I have to apologize from the get go because I tried to figure out the drop down menu from posts like 'Nurture', 'Barbara Neice' and even 'Marksie', but I still can't figure out what I have to add to make the button work and I just need to add the proper code for it to work while using what I already have planned to use. I'm sorry if you have to repeat these steps for me, too.

First, the page I'm working on is here:
http://Fibrofog.Bravehost.com/index.html#The

Second, the button I want to use fits up along the top buttons next to 'Banners', to the right. In the source code, you'll see that I've used 'lesser than, exclamation point, dash, dash, space, Networking, space, dash, dash, greater than' so it wouldn't show up and not be working, but I want to use this button, this style of button -- not that I care about what the drop down portion looks like and, to be honest with you, I hadn't really thought about what the drop down would look like. I suppose I'd like it to match what the buttons on the sidebar on the left look like when you mouse over them. If that's possible, that'd be great. You guys would know better than I what it should look like based on what I already have there. Besides, if there's code in there like '#000000' that I'm supposed to use for a drop down menu that's that obvious in the code I'm looking for from you, I could always play with that after the fact, right? Also, I'm sorry I don't know how to show you code without spelling it out like I did above. Is there a way to do that so it shows up on the post? I digress....

Anywho, do I have to place certain code in more than one place like in 'style' as well as with the button in the 'body' section? Could be that that's what's confusing me. I'm not a total 'newbie', but not unlike Barbara Neice, I'm self-taught, so I know what I know and don't what I don't! LOL LOL

Here's exactly what I want to do. On this page only (the URL I provided above) I want to use the 'Networking' button to be located to the right of the 'Banners' button as a drop down menu to show a few of the other sites where my content can be found as well as my Bravenet site like, for example, a group I moderate at CarePlace.com (http://www.careplace.com/group/614). This way, my fellow 'Fibromites' can look for me over there. I have a few more just like that that I'd like to include there and I assume that if one of you could show me exactly what my first example would look like as one choice in the drop down, I could then just copy your version of CarePlace.com and add the others myself. Would this be too difficult to do using my current layout (the black buttons I'm presently using)?

Sorry this turned out so long. I tend to over-explain and I'm quite sure you guys already know what I'm trying to get at, right? LOL LOL Thanks for your patience with my long explanation and I am sorry your previous attempts to explain this subject already didn't 'hit home' for me, but as my URL implies, 'fibrofog' will mess with my head every time! LOL LOL LOL

SBernheart [;}]

Hello there.

My-goss that is a long one!

Well i have looked at your website and with most bravehost websites and users i can see you are using the website wizard!

( Please dont take offence to this )

But the basic layouts that bravehost give you for webwizard and crap. The best way to make a good website that stands out is:

To design your own template with a editing software

If your new i would say to buy

Paint shop pro 11.

Ebay £20.00/$40.00

This will let you design loads of templates and the best part. Top jazz up your images you use in your website.

Please remember that pictures look good. Not to many, maybe one on the front page.

Paint shop pro lets you save the image as JPEG which is just a normal picture file then you can set as background image and add your text from there.

Take a look at what i have done using photoshop CS3 ( same as paint shop pro just a little better plus its £800.00 more expensive then paint shop pro )

www.osguthorpedesign.com

Please note:

I Do not use bravehost. Only for the tools they provide

If you would like me to design you a website i charge £60.00 for full hosting and designing and a number of features.

I am a qualified website designer if you have any questions please contact me via email that is provided on this message

I see a lot of things with your web site. Your site started out as a Website Wizard creation. However, now it appears that you have stopped using the Wizard and are using CoffeeCup to continue your design efforts. While I applaud getting away from the Wizard, I'm not sure that continuing to use the Wizard created files is a good idea. That usually leads to a disaster, but you seem to be getting along OK so far.

There are a couple of ways to make a drop down menu. It all depends on how complicated you want to get. The problem with implementing something like "Nurture" has, is that it is really intended to replace your entire menu. And, as you saw with his menu, it took a little work to get it running. All in all, it's not a incredibly complicated menu, but unless you have a good grasp of HTML and Javascript, it is difficult to follow. The website where it came from, "Hscripts.com", has a menu builder. It's a little tedious to operate, but produces fully working code.

Since your really only interested in one button, the simplest approach might be a menu. Below is the code from your web page, for your Networking link. You have it commented out right now, but that is beside the point. While that works fine for a single link, it doesn't lend itself very well for multiple links.

Networking

A workable replacement might be something like the following code. I made a copy of your front page, and added the link using the code below. You can see it at Fibrofog Test Page. I had to remove a lot of your services, because they got in the way.

