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Mojo wrote:
> 1) Selection works - I had to change it back to 32 instead of 28.
> There was a cache issue that made it appear not to work, now it does.

Change what back to 32, and 32 "whats"?
>
> 2) You can advocate all you want for no dropdown menus. If users want
> them, they will use those sites that have them and ignore the others
> that require too many clicks. Just the way it is.

Fine, but your must have a different definition for the term "works". I
cannot get to any of the links of the submenus in any browser. It snaps
back up as soon as the mouse leaves the main menu. Also as I informed
you about pixels and block items, enlarging the text just a one bump
causes the submenu to drop even further out of reach:

http://www.littleworksstudio.com/temp/usenet/mojo.jpg

Notice the gap? It gets much worse with the 2nd bump...

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

In article <>,
Mojo <> wrote:

> On Sat, 04 Dec 2010 10:14:48 +1100, dorayme <>
> wrote:
>
> >In article <idbpjt$aqq$>,
> > "Jonathan N. Little" <> wrote:
> >
> >> dorayme wrote:
> >...
> >> > At the risk of sounding like a broken record, if js is off for an
> >> > IE6 user, it should be no drama if the top link goes to a page
> >> > where the sub menu links appear as a submenu. Thus
> >> >
> >> > DOGS
> >> > Alsatian
> >> > Collie
> >> > Poodle
> >> >
> >> > should at least enable DOGS to be a link to the group of pages
> >> > about dogs, it might not even be to a section head page called
> >> > dogs but straight to Alsatian; all the dogs would have a local
> >> > menu.
> >> >
> >> > This point really also applies more broadly: such a strategy
> >> > makes it non-essential that the drop down works or is wanted (css
> >> > off or the user hates the damn things or cannot use it for
> >> > physical reasons.)
> >> >
> >>
> >> ... In fact we should advocate no dropdown menu
> >
> >No need to go that far if vot I say above is carried out!
>

> 2) You can advocate all you want for no dropdown menus.

At least I was not advocating this. I am right now making a site
with a drop down menu on the home page. I trust you understand
the precaution I am advocating (even if you are not implementing
it).


> 3) The drop down works very nicely. The only true trouble I have is
> with IE 6-8, which conforms to its own set of rules and causes
> problems for everyone.

Almost all the problems have been solved by "Ruthsarian", take a
look, vary his templates. I agree IE is often a pain but it is an
elephant and must be dealt with.

--
dorayme

Mojo wrote:

> "Beauregard T. Shagnasty" wrote:
>>Jonathan N. Little wrote:
[snippage]
>>> Don't have Dillo but it doesn't work in IE either. Somethings if
>>> you shake the mouse jussst-riiiight it will "work".
>>
>> Reading that, I went back to the page. I can get one of the
>> dropdowns (Law Profession) to actually open if I -- very quickly --
>> shake the mouse sideways and down at the same time. About a third of
>> the time, I'll get to use the submenu. It's the same on several
>> other (probably all) pages at the site. What good is a site that
>> can't be navigated?
>>
>>> The OP's CSS file if you look at it is a perfect example of "more is
>>> less"!
>>
>> 67KB of it! ... in a unmaintainable format, to boot.
>
> It was a temporary issue that was quickly fixed and it works now.
> You can mock all you want but the site works.

No it doesn't. Here's a challenge. View the page. Increase the font size
once or twice (in Firefox, that's by pressing Ctrl-Plus). Now try to
make your dropdowns work. You forget some folks have less-than-perfect
eyesight and have their fonts set larger than you are anticipating.
(Your small pixel-sized fonts reinforce that.) Report back.

> Every designer swears he knows what he's doing and you can deal with a
> lot of trouble until things are the way you want them. However, the
> show must go on and business must occur to help maintain the cost of
> the site. The format works just fine for most of the users.

"for most of the users." Okay, so what percent of users are you going
to turn away? 10%? 30%? How much profit can you afford to lose?

I haven't been able to get your menus to work in any browser unless I
reduce font size way smaller than I can read. Then, the menus usually
work but I can't read the resulting pages.

> If you're volunteering to clean it up so that it's absolutely
> "perfect", then I accept.

