Thread: Navigation Bar - Do any BlueVoda nav bars reduce in size?

Hello everyone! Happy weekend!

I put in a ticket to ask about Navigation Bars, because I found when I went to reduce my page to an 800 width, that the nav bar I had would not reduce in order to "play nice" with the rest of the page. The answer that came back was that the nav bars do not reduce.

Does anyone know of any cool tricks to counteract this problem? Perhaps certain navigation bars and not others will in fact reduce? Or some kind of a form fix or something clever like that?

I really love the nav bar I chose, but I would like to make the page be the right width, so...any thoughts on this are most welcome!

Lori
www.lkarts.com

Originally Posted by lorikirstein

Hello everyone! Happy weekend!

I put in a ticket to ask about Navigation Bars, because I found when I went to reduce my page to an 800 width, that the nav bar I had would not reduce in order to "play nice" with the rest of the page. The answer that came back was that the nav bars do not reduce.

Does anyone know of any cool tricks to counteract this problem? Perhaps certain navigation bars and not others will in fact reduce? Or some kind of a form fix or something clever like that?

I really love the nav bar I chose, but I would like to make the page be the right width, so...any thoughts on this are most welcome!

Lori
www.lkarts.com

They don't reduce in size, but you can reduce the amount of spaces between each button, and the other thing you could do, would be to make two individual rows of navigation buttons, just put half in each navigation row ... know what I mean.... are you running them across the page? If so, you could trying running them down the left side of the page and this may give you ample room .....

Yeah, I thought of that, but I am so in love with my page the way it is. And the two-row thing just looks unprofessional to me. Now here was another thought I had: I wonder if it's possible to put a Go menu into a nav bar? Do you know?

Originally Posted by lorikirstein

Yeah, I thought of that, but I am so in love with my page the way it is. And the two-row thing just looks unprofessional to me. Now here was another thought I had: I wonder if it's possible to put a Go menu into a nav bar? Do you know?

I don't believe that is possible, however, maybe what you could do is elimite so many buttons. A thought may be to have internal sub navigation. If it is appropriate ... this would all depend on what your navigation pages are though ....

Also, you could take the buttons into an image editing program and reduce their size there, and then you would also need to reduce your font. Perhaps you could play around with them that way ... Just another idea for you .... Go to your site and save a button as an image and then take it to reduce its size ....

Hey, that's a really fantastic idea!!! Thank you!

Originally Posted by lorikirstein

Hey, that's a really fantastic idea!!! Thank you!

Awe, you see as we muddle through our chatting, we always find a way ... what's the old saying "Where there is a will, there is a way"

Good Luck & who knows what you will create now!!

WOW. Well, we truly are awesome, no question there, but I did try that, and you know what the problem ended up being? I could go into Paint and reduce each individual menu box, but then when I put a title on it I had to do so by creating a piece of text, and that is not clickable on the web. If you avoid the text and click the button, you're okay, but the text is a no-go.

Boo hoo! But we tried, and I agree that where there's a will there's a way, so I haven't given up!

Originally Posted by lorikirstein

WOW. Well, we truly are awesome, no question there, but I did try that, and you know what the problem ended up being? I could go into Paint and reduce each individual menu box, but then when I put a title on it I had to do so by creating a piece of text, and that is not clickable on the web. If you avoid the text and click the button, you're okay, but the text is a no-go.

Boo hoo! But we tried, and I agree that where there's a will there's a way, so I haven't given up!

No No, you can also link the text .... just highlight the text, go up to insert, insert link and then your text is also linked ....

Woo hoo, back in business again .....

Did you take your new image and upload it to your BV navigation file of images? Then you can call up that new image to use and use the navigation menu as intended :)

Have a look at Custom Buttons for Nav Bar for detailed instructions

Okay, you guys are simply fantastic! I feel so accompanied!

THANK YOU!!! Now I'm going going to go play with these new ideas, and see what kind of trouble I can get into.

Ohmilord, will someone make sure I don't simply disappear into my computer and never come out? (They made a movie like that...Tron...)

One more question about this? How do I go find a way to make a drop-down from one of these navigation buttons?

Dropdown menus can NOT be customized with buttons. They can be customized by clicking on "Style" in the drop down Properties dialog box.

So you have to either do a regular bar, or do a nav bar that is entirely composed of dropdown menus?

Hi lorikirstein,
If you are prepared to outlay $35.00 there is a really elegant piece of software to create virtually any button you want, any size you want. I have no commercial connection with them: I just love the program. If you are interested you will find it at buttongadget.com

Hey Sarge!

