Getting Started

This is not a tutorial site. The Sothink DHTMLMenu site offers tutorials for beginning, intermediate, and advanced users, and the DHTMLMenu program offers an extensive Help section. This page offers suggestions which we hope may help you to create a menu that works as you intended, and is easy to upgrade and expand as your site evolves.

1) Create a separate subdirectory (folder) for all your menu resource files. It is also a good idea to save your .pgt file with your other menu resource files. Upload the entire folder to your server and you'll have an online backup of the .pgt file. By the way, the .pgt file (the file with a .pgt extension) is in XML format and contains all the specifications for your menu. You must have the .pgt file if you want to edit or regenerate your menu.

2) Enter a Script Path, Image Path, and Link prefix in the Global Settings - Web Path section of the DHTMLMenu program.
If you want to preview your pages locally during site development, set the paths as local paths (i.e., C:\mysite\menu) but, before publishing the menu, use absolute paths (i.e., http://mydomain.com/mysite/menu/) for Script path and Image path. Also, set the Link Prefix to your site's URL (e.g., http://mydomain.com/mysite/).

3. When you publish a menu, select the option to create a JavaScript include file. Once you have published the JavaScript include file, you need only two links in your site's pages:

A link to stmenu.js between the <head></head> tags.
A link to your JavaScript include file between the <body> </body> tags at the location where you want the menu to appear.

Here are the links we used on this site:

Here are two of the advantages to using a JavaScript include file:

You don't have menu code cluttering each of your site's pages.
It makes it easy to update your menu. After editing a menu, all you have to do is publish the revised JavaScript include file (and the new Fast Publish feature streamlines the publishing process) and upload the file to the server. You don't have to edit any of your site's pages.

4. Provide an alternate navigation system that will function if a browser has JavaScript disabled. DHTMLMenu make it easy to build multi-level navigation systems that are attractive and functional, but a DHTMLMenu won't be visible in a browser that has JavaScript disabled. A recent survey indicated that approximately 10% of Web browsers have JavaScript turned off, and the rate is even higher with some businesses. It is important to provide an alternative navigation system, and the DHTMLMenu program makes that easy. Go to "Advanced>Generate Site Map..." , generate a site map, and place a link to the site map within <noscript> </noscript> tags following the link to load your menu's JavaScript include file. The new option, "Advanced>Generate Search Engine Friendly Code...", will also serve as a site map.