Normenu. Create a set of cascading menus from an Actinic site.

If you're using V5 or above then I've now got a version that uses the Actinic Netquotevar Sectionlists and converts them on the fly into HV_Menu's structure.

This means that there's no need to read the catalog database and rebuild the menus whenever your site structure changes.
The new version is called NorTree and is available here.

 

A demo will appear to the left of here shortly.

 

This program is capable of creating a set of cascading drop down menus for navigating all the sections from an Actinic V3, V4 or V5 site. These menus can be laid out horizontally or vertically. They can start with a single icon or can display the entire list of base level sections.

Whereas NorMenu(and NorTree) are free to use, Harlequin Domains offer a fully supported Design and Install service. They have successfully implemented it on many sites. Included in their fees is a voluntary payment they make to us in recognition of our efforts and to bribe our continued technical support. Click here to visit www.harlequindomains.com

Some other sites using NorMenu are:-

This uses the javascript HV Menu system from:-

www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex1/hvmenu/index.htm

This is an excellent cascading menu system that works in most major browsers. This program works with HV Menu V5.41 which is free for commercial and non-commercial use.

The NorMenu program completely automates the creation and configuration of such menus. It is written in Borland Delphi 4 and is a full GUI application. Nearly all configuration parameters (and there are lots) are controlled and documented on-screen. Normenu may freely be used on commercial sites (that's why you use Actinic after all).

All you need to do is add 4 lines to Act_Primary.html, run the NorMenu program whenever your section structure changes and all your pages will be menu enabled.

Downloading:

If you're switching between the above then it will be best to uninstall the current one before re-installing another version.

Installation and configuration:

Read the readme.txt in the download and run setup.exe to install. The program can be unistalled via Control Panel / Add Remove Programs.

Updates NEW 12/12/03

NorMenu is redundant for Actinic V5 and 6 users. If you're using V5 or above then I've now got a version that uses the Actinic Netquotevar Sectionlists and converts them on the fly into HV_Menus's structure. This means that there's no need to read the catalog database and rebuild the menus whenever your site structure changes. The new version is called NorTree and is available here. I've stripped out most of the database stuff but kept the configuration program for managing all the parameters. I'll continue to post updates to NorMenu as it's still the only way to do this for Catalog 4 and 3.


Whichever version you downloaded (above) you should also download the latest patch (approx 360Kb) and follow it's NorMenuPatch.txt instructions. Also get the latest readme.txt here.


12/12/03 - New executable patch (V2.17). Actinic V4 couldn't upload .js files - now using .txt instead.


20/01/03 - New executable patch (V2.16). NorMenu wasn't aware of "Hide On Web Site" sections. Fixed.


15/01/03 - New executable patch (V2.15). Added Top and Sub level background images.


28/11/02 - New executable patch (V2.14). NorMenu assumed you had Catalog 5 and failed if not present.


27/11/02 - New executable patch (V2.13). No code changes. Some form fields increased in size for user convenience.


03/11/02 - New executable patch (V2.12). ExtraCode was sometimes being lost if switching Versions.
Actinic Version 6 wasn't being remembered between executions.


04/10/02 - New executable patch (V2.11). This supports V5 and V6 catalogs that have been upgraded from V4, or are created by importing the section structure without defining a page name.
In these cases Actinic creates a page name in the old V4 way and prior releases were unaware of this.


21/09/00 - Browser Incompatibility fix. Netscape Version 4 (tested on NN4.7) was not displaying the text within the navigation menus. This seems to be because NN4 is interpreting the <Actinic:BASEHREF VALUE="NETQUOTEVAR:BASEHREF"/> in every page as an open tag and subsequent code is misinterpreted. The cure is to edit Act_Primary.html and change:-

<Actinic:BASEHREF VALUE="NETQUOTEVAR:BASEHREF"/>

to

<Actinic:BASEHREF VALUE="NETQUOTEVAR:BASEHREF"/></Actinic:BASEHREF>


11/09/02 - Version 2.10 - Added preview feature - This places an extra copy of the configuration files into the Sites PreviewHTML folder for Actinic versions V5 and greater. If you copy normenutest.html from the Site folder into PreviewHTML and run that, then the links should work on preview pages. In Normenu leave parameter "Link Prefix" blank when testing in PreviewHTML.


Version 2.09 - Ooops, bugfix - There was a bug in the first release 2.08 (the version number's in the Title bar). Top level sections weren't being ordered as per the Actinic database. Also support (untested but should work) for Actinic V6 has been added.

 

Let me know how you get on. I'd like to see it in use.

Have fun . . . Norman Rouxel . . . www.drillpine.biz