Thanks for the info!

Lori

Originally Posted by lorikirstein

So you have to either do a regular bar, or do a nav bar that is entirely composed of dropdown menus?

Yes, at least with BV menu bar and nav bar features.

How does one add a drop down to just one of the nav bar buttons?

Nav Bar, in BV's terminology, is the button based static menu bar. As already said before, you CAN NOT combine the drop down with the nav bar buttons.

Actually, I have found two neat little tweaks/programs that save me ALOT of frustration and time when it comes to this. both of their actions can be used simply by right-clicking. these two programs do two totally different things, but in any situation (so far) I can resize the image and overwrite the original, OR simply go with a newly resized version of the image. This feature can only be used within the bounds of windows explorer environment such as OPEN>file dialogs ..images on the desktop, etc.

this nifty feature can be added to your "right-click" context menu by installing the: ImageResizer Powertoy for WindowsXP
search Microsoft's download section for it.

The second addition to my "right-click" is the: Pky Basket

OOOOOOOHHH THIS ONE IS AWESOME. Simply put,after I "right-click" the image, I can either choose to "Copy file paths to Clipboard" ...which is handy when I find an image located in a large folder tree. Or mainly, "Drop into Basket" ...as many images at once or selected indivually. Then I can navigate to these images' new destination folder (OR to an application's "Select File" dialog window) and "right-click" in an empty area within the folder window and choose to COPY TO, MOVE TO, or "SELECT(individually)" the contents of the "Basket".

With the two additions to the "right-click" menu installed - see Example

Example -- Changing the size of a BlueVoda navbar button (OR adding new):

Make it fit in under 30 seconds
(using Pky Basket + Image Resizer Powertoy for WindowsXP)

1. Preparation/Navigation (Fast shortcut...without creating one!!!)

1a) Navigate to this folder: (bluevoda's progrm folder)

C:\Program Files\BlueVoda Website Builder

1b) Right-click the folder:

navbar

and choose from the menu:

Pky Basket>Copy Paths to Clipboard

(done with that so close out the window)

1c) On the keyboard, press:

Logo+R
(The Windows logo key)+R

(Just as quickly with a mouse...click the START button and then Run)

1d) More keystrokes:

Ctrl+V to paste folder's path; then...
press ENTER and Windows will display the contents of the "navbar" folder.

The only advantage that Pky Basket's "Copy Paths to..." command provided up to this point seems mininmal in that it only eliminated a few clicks, double-clicks, and right clicking.

The good thing about using the "Run" commandto open a folder is that, the next time you open the "Run" dialog box, the previous entry will automatically be selected from the drop-down list of entries you've used.

NOW FOR THE TEST: From Preview to Preview this took me...

28 sec. | 31 sec. | 26 sec.

2. SHOWTIME:

**I'm previewing my BV page and see that I need to adjust the size of the navbars to accomodate the style of text I need to use without having to give up the AWESOME navbar menu or making it difficult on myself***

2a) *preview browser window is active window, step 1 has been done already*

Alt+F4
Logo+R
ENTER

scroll down fast using mousewheel
(looking for the thumbnail of the button I need to change)

right-click>"Resize Pictures"
choose: Custom
double click 1st edit box
type some #'s
TAB
type some #'s
TAB
SPACEBAR --to select the button: Advanced>>
click check box for: "Resize the original pictures (don't create copies)
"Ok"
double-click navbar menu in BV
"Styles" Tab (wait for the two drop-downs to appear)
"Ok"
Alt+S
click icon for "Preview"

Score!!!

Hotkeys RULE!!!

Enjoy!

I also use a very nice photo resizer for images that's free (not from a freeware site) called, PhotoRazor, that you can find here:

http://www.stormdance.net/

I would have thanked you much earlier, but I was kicked off of the system for some reason. Now I'm back, so

THANK YOU!

I posted this in reply to someone else, but you might find it useful as well.

If we're talking about the same thing, I used to use a workaround for this. I didn't much care for the look of the drop down menus created in BV, but I wanted that functionality.

So, I created a navbar the usual way, using buttons I'd made in a graphics program. My navbar at the time was dark blue, so I created drop down menus that matched the dark blue I'd used for the buttons on the navbar, and then placed the drop down on top of the button I wanted.

Can I post? (This is a test!)

Okay, I can post. Thank you thank you! I appreciate that last thought, Racefan.