Frontpage Navigation Menus in Expression Web

[Matthew]

I'm trying to transition from FP to Expression Web. Loved FP and really miss
the way that FP automatically generated navigation menus using the Navigation
view, theme, and shared border. Moving to EW is not practical for me without
some automated tool for this basic function.

Tried explaining this to the MVP's and users on the Expression Web forum but
I couldn't seem to get the point across -- they kept trying to get me to
create menus one button at a time or static (global level) menus in a DWT,
Include, or CSS file. The whole context specific, automatic nature of the FP
navigation system seems to befuddle and irritate them considerably. I really
didn't understand the hostility the request engendered. Still don't.

Hoping there is someone here who know of a third party software product that
might do the job. I've scoured the web and haven't found anything comparable.

This is what I want in such a piece of software.

- A graphical site map so that I can organize my pages graphically as in
FP's Navigation View.

- The program must create all the buttons necessary using the page name
property for each page based on a blank button (gif or jpeg) that I would
supply. Having a plain, hover, and select button would be nice too.

- automatically create the appropriate menu for each page in the site map.
I imagine some sort of tag for this would be place in an 'Include', DWT, or
CSS file somehow but I don't really care how it accomplishes the task.

- can be run to automatically update all the menus whenever I
add/delete/rename, or move a webpage in the site map.

Matthew.

 

[Ronx]

FrontPage does that quite well, though the link bars are usually not
standards compliant.
Otherwise, there are (not free) menus available that produce javascript
menus - though none that I am aware of produce the graphical map.

Best compromise is to generate your own map using nested unordered lists -
see http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/tests/navigation/navigation-view.aspx
for an example.

 

[Matthew]

Thanks for the feedback...

I haven't seen any menu generators yet that produce the link bars found in
FP with an automated fashion - i.e. a program that reads a map, constructs
the buttons, organizes them into context specific menus and plunks them on
the page.

The unorder list object in EW is static too - good enough for a global level
menu but not a parent/child menu (unless you want to manage the menus
manually).

Last night I started working with an EW MVP who thinks he might have a
solution involving an XML file and ASP.NET.

If comes up with something simple and practical for mainstream (non-coding)
FP User I'll be sure to post it here.

Matthew Simon

 

[Ronx]

The left menu on my page at http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp/ is a static
menu (nested unordered lists, with CSS to provide the flyout effects)
generated from a database. The menu is saved into a file whenever the
database is updated and placed on the page using an include file. I use
Server Side Includes, but the FrontPage include page feature can be used
instead.

The page http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp/wf-menu.aspx shows the full menu
expanded as a site map for the Webfaqs category. Change the styling a
little and it will have the appearance close to the FrontPage navigation
view. Using an asp.NET treeview will even add the connecting lines. This
is not exactly what you require, not having drag and drop, but it shows
that you can get close. If you allow coding on your development site then
using classic ASP and Access (or XML) can achieve the same thing - only
the include file needs to be published, not the coded pages that produce
it.

 

[Tina Clarke]

Not sure why you think the people in the ew forum won't be posting in here
also? BTW I think they were annoyed because you used old threads instead of
starting a new one.

As for the nav bot I think you know quite well whats wrong with it .... it
is easy to press some buttons to MAKE menus ..but using those menus to get
around a site for a reader becomes almost impossible on a large site
something a lot of us discovered back in the days when frontpage 98 was
fresh and new... Page Includes have been around since the beginning they
are nothing new.

http://www.pluginlab.com/expression-web-add-ins those are css menus and a ew
addon.... check that out.


Tina
Migrating from FrontPage to Expression Web Ebook v1.1
Find out how to transition from fp to ew with ease
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