ONCHANGE="location = this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;">
Networking
CarePlace.com
Selection 2
Selection 3
Selection 4



Figuring this one out is pretty straight forward. Just create add tags as you require. I filled in the first one, like you requested. As soon as someone clicks on the arrow, and select a site, they will be taken there.

If your interested in something more complex let us know.

Oops. The terminating tags for the entries seemed to have slipped away. They are not absolutely necessary, but good practice to include. Below is the corrected code.

Thank you for your effort, James, but I think Mr. Meserve has my number! In the past, he's been able to fix my 'headaches' and my husband likes the 'k7'. Reminds him of 'K2' (he's a wannabe mountain climber, LOL).
Anywho, you are both correct about the wizard, but that's just what I started out with years ago. I kept my front page this way, but I've made my own additional pages 'short, but sweet' -- first with CoffeeCup, currently with Expression, and I'm working on a template with a little more pizazz to call my own, but it's not ready yet. I didn't know ANYthing when I first started, so you don't have much choice BUT to use a wizard, but I've learned a LOT and I've done so with the help of people like you, Martin. Thank you, really.
I'm going to try playing around with what you've given me and I'll get back to you if I get stuck or something, OK? It seems exactly what I needed. While I would like to learn more and more about other drop-down lists, etc., in this case, this is all I needed. I will get back to you and let you know how things worked out.
How is it that you were able to post code, but when I tried to post the 'comment' section I kept in my code about the 'Networking' button, it didn't show up in the preview (as it shouldn't have, I suppose, if it worked as it normally would)? Is there some HTML you have to use along with it, before and after the code you do want to 'show up' looking like code here in the forum?
Again -- thank you.....

SBernheart [;}]

My "K7" designator is not as glamourous and mysterious as your husbands "K2" reference. It's just part of my Amateur Radio Call sign, "K7MEM". The "K" is a country designator for the "United States" and the "7" is a district designator, Western Region. The "MEM" is obviously my initials, because it's a "vanity" call sign. The license plate on my car also says "K7MEM". When you have been a Amateur Radio Operator for over 40 Years, it becomes part of your every day life.

Posting HTML on the Bravenet forums is initially very simple. Because the forum interprets HTML, you have to make the forum think it's just text. For simple HTML, you just replace all instances of "<" with the a Entity code of "<". For one or two lines of code, this isn't much of a problem. But as soon as you need to list a lot of lines, and then mix it with Javascript, it gets pretty messy. There are certain words, like "OnMouseOver", that are deleted from posts. Any event that could cause problems for the forum are deleted. It only prints for me, because I have replaced each "O" with "O". In the end, it is far easier to just provide a URL for a test page. We all know how to look into the code.

Thanks, Martin. I do remember now about your 'Amateur Radio' status. I don't know how you have the time to monitor your radio and still help all of us, but thank you for doing it all!

I'm presently using from a duplicate copy of the page we're working on, so I can't have you check on it yet, but I'll post back when I do have it up -- right or wrong.

The only problem I'm having with it is that the 'Networking' button seems to ignore the pre-set instructions from the css code for 'siteNavigation'. Therefore, I had a hard time matching the code for this button. I manually added 'style=' instruction inside the 'select' tag to force it to act like the other buttons. I don't mind the 'arrow' for the drop-down menu, but I did want the rest of the button to look like the others. I also changed the background color and it's border. That was the easy part, but the button itself is smaller in height and width and there seems to be padding/margins included as well. I'm not sure why it's acting that way if the others are behaving as I think they should.

Lastly, I seem to have two style sheets. I imagine one of them came with the template using the wizard, but there's a second one and that shouldn't be, right? Both of these are listed in the 'head' tag, but which one is the HTML paying attention to? I never noticed this before and I'm not sure how to 'clean up the code'. If I remove one of these, I'll probably find some weird changes to the page as it stands right now, correct? Hmmm.....I'm going to finish fixing the button and worry about the code later -- unless it pertains to the problem I'm having with this button! It's always something, isn't it? LOL LOL

Thanks for the heads up on posting code. I'll have to look for a conversion sheet because I'll never remember all the 'codes' for the code! LOL LOL LOL

SBernheart [;}]

PS: I guess I still can't show you code here because I tried to show you the 'link' tags and it didn't show up in the preview. I'll place a comment in the HTML of the current page and if you have time, you can look at the source code to see what I mean. I'm sure I'll be back later in the day or as soon as I finish playing with the drop-down button. 'Till then....

Yes, I noticed earlier that you had two style sheets listed in your web page. They weren't pertinent to the question, so I ignored them.

