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hierarchical multi-level database driven DHTML menus

Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 4:28 pm
by vasilis
I have been searching trying to find articles ον creating Database Driven DHTML Menus using PHP. Javascript and MySQL as database server. As far as I know, there are not many such articles around, concerning dynamic data driven dhtml menus except some software which produce static dhtml menus (without the user having to know about javascript or html coding), but this software doesnt produce any database driven menus. The only commercial software as far as I know which produces database driven menus is the HierMenus software (from as far as I have searched...I guess there must be at least a couple of others...). I have't worked on this software yet... I am especially interested in multi-level hierarchical data driven menus (e.g. a main menu has a number of submenu1 items, each submenu1 item has a number of submenu2 items and goes on and on... Each item level of course is retrieved from a mysql database using php scripting. The final level of items are linked to a specific url. (e.g. the menu could concern categories of products, each category could have a number of subcategories, each subcategory could have a number of further subcategories, and on..........until the final hierarchical level contains links to specific products...)

Thanks for any help...

Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 4:47 pm
by neophyte
We'll I've not seen a solution specifically, but I've been thing about writing something for WebDDM. The JS they use to define the menus is well designed.
http://www.jportalhome.com/developer_tools

Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 5:48 pm
by RobertGonzalez
Have a look at A List Apart. They have a ton of tutorials on CSS hierarchial menus that can be coupled with Dynamic content and DOM scripting to make some stuff.

EDIT | If this is out of context it's because I was away from my desk for the last hour or so with this post open. Sorry. 8O

Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 3:45 am
by vasilis
I checked the sites, lots of nice articles, but it seems that there is no any ready code that produces data driven hierarchical dhtml menus. One has to combine the logic of CSS with php coding and Javascript by him/herself in order to do the job...

Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 10:30 am
by RobertGonzalez
So are you looking for someone/something to make these menus for you, or are you looking for instruction on how to make them yourself. Apologies if I misunderstood your original post, but it was my understanding that you were looking for something to direct you on how to do it yourself. If you are looking for a readymade software package that creates dynamic menus, I wouldn't know where to start (other than to build it myself).

Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 3:53 am
by vasilis
Actually, I wanted to ask you people in the forum if there really is any software (something like HierMenus) that helps the developer build database driven dhtml menus (since most of the ready made software builds static menus). If not, then my intention is to try to build them myself combining some techniques I have found in the articles that I have referred to in my previous posts. I understand that each application has its own specific characteristics regarding building a menu system (mainly the number of hierarchy levels describing all the data records...).