Hi Christian,
So, I am quite clear on what you DON'T like - but what about these
great combination menus with CSS and javascript? Can you point us to
some of your work? I am not really interested in key tab navigation
right now - I'd just like to see:
1. How good these 'super-valid' menus can look.
2. What methods are used to achieve them and how they cope with the
'turning off' idea I have mentioned above.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
I'm sure Christian will respond, but I would like to offer some input,
as well. Based on our last go'round here, I'm pretty surre I
understand your perspective, which I fully respect. What comes next is
not preaching and is not meant to be condescending, so please don't
take it that way.
Making a navigation bar that works with JavaScript disabled is not
bad. Christian's points about presentation vs. behavior are valid
points, but perhaps a bit esoteric in some contexts. My position is
simple, a menu should be accessible and usable. Can you always be
perfectly accessible or perfectly usable? No. But you can address big
issues, like:
Javascript support and timers to prevent premature or unwanted closing
or changing of sub-menus. Without script, these kinds of menus simply
will not work in 80+% of the browsers in use worldwide. That can be
addressed by activating the links on the root menu items to load the
relevant page, while using CSS to force open the associated sub-menu
or, if that's not convenient, to include the sub-menu links within the
flow of the page's content. An example of that can be seen here:
http://www.projectseven.com/tutorials/accessibility/pop_integrated/pmmsite/index.htm
The above page also addresses keyboard navigation, by hiding the
sub-menus. This prevents keyboard surfers from having to tab through
links that are hidden offscreen. Imagine how frustrating that can be.
Of course, one can script in full keyboard support that emulates what
Windows or OSX does with these kinds of menus - but that severely
bloats code and often requires a mini user-guide for site visitors :-)
So, in the example site, the menu is purely additive and must be
combined with an intelligently structured site that contains relevant
link in the page flow to help pull people through the site.
With certain menu orientations, you can use images to mitigate
problems caused by diagonal mouse or pointer movements - even in a
so-called "pure CSS menu"... as in this page:
http://www.projectseven.com/csslab/testing/listmenus/exp_vproto/
Of course, you can use a "pure CSS menu" in an orientation that works
within the inherent limitations of such menus by configuring a
vertical drop-down limited to a single sub-menu level:
http://www.projectseven.com/tutorials/navigation/auto_hide/workpage.htm
I hope this helps someone.
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