The one named "blue.css" is in your "images171" folder and was part of a Bravenet template. It still exists on your site, but except for a few generic styles, it isn't used for anything. The other style sheet, "stylee.css", has the same generic styles, and would override the ones in "blue.css". The best I can tell, you can delete the reference to "blue.css", without any problem.

The style sheet, "stylee.css", was from your original Wizard creation. It is also around on your site as "style.css". Very slight name change, but a brief look at the contents, shows them to be the same.

You can't depend on the "siteNavigation" style definition to define the display characteristics of the dropdown menu. The "siteNavigation" style definition is for positioning the menu. The other style definitions that are cascaded from "siteNavigation" declare settings for

,

,
• , and some link events. But there is no styling for the , which is your dropdown menu. Some of the "siteNavigation" cascaded styles can be inherited, but most of them are applied directly to other elements, or don't apply at all to a .
  
  All that means is, you can make the dropdown menu look just like the other buttons, but it needs some more style work. Initially, I didn't pay much attention to adjusting the styling of the menu. I only wanted to see if that was what you needed. So, I made some adjustments to my own Fibrofog Test Page, so you can see the possibilities.
  
  Below is the code for the menu. Note the changes in the in-line style. I adjusted the menu background and font color to match the other buttons. The font size and padding adjustments makes the menu the same size as the other buttons, and positions the text. The "border" adjustment matches the border of the other buttons.
  
  
• 
  style="background-color: #252a33; color: #e6efff; font-weight: bold; padding: 3px 5px 2px 1px; font-size: 90%; border: solid 1px #e6efff;"
  ONCHANGE="location = this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;">
  Networking
  CarePlace.com
  Selection 2
  Selection 3
  Selection 4
  
  


Big in-line styles get pretty messy, so it's really recommended to add the style to your "stylee.css" style sheet. The style would look like this:

#siteNavigation select {
background-color: #252a33;
color: #e6efff;
font-weight: bold;
padding: 3px 5px 2px 1px;
font-size: 90%;
border: solid 1px #e6efff;
}

Then the menu code would simply look like the following. Note that there is no style definition or class declaration needed. The style listed above targets only structures in the "siteNavigation"
structure. My example has the has it implemented this way.





Networking
CarePlace.com
Selection 2
Selection 3
Selection 4




Website
Sep 19th, 2007 - 7:48 AM

I am so glad my brain is trying to work like yours already does, Martin, because it means, to me anyway, that there just might be some hope for me yet! LOL

>> I manually added 'style=' instruction inside the 'select' tag to force it to act like the other buttons...I also changed the background color and it's border...that was the easy part... <<

I even looked up a few of the most important 'symbols' so that I could write here better. Obviously, two of the most important symbols would be the 'lesser than' and 'greater than' symbols. I don't think I have to explain to you why that would be, but for the case of the next 'newbie', it is because of all the lesser than and greater than signs that are used in code. If any of you reading this don't understand, I am referring to the 'lesser than' (<) and 'greater than' (>) symbols that every piece of code begins and ends with. Even I knew that much, but I think a lot of us don't know that for every 'symbol' out there, there are sets of symbols that mean the same thing without causing the same actions to happen when our HTML gets 'read' by our browsers. I did know this from prior forum use, but I never had a good 'cheat sheet' from which to learn from until I had come across a few from places like WDG (Web Design Group), W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) and Unicode, but here's one that's short and sweet from the private sector:

http://www.bigbaer.com/reference/character_entity_reference.htm

I don't speak for the site -- I just like the list, so use it as it is, the list, I mean.

OK. off my soapbox and back to point. I've been working from a duplicate file in Microsoft Expression and until I'm finished with the buttons, you won't see the updates as I make them. If I learned ANYthing using the original template many years ago, I learned NOT to post your mistakes! LOL If I don't like it or how it looks, neither will my readers.

I managed to make some of the changes you mentioned, Martin, but it was the size of the button I was having a problem with. I'm beginning to learn about such things as layers and 'inherit' values and this and that and, although it's all a bit overwhelming, I am learning so it's all good, right? LOL LOL

I will post back as soon as I finish the button we're discussing here, so somebody else who might like the info, too, knows how it all works out in the end, OK? Thanks for teaching me (or forcing me to look up and learn) yet another 'term' about 'inherit' values. As I understand 'inherit', my button navigation was 'inherited' from the code given it's parent tag, right? You don't have to answer that. I'm still reading, but now I understand why I thought the css navigation should apply to the drop down and now I also understand why it doesn't. The css code only specified the 'list' items and treated the 'li' items as defined in the 'ul' (or a list that's not numbered) type, but the 'select' tag was not specified in the css -- I can see that now and I think I'll be cleaning up my css file as well. We tend to cheat a bit (and you know who you are) and make the HTML file messy by adding code there when it really belongs in the style sheet. I will make those corrections on my duplicate first and delete the original 'blue.css' file while I'm at it, just to make sure I don't screw something else up in the real one, but I'll be sure to let you know when I'm done!

