Expanding and collapsing submenus

["Justus H. Piater" <Ju...@ULg.ac.be>]

Hi -

Forrest has several ways to produce nice menus automatically; to me
this is the Big Added Value of Forrest. (While I'm at it, why not
deliver Forrest with a complete Cocoon? Or even better, make it easy
to work with an external Cocoon installation? For my purposes, I have
to add it all back in by hand...)

There's one common and practical structure that I miss (or correct me
if this has been added since Forrest 0.5.1):

  Menus whose hierarchies are mostly hidden, except for the
  subhierarchy to which the current page belongs.

This is like Forrest's default configuration, except that the latter
always displays all subhierarchies. Naturally, to enter into a
subhierarchy, the top-level heading should be a live link (that links
to the same page as the first link of the subhierarchy).

Shouldn't this be fairly easy to implement?

Recently, someone mentioned expandable hierarchies using JavaScript -
nice and useful, but there are also good reasons to avoid JavaScript.

Justus

-- 
Justus H. Piater, Ph.D.         http://www.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/~piater/
Institut Montefiore, B28        Phone: +32-4-366-2279
Université de Liège, Belgium    Fax:   +32-4-366-2620

Re: Expanding and collapsing submenus

[Marshall Roch <ma...@exclupen.com>]

Justus H. Piater wrote:
> There's one common and practical structure that I miss (or correct me
> if this has been added since Forrest 0.5.1):
> 
>   Menus whose hierarchies are mostly hidden, except for the
>   subhierarchy to which the current page belongs.
> 
> This is like Forrest's default configuration, except that the latter
> always displays all subhierarchies. Naturally, to enter into a
> subhierarchy, the top-level heading should be a live link (that links
> to the same page as the first link of the subhierarchy).

This sounds similar to what I was trying to do: 
http://issues.cocoondev.org/jira/secure/ViewIssue.jspa?key=FOR-91

The solution I ended up going with is creating book.xml in every 
directory to manually create the navigation.  It's not as painful as it 
sounds, but I know it's possible through the skin, if only I was better 
at XSL. :)

--
Marshall Roch

Re: Expanding and collapsing submenus

[David Crossley <cr...@indexgeo.com.au>]

Clay Leeds wrote:
> Justus H. Piater wrote:
> > This is like Forrest's default configuration, except that the latter
> > always displays all subhierarchies. Naturally, to enter into a
> > subhierarchy, the top-level heading should be a live link (that links
> > to the same page as the first link of the subhierarchy).
> >
> > Shouldn't this be fairly easy to implement?
> >
> > Recently, someone mentioned expandable hierarchies using JavaScript -
> > nice and useful, but there are also good reasons to avoid JavaScript.
> 
> My current requirement ("given" to me by the higher ups) is that our 
> web site needs to work with the lowest common denominator. In fact, 
> said owner has Javascript turned "off" on his system (due to his 
> perceptions about security/virus), and he lets me know if things don't 
> work correctly on his browser. I would prefer hierarchies expand using 
> javascript. However, I can only use such hierarchical structures *only* 
> if the content is still accessible without Javascript. Certain "simple" 
> functionality (randomness, etc.) has been implemented on the 
> server-side (in favor of client-side activity) because I have no 
> guarantee Javascript is running on the client.
> 
> This is just one case, so obviously Forrest won't be written 
> specifically *for* my case.

It is not just one case. All Australian government websites must
be usable without *any* Javascript. You can only employ it if you
also provide an alternative method.

IMO, Forrest should provide such a skin. Perhaps after the main
skin is done.

> However, I am hoping Forrest will have a 
> default skins that degrades "nicely" on systems like Lynx, Accessible 
> browsers, etc. By "nicely" I mean, will not generate an error, and 
> ensures primary content is viewable. Not having tried to view 
> <http://xml.apache.org/forrest/> on Lynx or an "accessible browser" 
> yet, I can't say for certain whether or not it works well. I intend to 
> take a look on a Lynx browser shortly.

Please help to make it address Web Accessibility.

--David

Re: Expanding and collapsing submenus

[Clay Leeds <cl...@medata.com>]

On Jan 8, 2004, at 10:30 AM, Justus H. Piater wrote:
> This is like Forrest's default configuration, except that the latter
> always displays all subhierarchies. Naturally, to enter into a
> subhierarchy, the top-level heading should be a live link (that links
> to the same page as the first link of the subhierarchy).
>
> Shouldn't this be fairly easy to implement?
>
> Recently, someone mentioned expandable hierarchies using JavaScript -
> nice and useful, but there are also good reasons to avoid JavaScript.

My current requirement ("given" to me by the higher ups) is that our 
web site needs to work with the lowest common denominator. In fact, 
said owner has Javascript turned "off" on his system (due to his 
perceptions about security/virus), and he lets me know if things don't 
work correctly on his browser. I would prefer hierarchies expand using 
javascript. However, I can only use such hierarchical structures *only* 
if the content is still accessible without Javascript. Certain "simple" 
functionality (randomness, etc.) has been implemented on the 
server-side (in favor of client-side activity) because I have no 
guarantee Javascript is running on the client.

This is just one case, so obviously Forrest won't be written 
specifically *for* my case. However, I am hoping Forrest will have a 
default skins that degrades "nicely" on systems like Lynx, Accessible 
browsers, etc. By "nicely" I mean, will not generate an error, and 
ensures primary content is viewable. Not having tried to view 
<http://xml.apache.org/forrest/> on Lynx or an "accessible browser" 
yet, I can't say for certain whether or not it works well. I intend to 
take a look on a Lynx browser shortly.

Web Maestro Clay