Dear Xavier,
 Please take a look at the site I am trying to create at; http://www.telecommunitycu.com/1-new.htm
 After alot of fruitless tries and much education I found that the two menus can not work together, because a page can contain only one specific loader code.
 I was hoping that there might be some "if/then" statement that could be applied here. I'm sure it would have to be done manually but I'm willing if your're able
 If I abandon the design I've sketched out, I will be loosing ALOT! So I would apprecaite anything that you can suggest.

- Joelw

"I don't have a solution but I admire the problem." - UK

Actually you can load as many projects as you want on the same page.

Its a bit tricky but it can be done.

Open DMB and click on Help->Contents->More Help->Sharing Projects and... follow the instructions.

Thank you Xavier.

   Your Help File, unlike those found in many other programs, actually 'helped' - what a concept  

   A couple of things still, if you'd be so kind. I'll probably figure them out, but if nothing else this should be a valuable Q&A for others wondering about this process. Well, here goes..

1) Does this work with Frames?
   In the first section of that Help File was the statement;
"NOTE: The feature is not available on projects using frames."
Since this forum is, "Frames Implementation > Using HotSpots >", I am hoping that's old news.

2) How can a page's Frames Loader Code be set to react to both menus?
   Renaming of the .JS files is similar to my storing the files for each menu in separate directories. The problem I found was that the focus pages for the menus still needed to have loader code, which is specific to a single HotSpots group & its .JS files.

Before having the 'Sharing Projects' steps:
- I tried to install Menu1 Frames Loader Code into files that already had the code for Menu2 = Menu1 overwrote the code in Menu2 (of course).
- I tried to manually add the code from Menu1 into a file that already had the code for Menu2 = the new code was disregarded.
 Is there something special I need to do with my (152) web pages that my 2 menus will be displaying over?

3) Beyond renaming the .JS files, are the HotSpots pages all that needs to be modified?
   The manual coding suggested in the Help File is just for the HotSpots. This seems to mean that I only need to edit the 2 pages in the 2 frames for my 2 menus. Sorry, seems 2 easy. :

4) The Special Code goes into the HotSpots Pages? Place anywhere special?
   The last section says; "There's a special piece of code that needs to be included into your page.." I am assuming that the page(s) mentioned are my HotSpots pages. Should the script be placed above or below the trigger code?

5) Is the newest DMB update important for what I will be doing?
   I installed it for the blessings of relative links, but the pages seem to become over loaded with code, and my menus stopped working. I went back to the previous version and things cleared up.

   I'm sorry I chewed your ear off. I'll be working on this tonight, and I'll let you know how things work out.

- Joel

"Some folks sit and think, others just sit." -Ukn

Xavier, I’m back again.

It turned out that the Help File was correct. With Frames Support enabled, the Shared Project selection box was grayed-out, not allowing that option.

I’ve spent some time looking at the code & can see that a fix may not be as simple as an if/then statement, as I had hoped.

I look forward to hearing anything you have to say on this issue. For now I’m stuck – if you can’t figure it out, I certainly won’t be able to.

- Joel

"Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this." - UK

wow... ok... Before I answer all your questions, let me ask you something first:

Are the menus going to be triggered from the same frame or are you going to have two frames with hotspots and another one to display the contents of your pages plus the menus?

Perhaps you could do a small drawing showing your web site's page layout...

Xavier,

Yea, I get a bit long winded sometimes. Sorry again.

Better than drawing you a picture, go to the site at: http://www.telecommunitycu.com/1-new.htm   I set the frames to show their borders. The Left Menu is operational, the Right is just pictures. Ideally, I will be able to get the Right Menu to display sub-menus too.  That is - both side menu's capable of presenting their sub-menus into the center frame, no matter what page appears. A simple if/then statement will do, I'm sure (yea right!)

(BTW: The graphics are just thrown together to be examples & place keepers

- Joel

"I date this girl for two years - and then the nagging starts: 'I wanna know your name.'" - UK

Well, what you're trying to is quite easy to implement!

Please post the two projects that you would like to use and I'll create a working sample (with detailed instructions) for you.

Xavier,

When you said “..post the two projects..” I assumed you meant just the compiled files and the basic HTML files. If you need more, or anything else, I have to beg mercy. I didn’t get to sleep last night. I was trying to get this working before this weekend when my client comes in from Ohio.

