Need Help With Example Dropdown Menu from CSSPlay

If you want to learn Wayfinder, Lucas’s idea is great, doing just the bare Wayfinder call. Then you can see how it works, and very gradually add parameters to see the result.

As I’d alluded to above, if I knew of any MODx and CSS newbie who was considering a dropdown, I’d have them avoid it like the plague, unless they’re doggedly determined to put in the time and learn it.

CSS skills are definitely needed for any serious menu styling. Reading lots of good random web pages about it did not work well for me. Too disjointed, and CSS people code things in idiosyncratic ways, because it is so flexible.

Reading an actual book did. This is the one that moved me way ahead:
http://www.amazon.com/CSS-Mastery-Advanced-Standards-Solutions/dp/1430223979/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1299706455&sr=8-5

But it’s true, coding CSS is not for everyone (nor is content management). I put together a Wordpress site for guy’s business with all the trimmings. Then he got all excited because his friend, fresh out of school, wanted to do a re-design. The friend just made him a Dreamweaver site, and deleted the old site. I found out after the fact, and told him, oh Dude! You just crushed your SEO, deleted lots of good content, and eliminated any content management. Ooops.

Hey, don’t despair... Wayfinder calls can get a bit complex when you end up using a lot of custom templates. I just tried to implement your menu from the Sportsman site and got it working on a test site. I haven’t tested it in IE6 though.

Copy and paste all the styles beginning with ul#headermenu from the Sportsman stylesheet. You might need to upload any background images used by the menu aswell.

Then add this Wayfinder call where you want the menu to appear in your modx template:


Then create the following chunks:

nav_outer


nav_row


nav_inner


nav_parentRow


See how that goes. In future you’ll find it much easier to just style up the default Wayfinder output rather than trying to adapt a custom menu. Try building up the one from the book that you already had working too!

Quote from: samba at Mar 09, 2011, 03:42 PM

The friend just made him a Dreamweaver site, and deleted the old site. I found out after the fact, and told him, oh Dude! You just crushed your SEO, deleted lots of good content, and eliminated any content management. Ooops.

@samba: just saw your post. Don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Ooops!!!

Quote from: lucas at Mar 09, 2011, 03:57 PM

Quote from: samba at Mar 09, 2011, 03:42 PM

The friend just made him a Dreamweaver site, and deleted the old site. I found out after the fact, and told him, oh Dude! You just crushed your SEO, deleted lots of good content, and eliminated any content management. Ooops.

@samba: just saw your post. Don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Ooops!!!

Ha ha!
I rubbed it in, just a little. And it was so much fun. And it gets better.... they are moving to Godummy hosting! Can you say "cheapness"? But because it’s now just a little static site, he may actually be fine there. It’s not as if he can have a crashed database or anything.

I think I’ll suggest that he add something on the site that says "We’ve spent some money to get our site downgraded for your benefit, and it’s new and degraded, 47% worse!"

Dave

Lucas, thank you for your support. I have since been playing around with normal menus and have been trying to start from scratch like you suggest and some work some don’t so I cannot wait for the book to arrive that I purchased so I can learn more about css. Again you’re awesome thank you. Also thanks to everyone else who tried to help me out. Much appreciated.