e.g., Internet Explorer due to CSS bugs. Downgrades cleanly, but means that functionality is not uniform across browsers. A js IE fix is available, see e.g., http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dropdowns/ but it's a big ugly. * Display is a bit jumpy. Slideouts or slowed transitions might be nice, but would I assume require javascript. * Introduced as the default behaviour, not as an option. Should this be a configuration option instead? The approach is based on suggestions and code [1] for the taxonomy_context module by eferraiuolo [2]. [1] http://drupal.org/node/29074 [2] http://drupal.org/user/24218\" title=\"View user profile. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 24 Aug 2005 16:45:37 +0000 : ica I might be wrong beause of my lack of knowledge coding but zirafa's example here with togglediv might be the solution for Auto-expand navigation instead alistapart's? http://www.drupalart.org/togglediv (Altough alistapart of a site/coders who practice elegancy with fine coding to high standard to inspire -imho) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 24 Aug 2005 17:00:50 +0000 : m3avrck If we are going to include a script, I would recommend this one: http://www.htmldog.com/articles/suckerfish/dropdowns/ Uses no additional markup and only requires the use of one extra class for the effect to work in IE. Requires a small, 12 line JS file to work in IE. Works perfectly, super easy, clean, and standards compliant. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 24 Aug 2005 17:28:25 +0000 : fajerstarter Altough I think it's a really good idea and really could improve the navigation (this is one thing that's always bugging me, 4 clicks just to change that little thing), it's not that good for usability. If just css had a delay effect... Try for example to go from top to down to click the administrator link. Impossible I would say; you have to go from bottom up or else it dissapears. I think for this to be really useful we need some kind of javascript. And then this gets much more complicated (and debated). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 24 Aug 2005 17:31:06 +0000 : m3avrck That's why I suggested this other method for creating the XHTML and then the additional JS for IE. It works great, and with the proper tweaking of the CSS (e.g., padding mainly) it works almost flawlessly. I'm using it in a current project with 3 layers of menus with no usability problems. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 24 Aug 2005 17:42:07 +0000 : fajerstarter With the chance that I've misunderstood: Suckerfish et al. for me is menus that pop-up and shows a new "layer", either downwards or left/right. This patch makes the menu expand and pushes the content below down, as the current menus work, and IMO this is how it should work. Have you tried the patch? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 24 Aug 2005 18:22:40 +0000 : m3avrck Well I haven't had a chance to try that patch yet. However, the ALA code is for a menu popup "layer" as well. However, I do agree, "pushing" the content downwards is a much better aproach. And with that, I present a much better (and related!) JS code approach: http://www.danwebb.net/lab/archives/000018.html ... this would make navigating those menus much easier and it can auto-expand to whatever Drupal has labeled as "current" too. This would be very slick. Hmm, need some time to play around but I would recommend this approach.