That "Menu Bar"

[edglimited]

It seems that several people are having issues with the Menu Bar in TNG14. I'm not saying 14 is the cause,  but why does it have to be so difficult, when it could be so easy implemented.

Over at GWT, Marsha has several Menu Bar versions which if included, in TNG14, would solve all these issues. If it ups the price of the Software by $5.00 then so be it. I'm willing to pay the extra.

Kat, JohnPaul, even Rob have had issues. Why are we having them at all..!!!!

If you view the first two pictures, they are of my WebSite, showing Login / Logout. The waste of real estate in that Menu Bar is plain to see. My login name alone takes up two DDM's. If I had the option of a long Menu Bar, I could clean up my Home Page too no end. Then as JP has pointed out, when he is logged in on T21, his name is above the Menu Bar. When Kat is logged in, her language change is also in a weird place.

Why can we not be presented with two options, a short Menu Bar and a long Menu Bar. Marsha already has it, as options in the the 3rd and 4th pictures. Why cant the login / logout be incorporated into a DDM as displayed under a Home Button. Why cant the language change not be incorporated along the Menu Bar as well.

Drew..

EDIT: The user should also be able to add / edit anything in the DDM'S, (long Menu Bar) so that their WebSite is displayed the way they want it to be.

Edited February 1, 2023 by edglimited
Added edit.

[RickM]

Definitely something that SERIOUSLY should be looked at.. I've been doing some fiddling with @Rob Severijns Help / FAQ pages and creating a Mod to at the very least to install the files and a Menu link on the Bar, then style for each template etc.. OMG That MENU BAR!!

Drew, I doubt @Darrin Lythgoe and other TNG Devs/Testers want to get into it.. Yet should the people speak, maybe there will be change and innovation that 'Users' really do want..

 

[Rob Severijns]

I use GWT Templates and in my previous conversations with @Marsha Bryant the width of the top-menubar and container have been discussed.

She told me that she was indeed thinking of widening them and/or adding the oppertunity to have a user set the desired width.

In my previous contacts with her she's always been very helpfull and I consider her support just as good as the support @Darrin Lythgoe gives.

A lot of questions asked in the forum are about changing the layout of templates and adding code to make templates more flexible.

The templates provided by TNG are realy great for those who start using TNG for the 1st time and who lack the skills to write supplemental code.

Nothing wrong with that but as time goes by users prefer tweaking their website by adding mods and/or code.

For those who want more flexibillity there is the option of Wordpress or using a more interactive template like the ones created by GWT Templates.

There's absolutely a desire amongst users to widen at least the top-menubar. There's even a mod for it. It's the Custom_Menu_Hook_Mod is created by @Ken Roy 

All in all I agree that a more flexibel top-menubar and container would benefit many users.

As long as that's not the case this forum is still a great place to get support.

 

[edglimited]

15 hours ago, RickM said:

Drew, I doubt @Darrin Lythgoe and other TNG Devs/Testers want to get into it.. Yet should the people speak, maybe there will be change and innovation that 'Users' really do want..

Yes, it's like a forbidden subject, don't speak about it, or you'll unleash the sleeping giant. It's 2023, we have a Mod for almost every other area on TNG, except the Menu Bar. 🤣

[edglimited]

12 hours ago, Rob Severijns said:

She told me that she was indeed thinking of widening them and/or adding the oppertunity to have a user set the desired width.

As mentioned, Im a starter. Ask Marsha to provide some options, if she's serious.

12 hours ago, Rob Severijns said:

There's absolutely a desire amongst users to widen at least the top-menubar. There's even a mod for it. It's the Custom_Menu_Hook_Mod is created by @Ken Roy 

All in all I agree that a more flexibel top-menubar and container would benefit many users.

I agree. However the Mod produced by Ken works well. The limitation is, you can only install his Mod once in the Menu Bar.!! (works in my TNG 12.3 not TNG14)

I did some mockups in the sandbox, for what I want to happen with my Menu Bar. The Login should be replaced by a Home Button, with a DDM. Find, Media and Info should remain the same. The rest of the Bar should be user friendly. In a shot below, I have also included (for fun) a His Side and Her Side to show the possibilities.

This reworked Menu Bar gets as much junk off my front page as possible and into an area, that is easy to navigate.

At best, I would advocate for no more than 7 tabs, or it gets busy. That does'nt stop the option of sub-menus though..??!!

[edglimited]

To explain the Home Button better. When you login, your user name no longer appears in the Menu Bar, pushing other tabs down and out of sight. Your user name appears where it says user edit, in the DDM. The rest are suggestions only and should be user friendly. I've done this in HTML coding.

