Spry in Dreamweaver

	Re: Spry in Dreamweaver by Richard Williams on Aug 13, 2009 at 3:31:22 pm Hi Mac The point you make is very relevant, here is my Two Pence worth... There are a great many posts here which are related to spry. One big reason for this, is all the good work that is applied to the cow's SEO behind the sceenes, which means now, most people who are googling questions on spry get links to threads on this site, i do not think its just that everyone who uses spry falls over with it. ALL of the posts i have every responded to on here are nothing to do with the spry menu not working! The spry menu's and all of the spry work were released and compatible with most browsers right from the start, and all the versions which did not work correctly were very quickly updated. The big problem with the menus on here are people altering tihngs that they simply do not understand. Simply, when you are working with anything CSS related, newbies tend to get confused over what is happening. If you use dreamweaver's CSS panel to alter the spry look, as with altering all CSS, it opens the CSS file and makes the alterations. What most people do, i guess, is they make changes, they think are right, and when they test their page and it makes no difference, or if it does make a difference, they press undo. the problem here is that they are undoing on the wrong page. They need to open up the other tab, the CSS and press undo instead. Becuase most people get this muddled, they often get to the stage when the spry CSS looks nothing like what it should do and then they come here. The simple fact of the matter is, anyone could solve these problems themselves, by opening up a regular version of the spry menu, and then comparing the two menus, making their own version settings the same as the origional. Anoth big issue is that some people use the WYSIWYG functinoality of dreamweaver to alter the look of spry, when in fact, becuase the spry is CSS based, this is not correct, it has to be altered in the correct way. I tihnk that perhaps Adobe do not explain this quite as well as they perhaps could, but then aren't we all guilty some times to just wade straight in, feet first, and see what happens. All of the spry options, not just the menus, are fantastic if you understand a little bit how they work, afterall, its just some javascripting along with some CSS styling that makes spry spry. Some people, in particular newbies, use dreamweaver as a WYSIWYG tool, and there is nothing wrong with that at all, but sooner or later, you need to start to understand some other aspects of website technologies, such as CSS. Although the tools are all there in Dreamweaver for CSS editing, understand what you are editing is more important, to enable you to revert or undo any changes you have made. Richard Williams p.s. Please remember to rate our post replies and tick if solved. Also, please remember that we here are NOT employed by Adobe, we do this out of love and fun, so its always nice to recieve a Please and Thank You! :o) Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Spry in Dreamweaver by Richard Williams on Sep 12, 2009 at 8:04:53 pm again, and sorry to be defensive, i am in no way employed by any of the manufacturers, but i have to disagree. If you insert a spry menu into a webpage it will work 100% fine in all main stream browsers. The problem with the menus, is the changes people are trying to apply to them without doing it in the correct way. Its more a case of CSS than Spry. You dont create a page with all of the CSS rules on it for your layout, and then click on some text and press centralise do you? This is what is happening with the spry menus that are failing, people are altering them incorrectly. The spry CSS is fairly clear if opened, as to what rules control what, but people delete rules, add new rules, mix them up and spin them around. So, from everything i have done here to help people with spry, the problem in my eyes is not spry, it is CSS that people just do not understand and trying to avoid CSS would mean never moving forward with webdeisgning. Simply put, it is ok and fully achievable to design and build a website using a WYSIWYG editor, and using such a program will mean that you can also create a page without having to understand coding or Style Sheets, because dreamweaver is writing it all for you as it goes, but using some advanced features such as the spry menu means you must delv a little deeper... thats all im saying. In some respects, using a spry menu will actually lead to you better understanding other aspects of website design. All that said, if you would like to post up a Martin, i would be happy to take a look, but here is some food for thought... If you open up a NEW version of the SpryMenuBarhorizontal or verticle css file, and open it next to YOUR current version, See how many things are different that you simply do not understand... If there is noothing you can see, then the problem will be in the way you have tried to alter the look of the menu within the HTML Richard Williams p.s. Please remember to rate our post replies and tick if solved. Also, please remember that we here are NOT employed by Adobe, we do this out of love and fun, so its always nice to recieve a Please and Thank You! :o) Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Spry in Dreamweaver by Fernando Mol on Sep 13, 2009 at 6:45:13 am My humble (and personal) opinion If you buy a new car it will work for sure, but if you want to mess with the engine you better know what you are doing. Spry menus are a good and simple solution for big sites with complex architecture, but if you are not good at CSS my advice is: don't get too fancy. *Remember to share a link to your site and to rate the posts. This is a free service for you and for us. Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Spry in Dreamweaver by Richard Williams on Sep 13, 2009 at 8:26:11 pm nicely said Fernando, you have such a way with words. Richard Williams p.s. Please remember to rate our post replies and tick if solved. Also, please remember that we here are NOT employed by Adobe, we do this out of love and fun, so its always nice to recieve a Please and Thank You! :o) Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index