About
DHTML menu problems can be consigned to the past using Alien Menus for:
superior performance
higher scalability
greater optical impact
faster development
true frame-crossing
This page explains all of the extra options hidden away in these menus.
How to set an entry to use a style from the stylesheet
STEP 1
Always begin editing the index file by opening the file in a simple text editor like Windows Notepad. The index file is the .txt file we send you by email when you configure the menu using the online configuration tool. It looks like a list, where each line contains exactly 10 inverted commas which sometimes have commands inserted between them.
STEP 2
"TEXT:my text;" "1" "3" "" ""
Lite version: stylesheet not available
Professional version: stylesheet with 8 styles available; each style is locked to a submenu level - e.g. level 2 will use style 2
Enterprise version: stylesheet with 12 styles available. Each style can be individually assigned to a menu item. To assign a style to a menu item, insert a number in the style marker field as in the example above. For example, to assign style 3 to a menu item, insert the number 3 into the style marker field. Styles can be defined using the online Alien Menus Designer. Each style has the following configurable properties:
font face
font size
font weight
italics
underlining conditions (e.g. on rollover)
text shadow
text alignment
text colour
text rollover colour
text shadow colour
text rollover shadow colour
menu item colour
menu item rollover colour
STEP 3
Always finish your editing session with a test of the new addition. Ensure that you have saved the index file and placed it in the same directory as the other menu files. Do not change its name. And ensure that any additional resources you may have added, such as GIF or JPG files for icons, or AU files for sounds, are also in the correct place. Remember that when you try to view the results in a browser, an old version may be pulled out of cache and you won't see the changes. To avoid cache problems: with the Microsoft java interpreter you can keep CTRL-SHIFT pressed while reloading, and with the Sun java interpreter you will need to close all browser windows and then restart the browser.
GENERAL POINTS
To make sure that your index file remains correctly formatted, please observe the following simple rules. Each menu item is defined by a single line in the index file. This line must have 10 sets of inverted commas as shown in all the examples. Do not try to spread a menu item definition over more than one line - just make the line longer.
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