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MenuMachine Blog
Read about the future of MenuMachine in our new blog
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GoLive EOL
GoLive has been discontinued - what now?
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MenuMachine 2.2.1 available
New version adds support for GoLive 9 and improves menu performance and compatibility
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Release Notes...
MenuMachine 1 still available for GoLive 6 users...
GoLive 6 users can still buy and use MenuMachine 1.
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FAQs : MenuMachine Features
Q: General Questions
- Does MenuMachine work with Dreamweaver or FrontPage?
- What will happen to MenuMachine in the future? I heard that Adobe is ceasing GoLive development, will you be making a Dreamweaver version of MenuMachine?
Q: Features
- Do I have to edit any code?
- What control do I have over the formatting of menu items?
- How many rollover states can menu items have?
- Can I place images behind text in MenuMachine 2?
- Does MenuMachine 2 allow horizontal submenus?
- Does MenuMachine 2 allow me to create vertical menus that expand vertically when submenus appear?
- Can menus work across frames?
- How many menus can place on a page? How many items can I have in a menu?
- What are Themes?
- What are Arrows and Icons?
- What are the animation effects? Will these work in all browsers or is it just for IE on Windows?
- Can I change the opacity of a menu?
- Do variable opacity menus display in all browsers?
- Does MenuMachine 2 highlight the menu item that corresponds to the page the site visitor is currently viewing in the browser?
- Does MenuMachine 2 work with GoLive Components and Templates?
- Does MenuMachine 2 support GoLive Actions?
- How do I position menus on my pages?
- Is MenuMachine 2 available in my language?
Q: Upgrading
- Will MenuMachine 2 recognize my MenuMachine 1 menus?
- Working environment
- What are the system requirements for MenuMachine 2?
- Do I need to use a GoLive site file to use MenuMachine 2?
Q: Browser
- What browsers will be supported by MenuMachine 2?
- Does MenuMachine 2 allow search engines to follow links in the menu?
- Do pages containing MenuMachine menus validate against the W3C HTML and XHTML specifications?
A: General Questions
Does MenuMachine work with Dreamweaver or FrontPage?
MenuMachine 2 is a GoLive extension so it will not operate in Dreamweaver or FrontPage. However, pages which contain menus can be opened and edited in those programs.
What will happen to MenuMachine in the future? I heard that Adobe is ceasing GoLive development, will you be making a Dreamweaver version of MenuMachine?
Firstly, GoLive is not going away. Adobe has officially committed to the continued development of the product. While we cannot be specific, we are very confident that GoLive is not being "scrapped" and any rumors to the contrary are definitely not true.
However, we intend to ensure that our customers have a solution to meet their needs and we intend to evolve with the marketplace. We do recognize that many users are interested in a version of MenuMachine for Dreamweaver (and other HTML editors) and we are examining the options for supporting Dreamweaver customers in future.
In the short term we will not be producing a Dreamweaver version of MenuMachine 2, since MenuMachine 2 is written to the GoLive APIs and cannot be easily ported to Dreamweaver.
We cannot comment on future products at this stage but rest assured that we intend for MenuMachine to continue to be the best way to make drop-down menus for your web sites.
Features
Do I have to edit any code?
No. MenuMachine 2 is designed to let you create and edit menus without having to manually edit a single line of code. We want you to get on with designing, not typing!
What control do I have over the formatting of menu items?
MenuMachine 2 gives you full control over menu item formatting.
Text styling, colors, borders, border styles, background images, icons and more can be edited for individual menu items. You can set this up for a single menu item and then use the copy formatting function to copy some or all of the attributes to your selection of other items in the menu. This is an amazing time-saving feature.
Blocks of menu items can also be formatted, including block orientation, block offset, borders, paddings, separators and background images.
MenuMachine allows you to quickly select and edit menu items and menu blocks using its breakthrough WYSIWYG menu editor. The editor enables you to see the menu as it will appear in the browser. You can easily change the position of submenus and resize menu items by simply clicking and dragging. Menu item or block formatting is easily applied to other menu items and blocks.
How many rollover states can menu items have?
Every item in your menu can be configured to have different settings in three states – normal, over and click. Just select each state you need for each item and the options for that state become active.
Can I place images behind text in MenuMachine 2?
Yes. You can use background images for individual items or blocks or both! Text will be visible over the images.
Does MenuMachine 2 allow horizontal submenus?
Yes. In fact, MenuMachine 2 allows any menu block to be either horizontal or vertical in Cascading menus. You can mix and match to suit any design.
Does MenuMachine 2 allow me to create vertical menus that expand vertically when submenus appear?
Yes, MenuMachine 2 allows you to create this type of menu. These are called Vertically Expanding menus. The traditional drop-down style menus called Cascading menus are of course still available.
Can menus work across frames?
MenuMachine 2 allows sub-menus to display in a separate frame from the top-level menu items. You only need to set up one menu structure in the menu editor, then configure the menu in the page to split across frames. This is set up directly on your pages so the same menu can be used with and without frames.