What I am sending is a zipped file containing;

"Menu-1" folder with it's compiled files
"Menu-2" folder with it's compiled files

HTML Files:
1-New.htm - main frameset (will become default.htm)
fr-Foot.htm - bottom frame
fr-Main.htm - center frame
fr-Menu-L..htm - left frame for that menu
fr-Menu-R..htm - right frame for that menu
fr-Top.htm - top frame

Project_Files-list.txt - this list

One more thing please, when I had the Right hand Menu working, I couldn’t get the sub-menus to line up to the left properly. They wanted to sit where the Left hand’s sub-menus go!? Odd.

Well I am blessed and very thrilled to hear that this “..is quite easy to implement!” Now I can sleep soundly.

Be back in about 8 hours.

- Joel

"On the other hand, you have different fingers." - Ukn

Xavier

Sorry the zip file didn't come along when I hit preview & edit didn't allow for attachments.

Here goes..

- Joel

A couple of missing things that I will need:

1) The images! (It's hard to work with missing images)
2) The fr-Menu-R2.htm document

Xavier,

I should have thought of the images. The attached zip file has those and the missing HTML file. That file, fr-Menu-R2.htm, is a temp file without any DMB formatting. The working file though, is fr-Menu-R.htm.

[Note: A simple edit of the "1-New.htm" file in the tag " name=", from "fr-Menu-R2.htm" to "fr-Menu-R.htm", would put things right - that's if you want to.]

BTW: Looking at Menu-R.DMB, I see that this last time when I ran the HotSpots Editor, the group "Newsletters" was not included.

- Joel

"What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter." - UK

Ok, unzip the attached ZIP file and open the 1-menu.htm file in your browser.

------

Now, the way I did it is quite tricky:

1) First I setup DMB to install the code on the left frame. Ran the HotSpots Editor to attach each group to each one of the hotspots and tested it that everything worked fine.

2) Then, I changed the "Document Containing the HotSpots" to point to the fr-Menu-R2.htm and did the same thing.

At this point if you test your menus only the ones on the left frame will work but this step is required so DMB install the trigger code on the images (that is the code that displays the menus when the mouse is over the images).

3) This is one of the tricky parts:
I edited the fr-Menu-R2.htm and removed the loader code installed by DMB and changed it by a series of functions.
These functions simply locate where the actual (primary) toolbar is located. The code starts to check every single frame on your design until it finds that the real toolbar is on the left frame.

There's no need for you to understand that code.

4) And this is the final... really tricky part.
The trigger code implemented by HotSpots Editor displays the menus but at the wrong position so the x,y values for ShowMenu function where changed by some custom code:

The x position is very easy to determine:
Simply calculate the width of the middle frame and that's the x position. The code on DMB's menu.js will take care of properly positioning the menu so its always visible.

The y position uses a function from the menu.js file that determines the distance of an image from the top of the page.

----------

It is important that you don't have to understand what I did.
Just know that now that the menus are implemented and working all you have to do is install the frames loader code into every page that at any given time will be displayed on the center frame called "main".

The rest is already done and you shouldn't try to run the "install loader code" option or the "hotspots editor" ever again or the custom code I inserted will be lost.

...cool uh?

Xavier,

Busy day! I’ll try to get back to you tomorrow. For now, I see that the files you sent work, but I’m concerned about needing to make changes in the future without knowing how to reproduce the steps you went through. I’ll discuss this more tomorrow after I have had time to take a closer look at what you’ve created.

Thanx again and always,

- Joel

"What is a friend?" his reply was "A single soul dwelling in two bodies." --Aristotle

Actually is very easy:

The code on the right frame will be constant no matter what.
The only thing that could change is the trigger code (the ShowMenu function) on your hotspots and I can help you with that if you ever need to change it.

Xavier,

I had to stop work on this project last month. Now that I’m ready for the next stage, I find that the code you gave me works for dead links, but blows-up the browser when there are actual pages to go to.

The attached zip file ‘060102-Site_fix3.zip’ contains:
- You’re original code from 6/8/2
- A bare-bones version of the site. This has files for only the menu items; ‘Accounts Info’ & ‘Specials’.
- A text file called ‘MS-Error’ which details the problem.

I would appreciate it if you could test this yourself and tell me if I am missing something, or if it still needs to be tweaked.

Thanx as always, Joel

"Every 10 seconds, somewhere on this earth, there is a woman giving birth to a child.
She must be found and stopped!" - Ukn

Joelw,

It looks like you forgot the attachment...

Sorry  Could of sworn that I sent it...