Thanks, Martin -- you've been a big help and I appreciate the fact that you 'ignore', as you put it, other stuff in the files you peruse. God only knows how many you must have looked at with messy or misplaced code! You'd be doing all this 24/7 if you tried to fix EVERYthing! You were right to stick to the question and I think it's the best way to go 'cause others need your help, too, you know! Thanks....

SBernheart [;}]

I apologize, Martin. Here I thought by using my duplicate file to work on, I'd avoid what I'm about to tell you next, but....

Where or what URL can I give my page as I want just you to see it -- like your 'Fibrofog Test Page'? Do you literally make the page and have it in your files as if it was a real page? Blah, blah, I can't spit it out. I'm just so flustered now. When I 'Preview in Browser...Internet Explorer' it looks fine. The buttons aren't perfect yet, but they are where they belong. When I copied and pasted the code into my real index page, however, it changes and the buttons are no longer where they belong -- why?

If you use an editor other than Bravenet, how can I give you the page that Expression shows as correct? For the sake of this thread, I'm going to leave the 'bad' code view on my index page, but I want you to use an editor like I am and use the 'Preview in Browser' option/tool so you can see what I see. I also tried the 'Preview' in AOL Explorer and it's fine there, too. So why, then, when I transfer the code that works well in both AOL and IE7 does it then NOT work in the same manner when Bravenet's editor saves the very same code?

I was THIS close to having it work and now this. Here's where the 'newbie' in me begins to show again because I don't understand why it works one minute and then not the next. I DO understand the purpose behind using the 'Preview in Browser' tool and I DO preview in as many browsers I can find -- IE, AOL Explorer, Netscape, MSN Explorer, Mozilla/Firefox, Opera and SeaMonkey -- and when I tried THREE TIMES to copy and paste in the Bravenet editor, it doesn't work. THAT I don't understand!

Sorry, I didn't mean for this to be such a headache. Maybe this drop-down menu is just too much for me, but it shouldn't be. I know my homepage is 'busy', but it was my first page, so I was trying everything back then. Now I'm more concerned about the pages I do use and the drop-down menu was supposed to help me, not frazzle my brain!

Please tell me there's a simple explanation and/or tell me how I can show you the 'other' page so I can show you the difference between the two editors. BTW, I've never had a problem before transferring material to Bravenet's editor. Sorry this was sooo long.....

SBernheart

Sorry for the delay, I have been out of touch for a while.

Yes, I do literally have the test page on my web site. It's not linked anywhere except for this forum post. It's common for me to make copies of someone's page, implement the changes they are looking for, and then post a link. Sometimes I provide a Zip file. Even though I don't post the link anywhere but here, those pages sometimes turn up in google searches. Sometimes my test pages out rank the original page in a search, so I have to go back through my test pages and delete them, every so often.

If you want you can send me a link through my contact page. Just go to my home page and click on the "Contact Me" link. This will pop up a little e-mail contact form that goes directly to me. That one is Javascript driven and some users have problems with it. If it doesn't work, try the contact form on HappyHome.Echoz.com. That's a web site that I just set up for my wife ( also a long time fibromyalgia victim ). It's a little crude yet, but the form output goes directly to me. I'll get around to adjusting it to her address soon.

I would never depend on Bravenet's editors to show me anything correctly. There are far too many issues to make them reliable. This is especially true when you working with a design that originally came from the Wizard. The Visual editor deletes anything that it doesn't recognize, causing the fragile structure of a Wizard creation lots of problems. I just check everything in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Netscape. It it looks OK there, I don't worry about it. I recommend doing all your editing on your PC and then only use Bravenet for uploading.

Well, that was MUCH better! I took your advise and uploaded my duplicate I was working on and it came up fine. It's still not my index page yet -- I obviously have some slight tweaking to do to get it to look like my other buttons.