The Login button can change to Logout, after Login, or you can add a Logout button anywhere, or one is automatically cretaed for a user. The My Account button in the top right hand corner is for Site Admin only, setup etc..

[Katryne]

deleted

 

[edglimited]

15 minutes ago, Katryne said:

I exchange some mails with Darrin today about this, following Ken's advice. I seemed that I did not have the latest release of templatestyle.css for template 19.

(I tried to quote the link towards the thread I initiated, but the link embeded a bunch of useless and ugly advertisments. I don't know where they come from. I had not seen them before. But the thread I wanted to quote is called : Language box in template 19 (TNG 14).

The menu bar in my site is now nearest to what I want.

https://clan.chauvigne.info/

I will look into the existing mods that you mentionned, thanks.

Hi Kat, just an fyi, the Mod installs, but I am yet to see it appear in my Menu Bar. There is plenty of room for it too show.

It seems everyone is having various issues of some degree with the release..

[RickM]

Well I guess I need to understand who uses what template.. As already said I am working with Rob to get his Help files into TNG and have already had issues with the SOSA Mod already taking Menu space.. Seems daft that there is only room for four drop downs in the early templates and probably all..

Sure I can understand Narrower screens and all YET!! All things are possible these days with CSS and up to date HTML coding.

 

[RickM]

@edglimited

Drew, have you checked under your Shop Drop Down?? Prob will be some dummy links there..

This is what I was meaning in my previous message..

SOSA Installed after my beta Help Mod.. Beta Mod Install First SOSA second and same result..

SOSA Menu goes Under the Help FAQs.. Bit daft IMHO.. I Know its not the Mods fault per say it is just as it is with the menu..

Come on @Darrin Lythgoe

Can this be sorted??

[edglimited]

20 minutes ago, RickM said:

Well I guess I need to understand who uses what template.. As already said I am working with Rob to get his Help files into TNG and have already had issues with the SOSA Mod already taking Menu space.. Seems daft that there is only room for four drop downs in the early templates and probably all..

Sure I can understand Narrower screens and all YET!! All things are possible these days with CSS and up to date HTML coding.

 

All what you have said, has already been achieved by Marsha. We just need to know what her future intentions are for the Menu Bar. I would purchase one of her Templates today, if I knew that any of the tabs on her Menu Bar was able to be edited. Most of what is on display, I dont have a need for, nor actually want. For me that's the killer.

In terms of narrower screens and mobiles, there is the hamburger menu. Not everyones cup of tea, but it works. (once you work out, how it functions).

My question is, can these tabs be edited, yes or no. ???

[edglimited]

20 minutes ago, RickM said:

@edglimited

Drew, have you checked under your Shop Drop Down?? Prob will be some dummy links there..

Hey Rick. No dummy links. Ken's Mod installs ok, no errors, no bad targets. Everything is normal. customconfig.php shows no red boxes or syntax errors etc. Prolog shows no errors.

The Mod just cant be viewed in the Menu Bar. In TNG12.3 works like a charm. 🙃

[edglimited]

16 hours ago, Rob Severijns said:

There's absolutely a desire amongst users to widen at least the top-menubar. There's even a mod for it. It's the Custom_Menu_Hook_Mod is created by @Ken Roy 

All in all I agree that a more flexibel top-menubar and container would benefit many users.

I did a double check to make sure, that the Mod was compliant with TNG14, but could not find it in the newly added or updated mods for the Mods for TNG v14 category:

It was showing a TNG 14 Badge and was listed as a Mod for TNG 14. I'm guessing that as of today, an update has not yet occured.

 

[Brett]

54 minutes ago, edglimited said:

I did a double check to make sure, that the Mod was compliant with TNG14, but could not find it in the newly added or updated mods for the Mods for TNG v14 category:

It was showing a TNG 14 Badge and was listed as a Mod for TNG 14. I'm guessing that as of today, an update has not yet occured.

I will try to explain a little about Mod updates. If a current Mod works on a newer version with no changes, the updated version icon and text is included on the Mod page. As no changes had occurred, there is no update to the Mod category page. If the Wiki Mod page has the also had the correct Mod Category included on the Mod page, it will appear in the Mods that work in that version.

In your example, the TNG14 category was included on the Wiki page:

It automatically shows on the Mod Category page:

 

[Rob Severijns]

7 hours ago, RickM said:

have already had issues with the SOSA Mod already taking Menu space

This issue can easily be resolved by setting the SOSA Menu options to not show in the menubar.

As you can see below, my menubar has enough room to host at least 11 options and I didn't make use of the Custom_Menu_Hook_Mod yet.

