Thread: Need menu help - V 8 ML

I need to modify my horizontal menu so it does a drop down like this:
http://www.fansedge.com/


Can someone point me in the right direction with what files to modify? Is this even possible? I don't mind making the top items static. TIA!

We're going in that same direction.
www.obout.com has a nifty AJAX style menu like what you need ($200 for the complete kit and 2 years free upgrades!).
You will have to remove the existing menu system altogether, create an ascx control and a datasource and populate it that way (requires changes to the template.ascx file in your skins folder).
There is no way to do this with templates or the stock menu that comes with version 8.

In version 8, AspDotNetStorefront uses ComponentArt and an xml file to populate the menu. What you're looking for isn't possible with ComponentArt, but you can replace the entire menu with a brand new one. Depending on the method you use, you may need to modify different files. You'll definitely need to modify the skins/Skin_1/template.ascx file, that's where the default menu is referenced. You can replace all of that code with your own menu. You can build an HTML/CSS menu to accomplish that style of dropdown, there's an example here: http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menus/multi-column.html, or you can add a bit more flair using javascript, tutorial here: http://www.sohtanaka.com/web-design/...-w-css-jquery/.

You'll need to apply styles to the menu in skins/Skin_1/style.css, and add your HTML code to the template.ascx file. I often find it's easiest to implement a custom navigation by using an unordered list, and then copying that list into a topic so it can be easily updated via the admin site later. You can call a topic from your template.ascx file by using this token: (!Topic Name="LeftNav"!)

I second Nicole's advice. mc9000 is a little misleading here as it is very possible without any custom ASCX controls or the like.

Start with a CSS menu, then use jQuery to spice it up. In MLv8 the XML package capabilities will do great at building up your menu code as UL lists. The trick is just wrapping your mind around all the right CSS and testing in as many browser as you like.

I use an XML Package to generate my CSS Menu (start with the included left nav XML package and modify to taste). Then throw all the CSS styles into my template's CSS file.

I suppose the limitation is the amount of time you can afford to spend on this (or pay for). I could see a few days going into this no problem.