Full CSS implementation

Let us know what you would like to see in the next version of Easy Button & Menu Maker

Full CSS implementation

Postby Purple Edge » Sat Mar 01, 2008 10:36 am

I am using the evaluation version and notice two things in menus which are "unnecessary"...

1. The buttons are statically generated images, not css and text.
2. The buttons are placed in tables!!!

Are these limitations of the evaluation version only? If not, why have you not used css for the whole menu, this tool would be perfect if not for these limitations.

The design tool is the best I have seen for creating menus, but with the above limitations it becomes very difficult to design menus from dynamic data at runtime.
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Postby martimiz » Fri Mar 07, 2008 2:58 pm

I have to agree here.

I have complete faith in you guys so I just bought the full version and I really do like what I see, but the use of tables somewhat disapoints me. If you want to support older browsers maybe you could offer a choice of rendering here?

Using list-items with background images would alow for easily turning code into templates and would improve Accessibility as well.

I agree that this would result in quite a lot of classes if you'd create a complex color scheme, but maybe again - a choice?
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Postby netrover » Fri Mar 21, 2008 4:30 pm

I'm exactly the same as martimiz.

I didn't even try the demo when I got the email about this product. I also know from experience how good the software is here and I just bought straight away.

I also agree with the first post about css/tableless. For accessibility alone you can't beat css text so that it scales nicely. I put the sliding doors snippets into my webuilder which I used quite a bit.

I would also like to see a top level button without images. Basically the submenus without having to create a button first. We could then quickly and easily create full css flyout menus.

Still a great product to have though.
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Postby Aivars » Sat Mar 22, 2008 6:40 pm

Due to common request, the next version will be able generate button menus without tables.
Personally I don't understand the hate against tables, since they are the most reliable layout structures in html, except when there's dozens of them nested inside each other (shudder), but you're the customers and we honestly will try to add all the features that make you happy.
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Postby Purple Edge » Sat Mar 29, 2008 4:46 am

That's good news if "next version" means the next release
javascript:emoticon(':lol:')
Laughing

The beauty of eliminating tables is simple - for dynamically generated menus - from a database - the entire menu structure is the same UL/LI etc without having to have separate code for the tables.

When using images for the top level, it would be preferable to use the image rollover technique with one image containing three states - http://www.monkeyflash.com/css/image-rollover-navbar/ - that means that there is only one image for the entire menu, and the text can be dynamically generated for the top level. The current design using different, fixed, images for each top level menu is just dumb! (sorry)

Aivars wrote:Due to common request, the next version will be able generate button menus without tables.
Personally I don't understand the hate against tables, since they are the most reliable layout structures in html, except when there's dozens of them nested inside each other (shudder), but you're the customers and we honestly will try to add all the features that make you happy.
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Re: Full CSS implementation

Postby mboto » Thu May 22, 2008 3:33 am

IĀ´m trialing this soft and i agree with all the posts above.
Tables are for present tabular data, not for menus.
An unordered list (UL) would be much more appropriate and semantic.
The program could have a lot of potential if it was fully CSS based, allowing both text and css background images to be used for the menus.
The Office UI interface has a lot of space and provides a great way to organize all the diferent options.
LetĀ´s hope for the best. IĀ´m holding on this one for now.

But iĀ´m more than happy to pay for the newly discovery Htmlpad!. Impressive how a program has such a great mix of usefull features as this one (thatĀ´s why iĀ´m checking all your other software).
Great work :)
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Re: Full CSS implementation

Postby Karlis » Thu May 22, 2008 3:35 pm

The upcoming release will support two modes (high-compatibility mode using Tables) and modern mode using no tables, but ULs most likely. work is in progress.
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Re: Full CSS implementation

Postby Karlis » Tue May 27, 2008 5:41 pm

As of version 1.2, use of TABLE tags is optional and recommended for maximum backwards compatibility. ULs are now used and they should work well in all modern web browsers (we have tested with IE 5.5/6/7/8, FF 2.x, as well as latest Safari and Opera browsers).
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Re: Full CSS implementation

Postby martimiz » Tue May 27, 2008 9:52 pm

Karlis wrote:As of version 1.2, use of TABLE tags is optional and recommended for maximum backwards compatibility. ULs are now used and they should work well in all modern web browsers (we have tested with IE 5.5/6/7/8, FF 2.x, as well as latest Safari and Opera browsers).

Nice!!! :)

But does this mean that we have to buy the new release as well? For I haven't really been able to use the one I own now because of the use of tables, so I would consider this a bit expensive :(
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Re: Full CSS implementation

Postby Karlis » Tue May 27, 2008 10:53 pm

martimiz wrote:Nice!!! :)

But does this mean that we have to buy the new release as well? For I haven't really been able to use the one I own now because of the use of tables, so I would consider this a bit expensive :(


Of course, not! This is an update. Updates are free...

Check out the policy:
http://www.blumentals.net/order/upgpol.php
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Re: Full CSS implementation

Postby martimiz » Wed May 28, 2008 5:20 pm

I'm happy :-D
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Re: Full CSS implementation

Postby martimiz » Sat Jun 07, 2008 1:01 pm

Been thinking again... :) how about a third option next to the ones you're offering already:

Suppose you would show button captions as real text. You could then put references to graphics into the CSS as background images. This would 'unclutter' the HTML (think accessibility), make it supereasy to convert the result into a template for most template engines and build dynamic (multilingual!!!) sites while going without javascript as well.

I could possibly do this now by creating a range of empty buttons and dropdowns, and then use some scripting to automatically 'rearange' the files - and I possibly will - but I don't think it would be really hard for you guys to implement this, seeing what you've done already :) If I can be of any help, don't hesitate...
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Re: Full CSS implementation

Postby Purple Edge » Thu Jan 21, 2010 3:27 am

I just revisited this after 18 months or so, and it still uses images at the top level, so it can't be used for dynamic sites using a content management system.
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