I did increase my container width from 1212px to 1440px to achieve this.

I just added the following line in mytngstyle.css of the template folder which by the way is one of the GWT Templates

.container {width: 1440px; text-align:left; margin: 0 auto;
}

Not entirely sure what the effect is on other templates but I guess it should work with template 19 & 21 too for they were provided by GWT Templates

As you can see there are ways to create more spae on the menubar fairly easy.

I also use @Michel KIRSCH his Menu_manager mod to remove dropdown items I don't use like recordings.

6 hours ago, edglimited said:

I would purchase one of her Templates today, if I knew that any of the tabs on her Menu Bar was able to be edited.

Just send her an email and she will tell you.

[Michel KIRSCH]

8 hours ago, RickM said:

have already had issues with the SOSA Mod already taking Menu space.

FYI, Sosa propose a lot of possibilities to show (or not) its menus.

Explore these possibilities with the Sosa "Easy Edit" button with the help associated...

Michel

[Ken Roy]

@edglimited

Drew if you are talking about the Custom Menu Hook Mod that is a sample mod on how to create a 4th pull down menu using the built in capabilities of TNG's custom menu hook.  That mod is not likely to change since it is simply a sample mod on how to do it.  You need to read the different options within the  Custom Menu Hook  on how to create your own site menu or add entries to the Find and Info menu.  The Media menu is handled differently

If you are using the Sosa mod as well, you should use the Distributed menu options for the Sosa pull down menu.  Set 12 - MENU  to 1 in Edit options and the Sosa menu  will be spread across multiple TNG pull down menu options.

Hope that helps

 

[RickM]

2 hours ago, Michel KIRSCH said:

FYI, Sosa propose a lot of possibilities to show (or not) its menus.

Explore these possibilities with the Sosa "Easy Edit" button with the help associated...

Michel

Michel,
I love the options you have for the Sosa Menu. You have thought of almost everything.. Very clever man indeed..
 

[RickM]

TO ALL

I guess the topic might need refining.. OR NOT.

In a sense, why should Michel have to code his Sosa Mod in such a way to allow for another Mod already using the fourth MDD?? Should he not be able to just say I want to add the MDD to either side of the 'Find', 'Media', Info' MDDs OR maybe even put it by the 'Home', 'Search', 'Logout'?

WHY is there an arbitrarily set limit on MDDs?

How hard would it be to actually ALLOW better access to the MDDs?? Maybe if I was a REAL Coder I could do it.. I only fiddle to suit my wants and desires.. I have shared two Mods so I am no expert at all and do not profess to be one.

 

[Katryne]

Deleted

[RickM]

9 minutes ago, Katryne said:

Rick, Michel has the best beta-testers in the world, that's the reason why 😋

Well!! That says it all Katryne.. And I am NOT one of them 🤣🤣
And very clever thinkers too!!

[RickM]

Well, A few hours later and the result is still, I am still NOT a 'Real' Coder, yet I think I have cracked it..

Representational image at the moment.. Actual Drop Down WILL look more related to the Help Links

But it should not need to be so hard.. It wasn't once I worked through it. The average John Doe  should not need to spend a few hours doing what I have done.. AND then having to build a Mod to execute..

 

[edglimited]

13 hours ago, Rob Severijns said:

19 hours ago, edglimited said:

I would purchase one of her Templates today, if I knew that any of the tabs on her Menu Bar was able to be edited.

Just send her an email and she will tell you. 

Cheers Rob, have already sent two msgs on the subject, with no reply. I wont be sending a third.

[edglimited]

11 hours ago, Ken Roy said:

Drew if you are talking about the Custom Menu Hook Mod that is a sample mod on how to create a 4th pull down menu using the built in capabilities of TNG's custom menu hook.

Cheers Ken. Finally worked it out. I had to go back to TNG12 to see what I had done. Back then, I did'nt install the Mod, just added your code to the customconfig.php and it worked 100%. The custom hook menu, is still working now on TNG12. Just does'nt work with TNG14 and Template19.

Could $custommenulinks[$link_nr] be the issue it wont show.?? An old-style link definition, yet to be changed, updated etc.

[edglimited]

5 hours ago, RickM said:

Well, A few hours later and the result is still, I am still NOT a 'Real' Coder, yet I think I have cracked it..

Well done, basically, you have recreated the Find Menu. I had issues with that method, but you've cottoned onto something I missed or overlooked. Are you able to replicate that DDM again in the Menu Bar, with another Name instead of Help-FAQ's.

Rick, I can msg you, the code I used to get what I have in my Menu Bar, if it helps in anyway. Looking at what you have now, I dont think you'll need it.