FP2003 navigation help

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bobby_M
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Bobby_M

I'm still trying to learn the nuances of frontpage and wanted to get
confirmation on my assumptions.

My goal is to try to have a single source for my nav links so that I
don't have to do much to change say 20 pages at one time. Part of the
problem is, I think I want to use DHTML multi-level navigation that I
don't think FP03 supports using the built in links. Just as an example.
I might have a link called "photo gallery" and that photo gallery also
have many sub-pages called "vacations", "family", "projects", etc.
Rather than have all these subpages linked as literal and fully visible
buttons on all pages, It would be better to have these sublinks appear
when you click or mouseover on the gallery button. The only other thing
I can think of is to create a separate nav bar on the gallery pages
with links to the same level pages.

First, I assume the "insert nav bar" based on the nav structure only
works well as a main nav bar across all pages when you use shared
borders. That is, you can't insert a nav bar into a standalone HTML
page and include that into all your pages via INCLUDE PAGE and still
have the links built via the internal page structure. Correct?

I'm going to assume my best option for having a multi-level nav bar is
to use a canned downloadable script that places the actual link
information in a standalone file that I can update once and using page
includes on each page. Am I missing anything?

Thanks a lot for any insight you can share.

Bobby
 
If you're not using frames for some other valid reason, the best way is to
put your navigation links in a shared border. You can edit that border in
one place for all pages. It'll be found in the folder "_borders."

Next, you want cascading menus. One solution is to use layers, which can be
made visible/invisible on such events as mouseover. For this and many other
features of FP, I like "Using Front Page 2003" by Colligan & Cheshire (Que
books), where the whole menu thing is laid out on pp. 514-516.

Nevertheless, I often just link to a page that offers the next level of
links, because I can qualify those links with a bit of text. Since the
shared borders are always present, the user can pop right back to a
top-level page without backing through the second-level links. And you
should always put a [home] link on the nav bar, of course.

I never use the nav bar option. I feel they look better if you create your
own buttons in a border. FP2003's Interactive Buttons feature is good, if
you don't have fancy ideas about button design.
 
Interactive buttons will not work as expected in shared borders.
Shared Borders are deprecated in FP2003 - use a Dynamic Web Template
instead which has none of the problems, and many advantages.
--
Ron Symonds - Microsoft MVP (FrontPage)
Reply only to group - emails will be deleted unread.
FrontPage Support: http://www.frontpagemvps.com/

Thor said:
If you're not using frames for some other valid reason, the best way is
to put your navigation links in a shared border. You can edit that
border in one place for all pages. It'll be found in the folder
"_borders."

Next, you want cascading menus. One solution is to use layers, which can
be made visible/invisible on such events as mouseover. For this and many
other features of FP, I like "Using Front Page 2003" by Colligan &
Cheshire (Que books), where the whole menu thing is laid out on pp.
514-516.

Nevertheless, I often just link to a page that offers the next level of
links, because I can qualify those links with a bit of text. Since the
shared borders are always present, the user can pop right back to a
top-level page without backing through the second-level links. And you
should always put a [home] link on the nav bar, of course.

I never use the nav bar option. I feel they look better if you create
your own buttons in a border. FP2003's Interactive Buttons feature is
good, if you don't have fancy ideas about button design.


Bobby_M said:
I'm still trying to learn the nuances of frontpage and wanted to get
confirmation on my assumptions.

My goal is to try to have a single source for my nav links so that I
don't have to do much to change say 20 pages at one time. Part of the
problem is, I think I want to use DHTML multi-level navigation that I
don't think FP03 supports using the built in links. Just as an example.
I might have a link called "photo gallery" and that photo gallery also
have many sub-pages called "vacations", "family", "projects", etc.
Rather than have all these subpages linked as literal and fully visible
buttons on all pages, It would be better to have these sublinks appear
when you click or mouseover on the gallery button. The only other thing
I can think of is to create a separate nav bar on the gallery pages
with links to the same level pages.

First, I assume the "insert nav bar" based on the nav structure only
works well as a main nav bar across all pages when you use shared
borders. That is, you can't insert a nav bar into a standalone HTML
page and include that into all your pages via INCLUDE PAGE and still
have the links built via the internal page structure. Correct?

I'm going to assume my best option for having a multi-level nav bar is
to use a canned downloadable script that places the actual link
information in a standalone file that I can update once and using page
includes on each page. Am I missing anything?

Thanks a lot for any insight you can share.

Bobby
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