How many menus can place on a page? How many items can I have in a menu?
You can theoretically have an unlimited number of menus with an unlimited number of menu items, however for performance reasons we do not suggest attempting to place a large number of menus or menu items on your page. Web site visitors are often confused by complex menu structures and it is normally best to use smaller menus that are specific to each area of your site than to place one enormous menu on every page.
What are Themes?
When you create a menu in MenuMachine 2 you will always start with one of the pre-existing themes. These are pre-built menus which save time by doing most of the formatting work for you. Once you have chosen a basic theme then you can then easily edit its structure and formatting to suit your needs. You can also save the menus you create as new themes. Themes are easily transferable between sites and even computers.
What are Arrows and Icons?
Arrows are small images placed automatically inside menu items which have submenus. Arrows can be adjusted on a block-by-block basis. Icons are images which can be placed inside individual menu items.
Both arrows and icons can be controlled in normal, over and click states.
What are the animation effects? Will these work in all browsers or is it just for IE on Windows?
MenuMachine 2 includes a selection of animated effects. When your submenus open and close, they can slide or scale into position. This can be combined with a fade effect if desired. The animation effects will work in all supported browsers, although some effects including fading require variable opacity support and will only work in modern browsers that support variable opacity. (Animation is not currently available in Vertically expanding menus, coming soon.)
Can I change the opacity of a menu?
Yes, you can change the opacity on a block-by-block basis.
Do variable opacity menus display in all browsers?
Variable opacity is a standard CSS feature found only in more recent browsers. Browsers that do not support variable opacity will always display menus at 100% opacity. The majority of current browsers do support this feature.
Does MenuMachine 2 highlight the menu item that corresponds to the page the site visitor is currently viewing in the browser?
Yes, this functionality is built in to MenuMachine 2 and you can choose a number of different settings to make this work in different ways.
Does MenuMachine 2 work with GoLive Components and Templates?
While you can use menus in components and templates, it is not required. By default, when you update a menu in MenuMachine 2 it automatically updates on every page in the site which contains that menu. After a menu is edited, only the menu files need to be uploaded to the server for the entire site to be updated. There's no need to re-upload pages containing the menus, unlike when you use Components. This makes site-wide menu updates extremely quick and easy.
Does MenuMachine 2 support GoLive Actions?
Yes, MenuMachine 2 is tightly integrated with GoLive and fully supports GoLive Actions. You add actions to youur menu inside your pages so the same menu can trigger actions on none, some or all of the pages in your site.
How do I position menus on my pages?
MenuMachine 2 allows you to place menus anywhere you want on the page. You simply drag the menu object where you want it. You can place the menu object inside other containers (like tables, grids, layers etc) to position it right where you want the menu. Becuase MenuMachine 2 allows you to see your menu in your page, positioning is easy.
The relative positioning and Lock to Image positioning options like those found in MenuMachine 1 are no longer required.
Is MenuMachine 2 available in my language?
MenuMachine 2 is available in English only. If you have problems with the instructions or using MenuMachine 2, we are happy to help where we can.
Upgrading
Will MenuMachine 2 recognize my MenuMachine 1 menus?
At this stage, no. In a future release of MenuMachine 2, you will be able to import the structure and formatting of your MenuMachine 1 menus into MenuMachine 2, however MenuMachine 2 cannot edit existing MenuMachine 1 menus.
MenuMachine 2 menus have a different internal structure and write different code to the page. MenuMachine 2 will not affect existing MenuMachine 1 menus on your pages and in fact you can have both MenuMachine 1 and MenuMachine 2 installed in one copy of GoLive without problems.
Working environment
What are the system requirements for MenuMachine 2?
MenuMachine 2 is an extension for Adobe GoLive and requires either GoLive CS or GoLive CS2 to operate. It will run on any Mac or Windows system that can run either GoLive CS or GoLive CS2. MenuMachine 2 does not work in GoLive 6 or earlier and therefore will not be available for Mac OS 9.
Do I need to use a GoLive site file to use MenuMachine 2?
While we highly recommend using a GoLive site file to manage your pages and assets, MenuMachine 2 will allow you to work without a site file by manually specifying your site root folder.
Browser
What browsers will be supported by MenuMachine 2?
MenuMachine 2 will support the majority of browsers.
Macintosh:
- Safari
- Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox
- Internet Explorer
- Opera
Windows:
- Internet Explorer
- Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox
- Opera
Does MenuMachine 2 allow search engines to follow links in the menu?
MenuMachine 2 automatically creates a separate menu map page and links to it. Search engines and browsers that do not support JavaScript will see a link to this page and will then be able to follow the links. The design of the menu map page is based on a template that can be edited for each individual menu.
Do pages containing MenuMachine menus validate against the W3C HTML and XHTML specifications?
Yes. MenuMachine 2 menus use custom tags (just like GoLive Actions and Components) in order to allow editing inside GoLive. GoLive allows you to easily strip these tags on upload so that the pages validate perfectly.