Cozmo's Dev Blog - Interweb

Seeking recommendations for a drop down menu (tabs)

Tue, 19 May 2009 20:22:00-0700

I have a very finicky and non trivial CSS based layout that I have finally worked all the kinks out of. Actually it is only finicky in IE. Now the powers that be want to add drop down menus (tabs) the top nav bar that use the sliding door rounded corner technique. I have tried a bunch of menuing systems: Dynamic Drive menus, Spry, some jQuery plugins, Massimo's hiermenu and a bunch of stuff I found off of the Google and all of them have problems of one sort or another. I can't position it correctly, it trows off other page elementsm the drop down columns are mis-aligned etc... forever and ever, world with out end. Amen. I posted this to CF_talk a few months back (the site got shelved since then and it is back in production) and though I would hit up the blogosphere.. Has anybody out there had any luck with this and can recommend a tabbed menu dropdown solution? The primary requirement are:

It can have sub menus
W3C XHTML compliant.
Allows for text based links

These are the Menus that I have tried so far:

(ot) Pleas leave a comment below. Many TIA!!!

It seems that I am not alone

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:19:00-0700

Are You Frustrated With Firefox?

My script goes to eleven.

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:22:00-0700

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? This reminds me of debugging PERL back in the 90's.

My Googlewhack

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 21:24:00-0700

Googlewhack: To find that elusive query (two words - no quote marks) with a single, solitary result. oderiferous pachyderms Granted oderiferous is a misspelled ... Does that count? http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=mzk&q=+oderiferous++pachyderms&btnG=Search

The Pipe of DEATH

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 21:44:00-0700

I have the Pipe of DEATH!!! at work. Remember when a T1 was fast? We have 10 megs both ways.

I'm a Cool High Nerd.

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 14:16:00-0700

ZDNet disgusts me more and more everyday

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 16:11:00-0700

Every time I get one of their "Tech updates" it has at least one story that fans the flame of the eternal (and in my opinion, STUPID) holy war. My opinion is that software (OS's included) are tools to get a job done. Look, it is a hammer, not a freaking religion. For 99% of the population computers are, much like a truck, a means to an end and not the end themselves. But of course there are always those people who become emotionally involved with their tools and have those stickers of Calvin, of Calvin and Hobbes, peeing on the rival truck's logo. Ford drivers have Calvin peeing the Chevy Logo and vice versa. Most people would probably agree that the whole Chevy vs. Ford debate is a big adolescent prick wagging contest and, at its core, is pretty damn stupid. If you look at it from this vantage point, the whole Windows vs. Linux argument here is basically on the same level. It is a bunch of "grown ups" carrying on like kids on a playground except the mantra of "my dad can beat up your dad" has been replaced with "my Operating System can beat up your Operating System" I am an IT professional. In being so I keep up on the latest trends by reading blogs and subscribing to trade journals and newsletters like InfoWorld, IDG, DevShed.com, internet.com, devx.com and so on. In comparison to these journals, ZDNet reads like a gossip column. Some of these "Tech Update" have more in common with Joan Rivers's coverage of Hollywood red carpet events than IT professional's covering industry events and trends (you know who you are). Do any of the aforementioned trade journals partake in ZDNet's brand of IT yellow journalism? In a word, no. They offer sound, competent coverage of pertinent industry news, developments and tools. Often times they do have their own slant or agenda but they don't use sensationalism to drive traffic to their website's comment section. I would wager that the majority of the traffic on the ZDNet news and blog site is generated by their "discussion" section. I use Linux freakin every day. I develop on the LAMP stack, among others. It is a fantastic platform. We also develop using the Microsoft, Adobe, Sun and New Atlanta stacks. Why? There are several reasons, but mostly because it is more cost effective. Visual Studio is a fantastic product. Java is, well Java. Flash and Flex don't have viable alternatives, and we can get ColdFusion apps out the door in half the time it takes to develop them using "free" platforms like LAMP or .NET. I use Open/closed Source tools every day. For instance my primary IDE is Eclipse. Eclipse is absolutely astounding. But I also use DreamWeaver, mostly because it is the best tool for building web based GUI's. My Databases of choice are MySQL, Derby and MS SQL Server, in that order. I love MySQL. It is by far my favorite, but SQL Server's Data Transfer services make MySQL look like a child's play thing. Mind you, all of them are outstanding at what they do. They just do different things better than the other. Do I care if they are Open Source or not? Not really. Just as long as they do what I want them to do and gets me from Point A to point B in the most efficient, practical and cost effective manner. I use Windows as my OS of choice. Why? One reason is that a good portion of my day in, day out tools run on Windows with out having to kludge together a work around or have some apps be crippled or semi functional, like I would with Linux. Another is that Macs, while very nice, are still too expensive. The other reason is that *I don't like* the Linux desktop environment. I have tried to like it. I really have. I tried to switch in earnest. I used it almost exclusively for three months, so I know. But after 12 weeks of kludging together a work-arounds and a few rounds of dependency hell, I finally said screw it. I need to get some work done. What really bothers me is that I have been played for a fool by the editors of ZDNet. Once again they have sucked me into this time wasting and ultimately futile debate, AGAIN. I stopped get the ZDNet news letters a year or two back for the same reason. But I started to do so again, despite the flame bait that they use to drive traffic to their site, because they do have items of professional and personal interest. It is rather insidious how they drag you into the fray. But now I am going to back off and port the energy that I have wasted in this mindless debate into developing my skills on BOTH Windows and *nix platforms. And remember, you are being played as a fool in order to pad another mans bank account. Y'all have fun pounding sand. One day it might turn into glass.