I, too, was MIA for a bit -- in bed for two days -- I can always blame the fibro and that's all FMS is good for is when I make mistakes! LOL Your wife should appreciate THAT, huh? Here's the page as it is at the moment:

http://fibrofog.bravehost.com/fmsacm_controversy.html

Thanks for the tip about NOT copying and pasting in Bravenet's editor. Uploading it instead right from Expression worked great. I added the css code and copied some of the same 'like kind' code following the other button's code. That might be why it's a little 'off' again, but unless you have any more ideas, I think that's where I'll start rechecking that all the colors, borders, margins, etc. are as they should be for THIS button. I never used the 'select' tag before, but I do remember looking it up in the 'Resources' area and I passed it up because I thought that this menu was for 'choosing' options as the menu's example there used and I didn't know I could use it like this, too. I really do try to do my own homework before I come here, but sometimes this stuff goes right over my head, you know? Again, I get to blame 'fibrofog'. It's not an excuse, it's just my life now and that's OK. Well, it's not 'OK', but I'm sure you know what I mean.

Give your wife a 'gentle' hug from me 'cause I know what she goes through! BTW, I like the site and I have a new pup who's been very, very bad!! We've had dogs all our lives, but at 50yrs. old I guess we just can't handle them the same way we used to! LOL He's a Chocolate Lab and very, very active even with two walks a day! That's another story for another day though and another day very, very soon if we're going to teach him a little better than we've been. I believe what they say about 'no dog is untrainable' and whatever he's doing, he's doing because of something we did or didn't do. So tell your wife I just might be writing to her for some advise, too! I'm not in your state or I'd just have to stop by and take a class 'cause boy, does he need one! LOL LOL

Thanks, Martin. I'll tweak a little and see what happens. I'll never 'copy and paste' again!!

SBernheart [;}]

PS: Just curious -- is there a specific reason, something in the code maybe, that won't allow me to right-click on the items from the drop-down list? I use AOL and IE and I'm a BIG right-clicker and user of multiple tabs! If you know, great. If not, don't worry about it. I'm just happy to have the list....

Well, I tried taking a bit of a break, thinking it might clear my brain, so I could see things in a different light, but all it did was blow a fuse and leave me in the dark instead! LOL In typical fibrofog fashion, I tried to review my notes, as well as this thread, to piece my thinking back together. I managed to set up the button with the correct information and I've resigned myself to the fact that the button will not look as perfect as I'd like until I finish playing around with the page as a whole and go back and fix all the code line by line.
I was able to align the buttons in question, by eye at least, so the first button, 'Fibromyalgia Talks', appears in line with the left-hand sidebar's buttons, the first of which is 'Fibrofog Blog'. I like how this looks. I am still unable to match in like size the last button, 'Networking', to it's neighbors on it's right (our left), but this too, I am willing to overlook at the moment as long as the drop-down listed items work properly -- and they do -- but here's the thing. I am a really BIG 'right-clicker' and when I right-click on these listed items, I am NOT given the choice to 'Open in New Tab' or 'Open in New Window' and this really, REALLY bothers me.

Is there something that I need to include in the HTML in order to use the right-click feature for each of these items in the drop-down list?

My understanding of this type of menu is it's use for making choices in reply to a question like, for example, "What's your favorite color?" and then the user would 'choose' one (or more in some cases) and submit the answer. In this case, the user would have no need to 'right-click' and be taken somewhere else, so will I even be able to make an adjustment using this type of menu for my purposes?
As always, I appreciate all the help I can get. I'm pretty close to satisfaction for this particular page and, in the future, I have plans to transfer everything I've learned setting up this page to a new page WITHOUT all of the confusion of an originally wizard-made theme with a little personality mixed in. After all, I think there's a bunch of us who started out using the wizard, then learn a little of this and that and wanted to expand. I really don't understand why the wizard theme pages can't be utilized outside of the wizard itself. It shouldn't have to be this hard. The wizard should HELP you to 'blend in' down the line, not make everything so blessed difficult because you used it, you know? That's just my opinion, but thank God we have these forums to get us out of the messes that, apparently, we got ourselves into. I'd rather blame the so-called
'wizard' for sucking us in by making it sound 'so easy' in the first place and neglecting to warn us that we'd be stuck with the wizard forever. I feel like I was tricked into signing a pre-nup before I said "I do" and now, if I want a divorce, I have to start all over again from scratch when I worked just as hard to contribute to this 'marriage' all this time. Doesn't seem fair, does it? LOL
OK, enough with the metaphors, I just wanted a drop-down menu button that worked and looked like the other buttons. I can right-click on any of them exCEPT this one. Can I right-click on the items in the drop-down menu? What do I have to do to fix it so it will? Thanks, in advance. I know how hard you guys work to help the rest of us and it IS greatly appreciated. I know I already said that, but you should hear it more often.....

SBernheart [;}]

PS: The page I was working on in an editor is now the index page so.....

http://Fibrofog.Bravehost.com/index.html#The