Posted by Joseph S. on 11/04/05 13:20

Sergio wrote:
> for my web site I am looking for a simple PHP plain text menu system, the
> menu would have at least four levels and about 200 links, at starting only
> the main levels should appear, for example :
>
> MATHEMATICS
> HISTORY
> GEOMETRY
>
> once you click on one of these a submenu would appear
>
> MATHEMATICS
> Functions
> Limits
> Derivatives
> ......
> HISTORY
> GEOMETRY
>
> the same when you click on a submenu (at least four levels required)
>
> Additional requirements :
> a) the menu should use Javascript when the browser supports it,
> alternatively (when the browser doesn't support Javascript) it can show all
> the items open
For javascript menus (and for browsers without Javascript, but with
generic hover support )
see http://www.alistapart.com/articles/horizdropdowns/
and http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dropdowns/

(in general, http://www.alistapart.com/ has useful articles)

> c) it would include some mouseover effect when the cursor is over a link
The above two show how to use CSS to get good mouseover effects

> d) it should support the most popular browsers
IE6(should have Javascript enabled) Mozilla, Firefox(dont need
Javascript)

> or (a much better alternative) to process the menu from
> server.
If you need this, you have the downside that for every menu click, your
user's request goes to the server,i.e., your page gets reloaded. You
can do it with your menus stored in a text file or better, in a table.
And, then, get the data into a structure like the following 2-D array:
id,text,link,parentid
0, root, nolink, -
1, MATH, http://www.math.org, 0
2, SCIENCE, http://www.science.org, 0
3, ALGEBRA, http://www.algebra.math.org,1
4, PHYSICS, http://www.physics.science.org,2

and so on,
and then go through the array to generate the menus.

HTH,
Joseph S.

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