Joomla Day UK 2009 Menus Presentation

Joomla! Day UK 2009

Joomla! Day UK 2009 Menus and how to make them look cool Providing a flexible platform for digital publishing and collaboration. Chris Davenport Joomla! Core Team

Choosing a template Choose primarily for layout Menus can usually be customised

All kinds of menus All menus are just HTML unordered lists

Basic menu HTML
<ul>
<li><a href="/">Home/a></li>
<li><a href="/joomla-overview">Joomla! Overview</a></li>
<li><a href="/joomla-license"><span>Joomla! License</a></li>
<li><a href="/more-about-joomla">More about Joomla!</a></li>
<li><a href="/faq">FAQ</a></li>
<li><a href="/the-news">The News</a></li>
<li><a href="/web-links">Web Links</a></li>
<li><a href="/news-feeds">News Feeds</a></li>
</ul>
Some tags and attributes stripped for clarity URLs shortened for clarity

Basic CSS styling
Boxes:
margin, border, padding, width, height.
Colour:
color, background-color.
Text:
text-decoration, text-align, text-transform.
font-family, font-weight, font-size.
Learn more: http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

CSS Box Model Margin Padding Border Content box Bounding box

Basic menu styling
<ul class="menu">
ul.menu { list-style: none; margin: 0; padding: 0; } Default Joomla menu class Corresponding class selector Don't need any of these styles if you used a CSS reset script

Vertical menus

Vertical menus
ul.menu a {
display: block;
width: 200px;
}
Gives all menu items a fixed width

Horizontal menus

Variable width horizontal
ul.menu li {
display: inline;
}

Fixed width horizontal
ul.menu a {
display: block;
width: 8em;
text-align: center;
}
ul.menu li { float: left; }

Basic styling ul.menu a { display: block; width: 8.5em; font-size: 2em; text-decoration: none; margin-top: 10px; padding: 5px 5px 5px 15px; color: #2b3d91; background-color: #f0f0f0; }

Web developer toolbar http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/60/

Roll-over effects
link
visited
hover
active
Reminder: The order of CSS pseudo-classes for link states is important. Mnemonic: “LoVe - HAte” Example ul.menu a:link, ul.menu a:visited { text-decoration: none; } ul.menu a:hover { text-decoration: underline; }

Roll-over effects: Example ul.menu a:hover { color: white; background-color: blue; } ul.menu a:link, ul.menu a:visited { color: blue; background-color: white; } ul.menu a:active { color: white; background-color: red; }

Roll-over effects: Borders ul.menu a:link, ul.menu a:visited { padding: 0.2em 0.4em; border-left: 0.4em solid #2b3d91; color: #2b3d91; background: #f6f6ff; } ul.menu a:hover { border-left: 0.4em solid #aea; color: white; background: #369; } ul.menu a:active { border-left: 0.4em solid red; }

Roll-over effects: submenus ul.menu li ul { position: absolute; width: 300px; left: -999em; } ul.menu li:hover ul { left: auto; margin-left: 352px; margin-top: -15px; } This shifts the sub-menu off the page This brings the sub-menu back onto the page Use margins to position the sub-menu http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dropdowns http://htmldog.com/articles/suckerfish/dropdowns/

Joomla menu CSS <ul class="menu"> <li id="current" class="active item1"> <li class="parent item27"> <li class="item2"> Sample data: Home page This menu item has an ItemID of 1. There can be only one current menu item so it has an id of “current” This menu item is the parent of at least one sub-menu so it has a class of “parent”.

Joomla menu CSS <ul class="menu"> <li class="item1"> <li class="parent active item27"> <ul> <li id="current" class="active item34"> Sample data: What's New in 1.5? page There can be many active menu items so they have a class of “active”

Joomla menu item states ul.menu li#current a:link, ul.menu li#current a:visited, ul.menu li.active a:link, ul.menu li.active a:visited { color: #f0f0f0; background: #2b3d91; border-left: 0.4em solid #fe3; } ul.menu li#current a:hover, ul.menu li.active a:hover { border-left: 0.4em solid #aea; } Remember: there's only one current item But there can be more than one active item Sometimes you may need to change the hover colour for the current item

Joomla menu CSS cascade /* Basic link styles - Joomla states */ ul.menu li#current a:link, ul.menu li#current a:visited, ul.menu li.active > a:link, ul.menu li.active > a:visited {} /* Basic menu styles */ ul.menu {} /* Hover states */ ul.menu a:hover, ul.menu li#current a:hover, ul.menu li.active a:hover {} /* Suckerfish - Hide/show sub-menus */ ul.menu li ul { position: absolute; left: -999em; } ul.menu li:hover ul { left: auto; margin-left: 342px; margin-top: -44px; } /* Basic link styles */ ul.menu a:link, ul.menu a:visited {} /* Styles for parent menus */ ul.menu li.parent {} /* Active states */ ul.menu a:active, ul.menu li#current a:active, ul.menu li.active a:active {}

Background images ul.menu a:link, ul.menu a:visited { padding: 5px 5px 5px 25px; background: url(../images/arrow.png) no-repeat center left; } The path to the image is relative to the CSS file, not the template root Increase the left padding to allow room for the background image Use “center” to centre the image vertically

Background images ul.menu a:link, ul.menu a:visited { margin-top: 10px; padding: 5px 5px 5px 25px; background: url(../images/button_0.png) no-repeat center left; color: white; } ul.menu a:hover { background: url(../images/button_1.png) no-repeat center left; }

Where to get button images
http://www.buttonboost.com/startweb.html
http://cooltext.com/
http://www.netdenizen.com/buttonmill/glassy.php
Use your favourite search engine to find others

Joomla Menu Tag ID Module Manager -> Module: [Edit] <ul class=”menu” id=”main-menu”> Enter an id here and it will be added to the UL here Instead of ul.menu, use ul#main-menu

Joomla Menu Class Suffix <ul class=”menu-main-menu”> Module Manager -> Module: [Edit] Enter a suffix here and it will be added to the UL here

Joomla Menu Class Suffix Tip: If you enter a Menu Class Suffix with a leading space, you will get separate CSS classes in the UL. Tip: You can have as many classes in the UL as you like. <ul class=”menu main-menu”> <ul class=”menu main left rounded”>

Conclusion
Use a recipe to set the orientation of the menu.
Vertical, horizontal (fixed or variable).
Use a prototype stylesheet to ensure you get styles in the right order.
Use Web Developer Toolbar to save time.
Start by applying basic CSS styles.
Apply hover (and active) behaviour.
Decide if you are showing sub-menus on hover.
Apply Joomla state behaviour.
Have fun and let your creative juices flow!

If you can't be bothered Check out the extensions site: http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/core-enhancements/menu-systems

Joomla menus Questions?

Joomla Day UK 2009 Menus Presentation

by Chris Davenport

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Joomla Day UK 2009 Menus Presentation Presentation Transcript