Master The Art Of Organised Navigation With A Flash Advanced Tree Menu

It used to be the case that most websites were single web pages - little more than a digital version of a flyer or leaflet. A few websites became more complex with several pages linked together. Today, it is not uncommon for even private websites to be a collection of many dozens of pages, and even hundreds. If your website comprises more than a half dozen pages, then you may well need to consider including a Flash advanced tree menu to ensure that your visitors don't get lost, and at the same time, manage to dig deep enough into your website to be able to find all the treasures you have spent so long uploading.

Menus for website navigation have been used almost since the first three page website was published, and originally used to be no more than a couple of hyperlinks in text. Eventually style took over and images replaced the text, with glossy buttons advertising the various pages or sections of the site. As is more than evident looking at many sites on the internet, this method of providing a menu or navigation system is simply not working.

I have seen some websites where the navigation has grown to be so huge that it almost needs a web page all on its own. Many websites grow organically, with no set plan, and with pages sprouting pages as time goes by, and a website that is regularly maintained can, after just a couple of years, result in dozens, scores or even hundreds of pages. How do you make sure that your visitors get to see everything you have on offer?

Some little while ago a solution was devised, called a tree menu. The beauty of a tree menu is that, at its simplest and initial stage, it is a basic menu of no more than a few links, taking up precious little space on the web page. These basic tree menus should not be confused with the Flash advanced tree menu features available today - these were mostly programmed in Java or DHTML. The idea of these navigation trees is that although each item looks like a link to a page, it is actually the top heading for a nested list of pages, and once clicked, slides down to reveal a long list of sub sections, sub topics or pages. Clicking on a different item on the main, top level of this tree menu closes the first list, and opens the second.

In this way, the tree menu only has one sub category open at a time, and therefore does not take up too much space. At the same time though, it is also providing a sensible, compact and meaningful way for the visitor to explore the contents of your site. Effectively, it's a little like the contents page of a book, with the chapters listed, with each sub category or section listed under each main chapter title.

But whilst these menu systems are great, they do pose several problems - and these are fortunately ones not suffered by the use of a Flash advanced tree menu. The first is the way in which they are set up and configured. Since most websites have grown organically to the point where a tree menu system is required, it is reasonable to assume that the site will continue to grow, and that any menu system introduced must be able to be edited and updated easily in the future. With Java and even DHTML, this is very rarely the case unless you happen to be pretty adept at programming.

The second issue is compatibility. The menu of your website is quite possibly the most essential element, since without it your visitors can't access anything but your home page. If you use DHTML, then there is a very high chance that many visitors will see nothing, since it is often very browser specific, either working for just Microsoft Internet Explorer, or Netscape Navigator, or possibly both, but often ignoring the very many other people who use the ever increasing number of browsers, and of course, Linux based browsers.

Similarly, with Java, visitors may be prompted to download a plug-in first, before they can see your menu. Either that, or they'll be promoted to lower their default security settings in order to see the menu. Even if they are competent enough to achieve either or both of these things, why would they choose to? It is unlikely that you have had a chance to give them any real motivation to do so, when there are many millions of other sites available that do not impose such requirements on visitors.

However, a Flash advanced tree menu will not suffer from either of these issues, and as well as being accessible by virtually everyone with an internet connection, and with no extra plug-in or security requirements necessary, most such systems use an external XML file, which is little more than a simple text file, to store the list of categories and page links. This can easily be updated at any time, meaning that your tree menu will always be accessible, look smart, and be kept easily up to date.

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For more information on Flash tree menus, and the use of Flash on your website in general, check out www.flashloaded.com where you will find a large range of flash components.

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Master The Art Of Organised Navigation With A Flash Advanced Tree Menu

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