Yahoo sucks.

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 01:51:00-0700

I used to look up to Yahoo big time. They were the shiznit when it came to web development some 3-5 years ago. If I was writing an app that had Yahoo did, I went to see how they went about doing it and I would reverse engineer it for the most part. Calendering apps, contacts, portals, search engines, you name it. I used to look to see how they did it before I wrote a lick of code. They were the best, hands down. Back in the day.... Today I want to add a profile on my Yahoo account. It took me 20 min to get nowhere. I could delete a profile no problem.... thinking that they had a glitch that required me to delete a profile before adding a new one. No dice. Well after 20 min and 3 deleted profiles, and logging back into my account *12 times* (no really) and no new profile... I said fuck it and created a new account called Yahhoo_sux. BINGO!!!! If I put ppl though that sorta shite I would get fired on the spot. I wonder if their shite is just as fuctup as every other company with dumb ass management.

Slash Dot'ers Crack Me Up.

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 15:02:00-0700

I am all about Open Source. I love it. It has changed computing and has contributed to the betterment of all users. I use TONS of OS Software and at work I am known as the Open Source Guy.

But I HATE Open Source fundimentalists. They are nothing more than elitist, intellectual bigots and snobs. That is why I use the term Open Sores as a category on my blog

So when I saw on fullasagoog.com that Apollo was featured on slash dot I HAD to look.

JD on EP was nice enough to highlight some of the comments

My overall impression is that there are many reactionary attacks based on insufficient study of source materials, as well as an impressive number of defenses based buttressed by observable reality. One unstated subtext among many attacks seems to be "I don't like it so no one must be permitted to use it." Overall trend is positive, though.

From there I ran into this thread on slash dot. As far as I am concerned complaining about Flash not running on Free BSD is like complaining about water being wet, as illegalcortex pointed out in a very humorous manner.

http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=227249&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=18406815#1840702

illegalcortex (1007791)

Just give up. Otherwise, this will eventually end with them complaining that it doesn't run on the VIC-20.

by MaggieL (10193)

Nobody *made* them call it a "cross-operating system runtime"...excuse us for asking how many operating systems it crosses.

