Work continues on the amazing "Rich Drop Down Menu" for ConTrak Systems.  In this installment, we see multiple menus on a page.  In the HTML, we see very little lines of code used to create the menus.  In the very back end, we see that everything was moved to a JavaScript file, which contains a RichDropDownMenu object.

Simply put, the entire Rich DDL Menu is now a JavaScript object.  Multiple instances of the menu can exist on the page and lines on the menu can be removed programmatically by third-party scripts.  Life is good.

Here's what a third-party person needs to do to create the second menu:

richddl2 = new RichDropDownMenu(112,"gradient_green_40.gif", "contrak_bkg.gif", "ConTrak_AdvancedDropDownMenu", "ConTrak_AdvancedDropDownMenu_RowNormal", "ConTrak_AdvancedDropDownMenu_RowHighlight", "ConTrak_AdvancedDropDownMenu_Text"); //Populate the menu: richddl2.AddMenuItem('icons/consetup.gif','Con Setup'); richddl2.AddMenuItem('icons/user.gif','User Admin'); richddl2.AddMenuItem('icons/vcard.gif','Registration'); richddl2.AddMenuItem('icons/photo.gif','Art Show'); richddl2.AddMenuItem('icons/auction.gif','Auction'); richddl2.AddMenuItem('icons/dealerroom.gif','Dealer Room'); richddl2.AddMenuItem('icons/images.gif','Pictures'); //Final adjustment for the browser display (it's hard) richddl2.IEAdjustY = 0; richddl2.FirefoxAdjustY = -14; //Show the menu below the small table: richddl2.show(table);

And now we get to a section where the programmer complains: I had to learn a good deal about both Firefox and IE DOMs, where things can be accessed, and how difficult it is to position something on a page.  This third phase alone took me seven and a half hours to complete!  Blah!  The next phase will create an ASP .Net control out of it for use when I begin developing ConTrak Systems v2.