What is your hourly rate for volunteers? It'd better be good...

--
-bts
-Four wheels carry the body; two wheels move the soul

Mojo wrote:

> .. Then we converted to text, etc. and ended up with this and have no
> complaints so far.

Nobody can get to your Contact form! It's on the menu!! <lol>

--
-bts
-Four wheels carry the body; two wheels move the soul

Mojo wrote:
> On Fri, 03 Dec 2010 21:08:18 -0500, "Jonathan N. Little"
> <> wrote:
>
>> Mojo wrote:
>>> 1) Selection works - I had to change it back to 32 instead of 28.
>>> There was a cache issue that made it appear not to work, now it does.
>>
>> Change what back to 32, and 32 "whats"?
>>>
>>> 2) You can advocate all you want for no dropdown menus. If users want
>>> them, they will use those sites that have them and ignore the others
>>> that require too many clicks. Just the way it is.
>>
>> Fine, but your must have a different definition for the term "works". I
>> cannot get to any of the links of the submenus in any browser. It snaps
>> back up as soon as the mouse leaves the main menu. Also as I informed
>> you about pixels and block items, enlarging the text just a one bump
>> causes the submenu to drop even further out of reach:
>>
>> http://www.littleworksstudio.com/temp/usenet/mojo.jpg
>>
>> Notice the gap? It gets much worse with the 2nd bump...
>
> Thanks much for the image - what browser are you using? I've tested it
> in IE 7 and 8, Firefox, Chrome and Safari for Windows and it looks
> just fine.

Nearly all of them with the same result. Chrome, SeaMonkey, Firefox,
Opera, IE 8, 7 (6, 5.5 5 the menu doesn't work at all)

> Is it possible that this is occurring because it appears
> that you've magnified the text and thus created larger gaps as a
> result?

The problem is with the default size. Even reducing the font does not
help. The image was to show how it gets worst when you increase the font
even just a little. There are many people that do enlarge their default
font. Your menu should accommodate at least modest variations. Yours
doesn't with no variation. I saw so negative margins and other hacks in
your CSS that could be attributing factor, but is is so over complicated
it would take a lot of effort to debug. My example that I showed you was
simpler and worked for various browsers and font sizes...

Okay I see the problem, remove all references to line-height. Do not use
PIXELS for line-height values, a ratio should be used. Better yet, don't
muck with it at all unless you know what you are doing.

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

In article <>,
Ed Mullen <edCUT-> wrote:

> dorayme wrote:
....
> > You know you get all worked up and hot and bothered about the
> > issue!<g>
> >
>
> I don't, actually. Perhaps I should have braced my comment in a <shrug>
> tag to indicate better to you that I really don't care who chooses to
> use or despise DD menus. I really don't. My caring or not about it is
> secondary to my arguments about it. But, as for caring what other do or
> care about it? <shrug>Whatever</shrug>. Let everyone do their thing.
> As long as it's functional across platforms. I believe mine is even if
> you don't prefer it.
>

See what I mean? You are protesting too much. How do I know? I
hired a psychologist to assess your reply and her (expensive)
assessment was that you protest too much.

Just btw, as far as dropdown menus go, I love your drop down
menus, they are great, add more levels, I will doss down in them
when no one will give me a roof over my head or when being chased
by the police (the cops get confused after a few levels).

Now show Mojo how to do it... My suspicion is that a lot of
people have trouble because they don't understand some basic
principles about the dangers of sizing in pixels where text is
concerned. It is as if it is not so much the dropdown technology
that is tripping them up but other fundamentals.

--
dorayme

Mojo wrote:

> The sizing issue is not really an old fundamental. It's a newer
> concept that has become more of an issue as the older demographic has
> moved towards the web.

Not only the old have trouble seeing. It has always been fundamental, it
just wasn't recognized until using the web became an essential part of
modern life. So whether it was or wasn't fundamental in the past is moot
because it *is* fundamental now.


