RE: FN-FORUM had an idea....

date posted 11th July 2001 23:42

I suppose you could use Flash to create the menu. Although generally, Flash
is not usually considered a good idea for menus since some people might not
have a suitable plugin, it depends on your target audience. You could also
perhaps, use some alternative method along with the Flash on the off chance
someone hasn't got a flash plugin (although it usually comes included with
most browser installations).

Even if you create your menu in Flash 5 it is possible to export the SWF
file as an older version. In many ways it could be argued that Flash is a
great deal more reliable and consistent than HTML and looks the same in
Nestscape and IE and having one Flash file to edit is quite easy. (I guess
you could even use Flash generator) and certainly a lot less clunky than
alternatives such as a Java menu, server side Image Map, Frames, IFRAMES, a
separate page of links and a back button on every page (to name a few)

But I suppose if the client is not that into forking out it might be best to
stick to frames put an entrance page up with a meta refresh tag and with all
the keywords for search engines and or stick a meta tag on the frameset page
along with some representative noframes content.

Nick

http://www.artberry.net





> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL REMOVED]
> [EMAIL REMOVED] Behalf Of Henry Hughes
> Sent: 11 July 2001 11:12
> To: [EMAIL REMOVED]
> Subject: FN-FORUM had an idea....
>
>
> I've been building a site with quite a lot of content and a rather large
> menu system.
>
> Making all this easy to navigate is fine using frames: ie just one
> menu.html file to edit as changes come about in the navigation. However I
> want this site to get up the ranks in the search engines as quickly as
> possible so I am considering building it without frames. It would
> also make
> it easier to link into from other sites.
>
> To make this practical, the menu system would still have to be centrally
> edited in order to be practical (ie without having to edit every page in
> the site). I could do it using dreamweaver templates very easily,
> but this
> would mean having to upload the whole site everytime the menu
> changed. This
> isn't a great idea as we are talking 50+ pages in different directories.
>
> I was wondering then about different methods of inclusion....
> SSIs could be
> an idea : but then how do you test the site without a local server?
> External DHMTL / JS files : ye-es, could be pull down menu-tastic
> but this
> client couldn't pay for that sort of development (unless anyone
> has a quick
> n dirty plug n play solution, I know theres a lot of them about : they
> just generally look horrible.).
>
> oh yeah..... www.boardnldoge.com ....
>
> frame-tastic and quarter of a menu there at the moment, loads
> more as they
> heat up for next season.
>
> cheers in advance.
> H

>