CodeStore.net comments on "Using Flyout Menu to Administer Web Applications"

Reply from Kirk Stoner

Kirk Stoner

CSS driven menus have a bad habit in IE of having editable components bleed throuh as well. I am a firm disbeliever in Outline/Navigator approach to web site navigation and use a simple clean Dialog-Box (dropdown as my users call them) that performs a lookup against menu items. OnChange event triggers a JS function that takes the passed alias from that field and loads the appropriate view or form. The menu items are securable by either role , group or explicit user assignment.

For my Admin navigation, I merely have a second Dialog box performing the same function but on menu items specified under a separate category. Use a hide when formula to hide the admin nav field if admin role is not enabled for that user. If the app has very little in the way of navigation options, you can combine all menus into a single dialog box saving even more screen area.

Reply from Alan Harris

Alan Harris

YES PLEASE !!!

Reply from Luis

Luis

Yes please invest more time, very useful information.

Thank you

Reply from Matt Cooper

Matt Cooper

For the most part, I use framesets for site admin. I've had good luck with them. (even though Jake says "Ney")

At any rate, this approach allows me to clearly seperate admin from UI and it makes for far less coding. That and ... it works with every browser. Additionally, with some clever targeted links you can have documents automatically load in a specific frame when opened for editing.

I've done computed subforms and such, but I finally got sick of the layout problems that Jake refers to. Framesets are not nearly as "high-tech", but my theory is to keep it simple and use what works. Additionally, you can cram lots into them.

Reply from Rob

Rob

I'm very interested in knowing how you got the login to work without loading the custom login form. That alone would help me out a bunch.

The menu part isn't as interesting. Each line of my menus are a seperate document with a reader field which contains a list of roles. When a user logs in the roles that are assigned to him (or the group he's in) determine which roles he has and, thus, which navigator lines show up.

I've been using this system for 4 or 5 years now and it has made it easy for me to automate the changing of the many permission levels in my systems.

Best regards,

Rob:-]

Reply from Tanny O'Haley

Tanny O'Haley

I think you're talking more in the vein of a drop down, not a flyout. I only say that because flyout, menus/options have a history of problems for those with disabilities. With that said, I like your drop down login form, though you need to add IDs to the input elements so that the labels work. You might want to implement this using the Suckerfish drop down menus and putting the form in an LI. Also if you expect any of the menus or drop down forms to go over a list (select element), in IE 6 and below the list will bleed through. The solution is to add an iframe shim.

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Administration pages should not be an afterthought, I believe they should be just as beautiful as the site.

Reply from Dragon Cotterill

Dragon Cotterill

To make it work in IE, change the page so that the element in question has an onmouseover option to unhide the div. Yeah I know it isn't nice and shiney, but at least it works in all browsers right from the start.

With an added benefit that if the Login option is an href to an actual login page, you now have a system which works even when the user doesn't have javascript enabled.

I know it's nicer to use a pure CSS version, but you cannot trust IE to conform to CSS standards like other browsers do.