[Meta, Poll] Adding a pop-up menu system to the top of the screen.

[Michael Morris]

If people want them, great... but leave them off by default.

I'm a grognard, but I like sites with less graphics, less javascript, less flash animations, less "cutesy, eyeball-grabbing stuff" and more <i>written content.</i> Pop-down menus annoy the heck out of me.

Then try this. If you're running IE or NS switch to Oracle or Safari. Under their internet options tab you'll find an option to change the $HTTP_USER_AGENT string that your browser uses to identify itself to servers. Delete the term "Gecko" or "MSIE." That will not only turn off the pop-up menu's I'm using, but it will also turn them off on 90% of the pages you'll find that use PHP to determine your browsers identidy.

 

[Michael Morris]

My personal opinion, not as an admin or anything else, is have it be optional unless it can be guaranteed to not cause problems on all visitors' computers.

While I cannot guarantee 100% of the guests that visit the site won't have any problems, I think I can safely say that problems will be had by less than 1% of visitors. At what point do we just move on? If we had to wait for 100% passage nothing would be done. Do you know that Congress, in over 200 years of existance, has passed less than 100 major legislative acts unaminously? (Even the vote of war against Japan was met with one nay).

I can guarantee that all efforts will be made to insure that the script will not cause any problems.

 

[haiiro]

So... why can't the people who don't like dropdown menus just...kinda...not...use it...? Why does it need to be switchable?

I assumed that it would replace the table of contents style menu on the left side of the screen, which I think would be a bad idea. Some of the later comments seem to have clarified that this would not be the case (i.e., both would be present).

If that is correct, then I'm neutral on the issue -- the presence or absence of a drop-down bar won't affect me, and I'll stick to using the TOC-style menu.

 

[Michael Morris]

I do want to make one thing clear.

Despite the options in the poll above, I have absolutely no intention of messing around with making in optional. It'll either be there or it won't.

Given the difficulty of actually editing the menu, it's looking extremely unlikely that I'll use it anyway (cool though it is). Its not something I'm personally capable of maintaining, which it needs to be.

As I pointed out in the META thread twin to this, editting the menu is tricky, but not all that hard if all you want to do is change links or link names using just a text editor. Adding or detracting options is much harder. I'm going to spend this evening appraising the difficulty of adding or detracting boxes to the bar.

At the beginning of the JavaScript file that generates and controls the menus lies the information about the links. Here's the entry for Middle Earth d20

mm_menu_0028013207_1.addMenuItem("Middle Earth d20","location='http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/hosted/ME/'");

Now for a short analysis of what all this means. First, highlighted in yellow bold the section that controls what is printed in the box...

mm_menu_0028013207_1.addMenuItem("Middle Earth d20","location='http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/hosted/ME/'");

Note that the spaces are using the HTML code equivalents nbsp, and the like. Quote the message and you'll see what I mean. I *think* it is neccessary to retain this formatting. Meanwhile...

mm_menu_0028013207_1.addMenuItem("Middle Earth d20","location=' http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/hosted/ME/ '");

That's the section of the code that controls the URL. This should be familiar, and its editting is straightforward.

As to what the rest of it means, I don't know. I suspect its a positioning control (if so, I would not want to hand encode it)

Again, I'm more than willing to help with this.

 

[Enceladus]

You had me at Hello...

 

[Keith]

Installing navigation, or anything, that the people responsible for maintaining the site may have trouble working with is not a great idea. I’ve seen that, and it can hurt a site.

 

[Michael Morris]

Installing navigation, or anything, that the people responsible for maintaining the site may have trouble working with is not a great idea. I’ve seen that, and it can hurt a site.

As you said, people - plural. Russ is concerned because he can't do it alone (not unless someone wants to buy him a $300 program Donations?? ) While I understand this, I maintain a corner of this site as well and am willing to donate my time to keep this current.

 

[Dragongirl]

I do want to make one thing clear.

Despite the options in the poll above, I have absolutely no intention of messing around with making in optional. It'll either be there or it won't.

Given the difficulty of actually editing the menu, it's looking extremely unlikely that I'll use it anyway (cool though it is). Its not something I'm personally capable of maintaining, which it needs to be.

Since it does not work in all browsers and you will have to maintain a regular menu anyway, may as well make it switchable.

 

[The Sigil]

Then try this. If you're running IE or NS switch to Oracle or Safari. Under their internet options tab you'll find an option to change the $HTTP_USER_AGENT string that your browser uses to identify itself to servers. Delete the term "Gecko" or "MSIE." That will not only turn off the pop-up menu's I'm using, but it will also turn them off on 90% of the pages you'll find that use PHP to determine your browsers identidy.

Let me rephrase...

I don't care one way or the other if you do it provided:

1.) I can turn it off.

2.) It is off by default. When I first come to the site, I come "un-logged-in" because I am on a semi-public computer and don't want to save my login info (to say nothing of the fact that ENWorld expires logins before I can finish writing half my long-winded posts ;p) - meaning I'll have to deal with it at least once per visit to the site. Yuk. Again, it's like smoking - I don't care if you want to do it, just make sure I don't have to deal with it. To extend that analogy, I get annoyed when I visit Vegas - yes, I have a non-smoking room, but in order to check in and get my key - and to enter and leave the hotel - I have to walk through a lobby choked with smoke. Similarly, if I have to log in to turn it off, I have to "walk through" a virtual "lobby" filled with something I don't like before I can get to my "room" (being logged in with the bar turned off).

I'm probably making smokers mad at me, but it's the best analogy I can think of... the arrangement whereby the bar only comes "on" if you login and turn it on is analogous to a situation where smokers can only smoke in their rooms but not the lobby. I never have to deal with the smoke because I don't visit their rooms, so it doesn't bother me. Then again, maybe I'm being selfish because it might bother a smoker that they have to wait until they get to their room... but IMO, a "positive presence" of something tends to be more obnoxious than the "lack of a presence" of something like this. But again, maybe it's just 'cuz I'm on the side of the fence that wants a "lack of" in both cases. Now I'm getting too philosophical... LOL

The browser change is a nice idea, but impractical - why should I adjust my browser on account of one site? If there is even one other person out there who feels as I do, it seems a little odd to have a website demand that people change - since it takes only one person to adjust the website but one person PER browser change to do the work by the method you described. IOW, which is more economical, asking you to make one small change (make it optional) or asking many people to make one fairly major change (swapping browsers and editing settings)?

I appreciate your enthusiasm and programming talent and I'm sure it's a great title bar. But just like smoking or vile content at my gaming table, I simply don't want any, thank you. I'm not saying nobody can have it... just that I don't want it - and as soon as you make two people adjust to one site, you've already increased the total amount of work that goes into pleasing people RE: the bar. (hope that's making sense)

--The Sigil

 

[orbitalfreak]

Like I said in Meta, I'd love to see this option implemented. I think it's cool.

However, I wouldn't want to install anything on the boards that made it inacessible to *even one person.* If people don't like the bar based on asthetics, oh well, don't look at it ::shrug::. If it interferes mechanically with people, then it should be scrapped.

If it interferes, but is able to be turned off, then make "off" the default, and people who are able to use it can choose to do so.