Chris Davenport's presentation on Creating Good Looking, Functional, Menus from this year's Joomla! Day UK event

1. Joomla! Day UK 2009

2. Joomla! Day UK 2009 Menus and how to make them look cool Providing a flexible platform for digital publishing and collaboration. Chris Davenport Joomla! Core Team

3. Choosing a template Choose primarily for layout Menus can usually be customised

4. All kinds of menus All menus are just HTML unordered lists

7. CSS Box Model Margin Padding Border Content box Bounding box

9. Vertical menus

11. Horizontal menus

14. Basic styling ul.menu a { display: block; width: 8.5em; font-size: 2em; text-decoration: none; margin-top: 10px; padding: 5px 5px 5px 15px; color: #2b3d91; background-color: #f0f0f0; }

15. Web developer toolbar http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/60/

17. Roll-over effects: Example ul.menu a:hover { color: white; background-color: blue; } ul.menu a:link, ul.menu a:visited { color: blue; background-color: white; } ul.menu a:active { color: white; background-color: red; }

18. Roll-over effects: Borders ul.menu a:link, ul.menu a:visited { padding: 0.2em 0.4em; border-left: 0.4em solid #2b3d91; color: #2b3d91; background: #f6f6ff; } ul.menu a:hover { border-left: 0.4em solid #aea; color: white; background: #369; } ul.menu a:active { border-left: 0.4em solid red; }

19. Roll-over effects: submenus ul.menu li ul { position: absolute; width: 300px; left: -999em; } ul.menu li:hover ul { left: auto; margin-left: 352px; margin-top: -15px; } This shifts the sub-menu off the page This brings the sub-menu back onto the page Use margins to position the sub-menu http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dropdowns http://htmldog.com/articles/suckerfish/dropdowns/

20. Joomla menu CSS <ul class=&quot;menu&quot;> <li id=&quot;current&quot; class=&quot;active item1&quot;> <li class=&quot;parent item27&quot;> <li class=&quot;item2&quot;> Sample data: Home page This menu item has an ItemID of 1. There can be only one current menu item so it has an id of “current” This menu item is the parent of at least one sub-menu so it has a class of “parent”.

21. Joomla menu CSS <ul class=&quot;menu&quot;> <li class=&quot;item1&quot;> <li class=&quot;parent active item27&quot;> <ul> <li id=&quot;current&quot; class=&quot;active item34&quot;> Sample data: What's New in 1.5? page There can be many active menu items so they have a class of “active”

22. Joomla menu item states ul.menu li#current a:link, ul.menu li#current a:visited, ul.menu li.active a:link, ul.menu li.active a:visited { color: #f0f0f0; background: #2b3d91; border-left: 0.4em solid #fe3; } ul.menu li#current a:hover, ul.menu li.active a:hover { border-left: 0.4em solid #aea; } Remember: there's only one current item But there can be more than one active item Sometimes you may need to change the hover colour for the current item

23. Joomla menu CSS cascade /* Basic link styles - Joomla states */ ul.menu li#current a:link, ul.menu li#current a:visited, ul.menu li.active > a:link, ul.menu li.active > a:visited {} /* Basic menu styles */ ul.menu {} /* Hover states */ ul.menu a:hover, ul.menu li#current a:hover, ul.menu li.active a:hover {} /* Suckerfish - Hide/show sub-menus */ ul.menu li ul { position: absolute; left: -999em; } ul.menu li:hover ul { left: auto; margin-left: 342px; margin-top: -44px; } /* Basic link styles */ ul.menu a:link, ul.menu a:visited {} /* Styles for parent menus */ ul.menu li.parent {} /* Active states */ ul.menu a:active, ul.menu li#current a:active, ul.menu li.active a:active {}

24. Background images ul.menu a:link, ul.menu a:visited { padding: 5px 5px 5px 25px; background: url(../images/arrow.png) no-repeat center left; } The path to the image is relative to the CSS file, not the template root Increase the left padding to allow room for the background image Use “center” to centre the image vertically

25. Background images ul.menu a:link, ul.menu a:visited { margin-top: 10px; padding: 5px 5px 5px 25px; background: url(../images/button_0.png) no-repeat center left; color: white; } ul.menu a:hover { background: url(../images/button_1.png) no-repeat center left; }

27. Joomla Menu Tag ID Module Manager -> Module: [Edit] <ul class=”menu” id=”main-menu”> Enter an id here and it will be added to the UL here Instead of ul.menu, use ul#main-menu

28. Joomla Menu Class Suffix <ul class=”menu-main-menu”> Module Manager -> Module: [Edit] Enter a suffix here and it will be added to the UL here

29. Joomla Menu Class Suffix Tip: If you enter a Menu Class Suffix with a leading space, you will get separate CSS classes in the UL. Tip: You can have as many classes in the UL as you like. <ul class=”menu main-menu”> <ul class=”menu main left rounded”>

31. If you can't be bothered Check out the extensions site: http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/core-enhancements/menu-systems

32. Joomla menus Questions?

33. Copyright and Licence Copyright © 2009 Chris Davenport This presentation is available for use under the Joomla! Electronic Documentation License http://docs.joomla.org/JEDL