They could have just called it a "proprietary thing to build apps with", but somehow that sounds less appealing.

illegalcortex (1007791)

I'd hate to be the sporting goods salesman when you people come around to ask about the cross-country skis...

MaggieL (10193)

I'd hate to be the sporting goods salesman when you people come around to ask about the cross-country skis...

"How much country can I cross with these skis?" is so unreasonable to ask...

Look at it this way: if your OS portfolio is Mac and Windows, then you're about as "cross-platform" as Excel is.

illegalcortex (1007791)

"Can I cross water with these skis?"

"Well, no, not really. They're not water skis..."

"HAH! Do you realize water covers almost 71% of the Earth's surface. So you're telling me these skis are useless on over two-thirds of the planets surface?!"

"Uh, I'm not really sure what that has to do with-"

"And these skis, can they be used on mountains?"

"Well, mountains with snow and-"

"Not rocky mountains? What part of the definition of the word 'country' says that it doesn't include rocks?"

"Again, I don't really see-"

"And how about roads?"

"Roads?"

"Yes, roads. Streets. Boulevards. Avenues. And sidewalks. And freeway entrance ramps. And stairs."

"Look, are you actually going to buy these skis?"

"Why would I buy these skis? I live in Los Angeles and it never snows. So until you come out with some skis that can be used in downtown LA, I suggest you stop calling these "cross-country" skis. Also, I don't have any legs, you insensitive clod!"

The part about the stairs cracked me up.

Look.... If something will run on Windoze (sic), Mac and Linux, or 99% of the machines out there, then it is cross platform.

Killer FireFox Add-Ons that I use every day.... and so should you.

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 18:16:00-0700

~~SessionSaver - Restore you browsers session https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/436/~~ Session Manager - Restore you browsers session https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2324/ DownThemAll! https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/201/ Tab Mix Plus - Move, close, Lock, protect, insert tabs between other tabs and more. https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1122/ GSpace - Use your gmail account for File storage. https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1593/ I tested it today and I was able to upload a 288 meg file to it Web Developer Extensions: A MUST have for web development http://chrispederick.com/work/webdeveloper/ IE tab - For cross browser testing https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1419/

Are we in the early stages of a Renaissance?

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 21:05:00-0700

It is almost as if the web has been just incubating for the last ten or twelve years and then all the sudden it seems to be just bounding with innovation (or I was just too far into my depression and/or too busy building the business this last year to notice). It is like it is in the early stages of a renaissance. Sure some cool things came out like .NET, SOA, PHP and MySQL 5, XHTML and Web Services over the last several years. But for the most part it was business as usual. It was mostly back end stuff; new features to old stand bys or different ways of doing the same old stuff. Nothing really exciting was coming out. The basic mechanics of web development has not really changed all that much since the the late 90's. If you really look at it, there was a markup language (html or xhtml), CSS, graphics, flash, JS on the front end and a scripting language and a database on the back end. The only really major turning point was when Netscape died and pretty much enabled cross browser CSS and JS (Well, sort of). But now it seams like a FLURRY of developments and innovations are all happening all at once: AJAX, FLEX, Apollo, Flash 9, a bazillion Frameworks, ZK, Ruby on Rails, Eclipse, more web development plug-ins for firefox than you can shake a stick at, and so on and so forth.... These are some really exciting times and I am totally pumped about being a web developer. I am so overwhelmed and excited about it I just don't know where to start with all the new toys I have to play with. I have a hard time getting to sleep knowing about all these new toys... It is like everyday is Christmas Eve and I am 7 yrs old all over again.... I am a luck man because I wake up each and every day looking forward to the wonders that the new day will bring.

I really hate (some) geeks

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 23:57:00-0700

I got on some of the chat rooms wanting to talk to others about why I think flex is the next killer app and all I got was a bunch of condescending "know it alls" telling me why flex would not work. I think that intelligent people are just as bigoted and narrow minded as the average joe. Yahoo chat is the anus of the internet.