Unobtrusive Scripts and Dreamweaver Extensions
GPS for Dreamweaver: How-To
PC/Mac DWMX-DWCS3 $29.00
How to install Dreamweaver Extensions using the Extension Manager.
divaGPS can be added to most any sort of menu, or to any sort of wrapper around your menu(s).
Open divaGPS
With a page open in the Design or Code View window, either find the diva tab of the InsertBar, and click on the divaGPS icon:
or use the Insert/divaHTML/divaGPS menu item:
You can add divaGPS in just a few steps. The only required steps are to:
- Choose the menu ID(s) which are already displayed for you, or enter any others, and
- enter the name of your site's default file, like "index.htm" and then
- click the OK button.
- Add one or two special selectors to your css file.
That's it! These are the only required steps. It's just that easy.
If you are adding divaGPS to a page with image-based menus that use javascript rollovers to produce their highlighting (the sort of menu generated by Fireworks, for example.) then the menus' image suffixes must begin with a delimiter, for example _f3 or -f2. Fireworks and most other tools use these delimiters by default, but just to let you know.
When you open divaGPS's User Interface, you'll see a Help button which will take you to complete instructions for the easy customizing you can do right within the interface! (If you wish, you can even add divaGPS to an entire site at once!) Buyers also receive a link to a pdf file with these instructions. Some screenshots follow.
About parent highlighting
A really powerful feature of divaGPS is that not only will it automatically highlight the current menu item, but it can also highlight any Parent menu items. This will give users a bright beacon to let them know just where they are on your site. Watch the Parent Highlighting Video now. (You may also download the css we used for the Spry menus in the Video.)
We offer several distinct types of "Parent menu items," with a simple option, and a more complex one.
With the "In multilevel menu" option (new as of v1.1.4,) multilevel menus that are based on ordered or unordered lists (which includes Spry menus) will highlight parent items determined simply by their location in the menu hierarchy. Parent items are calculated by divaGPS on the basis of where they are in the menu, and ignore the file/folder structure in the other definitions described below. This new option makes adding Parent highlighting dead-simple for multilevel menus. If your menu(s) are css-styled lists, simply choose this first Parent option and you are good to go.
More advanced, and correspondingly more difficult to explain, is the "By file path" option. To employ this sort of Parent highlighting, your site must have a Folder/File structure that match up with one of several definitions. Choose this option only if your menus are NOT based on ordered or unordered lists, or if you have several separate menus, with current menu items in one menu and their parents in another menu.
See these advanced Definitions
The instructions you receive when you purchase divaGPS describe the Parent definitions in a bit more detail.
divaGPS performs its magic on a server
divaGPS was designed to perform its magic on a server, either online or as localhost. What this means is that to test your page you will either need to view it on a localhost (if you don't know what that means then you don't have it), or upload it it to your remote server.
Finally, you might want to read about how divaGPS can be moved to Include files.
Our Dreamweaver Extensions are designed to make you far more efficient. They are simple to use and dramatically increase your productivity.