Xavier,

I was hoping to have received a reply by now, but I see that my zip file hasn't even been down loaded yet.

I'm sure that you're busy, but could you give me an idea of when to expect an answer.

Thanx alot!

- Joel

I'm sorry... I guess I missed it when you posted your attachment.

Remember that I just implement the menus so they would work with the default frameset.

To complete my implementation you must install the "frames loader code" on all the pages that will be displayed on the "main" frame.

For example, when clicking on the "Touch Tone Teller" you get a page with the word "BLANK" in it.

This page does not display any menus because it doesn't contain the frames loader code.

If you install the frames loader code on all the pages of your web site that will be displayed (at any time) on the "main" frame all the problems will (should) be resolved.

Xavier,

I have highly valued your input, and so have chosen to not abuse it. Because of this, I have spent the last two weeks racking my brain trying to figure out why the menus don't work. As you said in your last response;

"If you install the frames loader code on all the pages of your web site that will be displayed (at any time) on the "main" frame all the problems will (should) be resolved."

Well that didn't seem to work - I'm assuming some simple error on my part. I am attaching another copy of the temporary site, with a minimum of files [060102-Site-080402.zip]. If you could just get the two hotspots "Account Info" & "Specials" working, I would really appreciate it. From there I should be able to finish the menu's and do any additional trouble shooting using your work as the example. (BTW: I am using DMB v 3.6).

My difficulties in general have been (mostly just personal problems probably ??? ) :
> I have been having inconsistent results
> Mistakes that disable the menus, and then aren't reversible
> Inability to fix the code manually or, in many cases, to even see what has been effected within the code
> Creating working menu sets consistently rather than sporadically
> Changing file and folder names without disabling the menus
> Using the Preview option (not Instant Preview) & seeing an example that works there, but not on the site
> The confusion caused by the generic references to; code, loader code, menus, & toolbars vs. the specific terms
> The 'DMB_..gif' files I found are critical for the menus to work, but tend to be reference incorrectly, disabling the menu
> Right clicking on the 'Main/Focus' window brings up the "Account info' menu where ever you clicked at..?
> Lack of documentation on v3.6 in the help files
If you would like me to detail any or all of the issues above, let me know and I will try to catalogue examples of these and other points of confusion. I'd like to point out that professionally I never criticize anything that isn't 'almost great' - it's a waste of my time, and annoys the 'fumblers' Suffice it to say, I consider your program worthy of constructive criticism.

When I get this working I will be coming back to;
1) Detail my success &
2) Discuss my need to be able to make changes on the fly.
This second issue is of great concern to me considering the trouble I've been having. If there is a more appropriate forum to discuss this second issue, please let me know.

- Joel

BTW: If you want to see what the site will look like when finished, go to: http://www.Ideas2U.com/TCCUNew/
(The left menu is the only one working and, the site still is a bit rough - just thrown together).

"Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this." - UK

I have had to deal with issue like this a couple of times now.
Sometimes, no matter what I suggest, what I do, what I say the problems never seem to get away and users (you) tend to get discourage and highly frustrated.

In my experience (I've been dealing with people for over 9 years and on xFX JumpStart for about 6) the only way to solve this is through a remote meeting.

A remote meeting is where I "enter" into your computer. I know, this sounds scary but it's completely safe.

We use some program such as Windows XP's Remote Assistance (my preferred), NetMeeting 3.1 or even the free VNC.

Then with these programs I'm able to see your desktop and control your computer from here... while you "watch me" implement the menus.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit hard to setup a remote meeting if we both are behind firewalls/proxy servers.

Please, let me know if you would like to try a remote meeting and I’ll be more than happy to schedule one.

Xavier,

A remote meeting sounds fine ‘if’ it can be done. I would still like to try looking at a working copy from you. If you can get it to work, then I should be able to duplicate your work. I think that would be the quickest 1st step. If there is some reason that I can’t make it work, then a remote meeting would maybe make sense.

If you can’t send me a working copy, or feel that it would be an unnecessary step, then a remote meeting in the evening (say 6ish PST) would work best for me. (What time zone are you in?)

- Joel

"Whoever said money can't buy everything didn't know where to shop." - Ukn

oh sure... I'd love to create a working copy for you.

How large is your web site?
If it’s under 10MB go ahead and ZIP it and send it to support@xfx.net and I'll install a duplicate of the web site on our development server.

Xavier,

I sent you the site yesterday. Please keep me informed.

- Joel

"What you know, I don't know, so let me know." -Ukn