> In addition, law is also requiring some
> companies to move towards these standards. Now it's more of an issue
> and many are discovering they need to change what others have built.
>
> People like me end up hiring designers that put out beautiful sites
> but don't always see some of the coding issues that are part of the
> equation and some, like these, are more subtle. How many things can I
> review in the course of a day? As I've said, I've hired 3 coders and
> each one had a different problem with the way they've created things.
> Each one is critical about the work of the last designer and they did
> improve - but I ended up with a design that is much lighter than
> previous iterations but has some sizing issues which hopefully are
> being worked out.

Maybe you need to find better coders. Using a mechanic that only "knows
carburetors" to work on your 2010 vehicle is not very wise.

> In this instance, thanks to you guys, I've changed the line height
> back to accommodate bigger spacing and am moving the submenu down a
> few pixels. Not ideal but at least, for the time being, it should make
> everyone happy. As I said, if anyone is such a master coder, I'd be
> willing to hire them... although chances are that another coder will
> probably have criticism too, lol. Still, I work, I try and I
> appreciate your comments.

You are still making the fundamental mistake of setting the line-height
to a fixed discrete linear value...what's it now, 29px. As I have told
you this is a very bad idea. It does not expand when the font
changes...if you feel the need to set this value use a ratio.

Examples:

line-height: 1.3;
line-height: 1.4;
line-height: 1.5;

Then the "link sensivity area" as you call it expands with the
font-size. The 29px fails miserably on "Law Profession" menu with just
a sight increase in font-size. Also the word "Profession" disappears
completely, but that is another problem symptomatic of a brittle design.
Throwing more constraints and rules in CSS rare yields good results. I
showed you a workable flexible framework that could give you what you
desire with the fraction of the code and also really work over a range
of font-sizes and view ports.


--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

In article <>,
Mojo <> wrote:

> On Sat, 04 Dec 2010 18:13:40 +1100, dorayme <>
> wrote:
....
> >
> >Now show Mojo how to do it... My suspicion is that a lot of
> >people have trouble because they don't understand some basic
> >principles about the dangers of sizing in pixels where text is
> >concerned. It is as if it is not so much the dropdown technology
> >that is tripping them up but other fundamentals.
>
> The sizing issue is not really an old fundamental.

It was a fundamental always but the delay in realising it widely
is probably due to the persistence of tables for layout. The
magic of a table cell is that it *naturally* expands to
accommodate its occupants (unlike the prisons in South East
Asia). So too will many block elements if the author has not
specified too small a height. But in the case of the table, being
as it is so smart, it often ignores any author height
restrictions.


> It's a newer
> concept that has become more of an issue as the older demographic has
> moved towards the web.

Perhaps you are saying that when the web came along, the only
popular model for a screen page was a printed page and all the
familiar concepts applying to the latter got dragged over to the
new media until it was realised that the model was a very
different one.

It is often a telltale sign of bad design when you look at a css
sheet and see lots and lots of heights specified (not to mention
widths). The best designs imo are the ones that let the browser
work out the flow of things, everything functions more naturally
this way. Widths, be sparing; heights, try to do without
altogether if you can.

> In addition, law is also requiring some
> companies to move towards these standards. Now it's more of an issue
> and many are discovering they need to change what others have built.
>

> People like me end up hiring designers that put out beautiful sites
> but don't always see some of the coding issues that are part of the
> equation and some, like these, are more subtle. How many things can I
> review in the course of a day?

I don't envy your job. I have seen, sometimes to my benefit but
sometimes to my cost, how some essentially print media companies
moving in to do web work make sites with all sorts of really bad
problems because their hired staff have been badly taught and
there is no experience in the company to supervise them in a
meaningful way. The hired staff make sure their sites look and
work ok on their bosses computers!

> As I've said, I've hired 3 coders and
> each one had a different problem with the way they've created things.
> Each one is critical about the work of the last designer and they did
> improve - but I ended up with a design that is much lighter than
> previous iterations but has some sizing issues which hopefully are
> being worked out.
>
> In this instance, thanks to you guys, I've changed the line height
> back to accommodate bigger spacing and am moving the submenu down a
> few pixels. Not ideal but at least, for the time being, it should make
> everyone happy. As I said, if anyone is such a master coder, I'd be
> willing to hire them... although chances are that another coder will
> probably have criticism too, lol. Still, I work, I try and I
> appreciate your comments.

--
dorayme