Lately I’ve been trying to work up a very simple CSS-based dropdown menu, one where the top level item under the cursor changes colors and if there is a submenu it is displayed. Many sites have these, I’m sure you’ve seen them. However, most use JavaScript, a language I’ve never learned, and so I’m looking for a pre-built solution. There are many of these, some free, some inexpensive (for commercial use, which the intended use is) and at least one other ridiculously expensive (the site wisely does not display the pricing but I was quoted $1500 as the standard single site fee, which instantly dropped to $500 when I pushed back but even at that amount I was laughing to hard to manage a reply to the salesperson).
One thing about all of these implementations is that they require customization for each use. Clearly that makes sense because, at the least, every menu will have different choices and then there are factors such as color, size, location and behaviors as well. But what none of the implementations have, which really truly surprises me, is some sort of wizard to generate the menu source code.
How hard would this be to write? Instead of adding some ridiculous tweak that no commercial site would use, and here I’m thinking of the first days of laser printers when corporate geeks constantly created ransom note-like memos, why not spend some time developing a real value-add. Since I’m getting paid for this effort, albeit not all that much, I am willing to pay a modest licensing fee for this and I imagine that so would quite a few others. And even if the market wouldn’t bear a higher license fee than what seems to be the norm just now (between $30 and $50), these developers should think about the savings in support costs of such an enhancement.
So please, Milonic, Dynamic Drive, Imposter and the rest of you bunch, somebody get busy and deliver this ASAP, m’kay? How about you, Foo?
BillSaysThis 