Eklog

HTML Dog provide a widely used piece of JavaScript to enable the hover CSS pseudo-class to operate in Internet Explorer. It’s a popular method of applying dropdown menus thanks to its lightweight, standards-compliant, accessible, cross-browser nature.

Their drop-down menu is named the Suckerfish drop-down menu. They’ve now revised ‘Sons of Suckerfish‘ with the better JavaScript and Opera fix.

It’s possible to adapt it to create a floated horizontal solution with images, like the menu at the top of this page. It uses the improved code from Sons of Suckerfish and combined it with some elements of the CSS of the first method to give some nice looking drop-down backgrounds.

Positioniseverything.net’s css-dropdowns is another good CSS – JavaScript hybrid drop-down menu. Gosu.pl have some really nice looking DHTML menus including expanding editable menus. UDM4 also have some great looking menus with images which are also fully accessible to all browsers – including screenreaders, search-engines and text-only browsers.

Some CSS purists have the goal of creating drop-down menus using only CSS that work in Internet Explorer. These always seem to lack features available with the hover p-class, and when IE7 is available the JavaScript used in DHTML menus can be removed.

For a list of sites using drop-downs and other types of navigation menus see the DHTML Menus section.

I like these books:

Frames are dead – long live frames.

It’s widely accepted using frames is no longer a good idea. There are a number of reasons, the main ones being search engine readiness and accessibility.

Frames have often been used as a method to use a single common navigation section throughout the site by authors who cannot use server side technology (for example PHP or even SSI.)

Side note:

I’m new to Wordpress and I can’t find much information on what CSS is supported for the web log entries. I took a quick look at Wordpress’s Custom CSS theme – but from what I can gather I get this all for free by adjusting my K2 theme. Or am I missing something?
So, does this mean there is once again a use for inline frames?

end side note

From a design point of view it can be nice to have an inline frame effect where ‘taster content’ can be viewed, but extra scroll bars are needed so that you don’t take up too much of the main area. An example here (The frame is liquid (i.e. expands to fit the browser window) when included in a non-fixed layout) :

There’s also ‘Frames without Frames‘ for an entire liquid layout with a scrolled section. This uses scripted width expression for IE6. I’ve used this in my PHP section.

It’s also possible to have fixed sections of the page to produce a frame-like layout – See CSSPlay’s Holy Grill.