For a long time we've left open the possibility of providing structural styles to support vertical menus with bins that fly-out. I think we should officially not support this use case for the first full release.

  1. It's not a common use of mega menus.
  2. It would simplify the interface just a little
  3. Because it won't be in the beta, removing the option all together will be less confusing to people

Thoughts?

Comments

grimfandango’s picture

grimfandango commented

I recently looked at the article 25 Examples of Mega Menus in Web Design http://designm.ag/inspiration/mega-menus/ towards possible theming approaches.

Of those 25 only two (nike and walmart) used vertical menus and since that article nike seems to have gone away from the mega menu leaving only walmart.

So as a potential user of this module, I would not be opposed to dropping vertical menus in favour of an earlier release.

Grimfandango

Tim Jones Toronto’s picture

Tim Jones Toronto commented

For me, I am looking at the potential of this module to be fairly flexible (which it is) for a variety of menu uses and UI presentation in multiple parts of my site. Whilst I understand that a large proportion of users will only need a horizontal version, I hope that vertical orientation would stay so that I can for example create a left category list made into terms fly-out etc. and other multi-region ideas etc.

Removing would retrograde this module IMHO :)

Thanks,
Tim

Anonymous’s picture

Anonymous (not verified) commented

Thanks for your feedback guys. This is the discussion I was hoping to have.

The goal for the next generation of this module is to provide a plugin architecture. What I am envisioning is that the core module supports what 80% of people need, but enable ways to satisfy the other 20% as well. So it would be possible for someone (or us) to provide a fly-out plugin.

Currently, we don't provide everything necessary for a vertical menu with fly-out bins. That feature has been hanging around as an experiment and I wouldn't want an unfinished experiment to wind up in the full release.

We have a couple of options. First, we could develop the feature, but that would most certainly delay a full release. Or, we could drop the option in the interface (so we don't confuse people) and build the feature later (either as a plugin or a standard part of the module).

Thoughts?

Tim Jones Toronto’s picture

Tim Jones Toronto commented

Yes, definitely spend the time and energy on getting a stable release – and the options for enhancement (e.g. vertical orientation and other features) long term sound great - as and when!

For now, get the ball rolling for exposing the module (for D6 and hopefully D7?) and get some contributions to skin themes for variety (I see there is megamenu_skin_blue and will add to the D7 version for testing).

The Marinelli Beta theme uses a mega menu layout and the style looks good as example. However, the options for menu customization are 'basic' – perfect for most plug-and-play scenarios (but no vertical orientation :P)

Also, when ready, get some write-ups / ratings on the www.DrupalModules.com site and some other reviews (Lullabot eg.)? Personally, the version 7 one should take off quite well.

Tim

Anonymous’s picture

Anonymous (not verified) commented
Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

Ok, we're going to leave it in. Hopefully we'll build it out someday :-) But in the mean time, so as not to confuse people, we're labeling this feature as experimental in the admin interface.