Replace rMenu with Suckerfish?
 

I am considering to replace the existing "Ruthsarian's rMenu" menu bars with "Son of Suckerfish".

Most web sites use Suckerfish. Ruthsarian's rMenu is more browser safe than Son of Suckerfish, but the required CSS is quite complicated and long. Son of Suckerfish is easier and shorter. The question is whether the added complexity of rMenu is worth it.

http://webhost.bridgew.edu/etribou/layouts/rMenu/
http://htmldog.com/articles/suckerfish/dropdowns/

• rMenu works with "IE on Mac" which Suckerfish doesn't seem to do
• Suckerfish wouldn't have the styling for "Parent while hovering submenu". Only the two levels "Default" & "Hover", instead of the 3 levels rMenu has.

Please vote for rMenu or Suckerfish.

Also let me know if anything doesn't work for you here: http://htmldog.com/articles/suckerfi...downs/example/ (and what browser you have), especially is you use IE on a Mac.

Don't hesitate to vote for rMenu. Admittedly I am leaning towards Suckerfish but I want your honest opinion.

I voted for suckerfish only because you think it's better.

My only concern is what will happen when a site like mine changes over eventually, because we've done so much special coding.

For what it's worth, I tried that page with Mac IE - the latest version I have is 5.2 though.

None of the menus worked.

So the Ruthsarian rMenu doesn't work for you either? This one here: http://webhost.bridgew.edu/etribou/layouts/rMenu/

My main concern is accessibility, and both are OK, meaning they work well with keyboard only users. I do know that SOS works well with Screen Readers such as JAWS, but I haven't yet tried out rMenu with one yet.

Another option maybe: Yahoo! UI Menu (http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/menu/)

Their accessibility is great and they have a great community of developers/users as well. I don't want to muddy the waters though.

I voted for SOS.

-Bill

It would be nice to have easier control over the appearance of the menu bars, so I vote suckerfish.

I vote suckerfish simply because I find it easier to modify, probably because I'm familiar with it from other projects.

I don't have the experience to know how much this is going to matter. However, I'm hoping for some international traffic, and that means a potential range of equipment and software which make the words "more browser safe" sound like a melody. I voted rMenu.

I left rMenu in for now, too much trouble to replace it.

Years ago, I tried using Suckerfish and encountered plenty o problems. I later worked with Son of Suckerfish which supposedly solved some but certainly not all. As a designer, I find the lack of standards/uniformity/consistancy among browsers/platforms extremely frustrating but still, I try to find solutions that are, as much as is possible, universally compatible. Suckerfish is not but Ruthsarian Menus tries to be and, I think, succeeds more. So, of course, my vote is to stick with rMenu.

Because it is trying harder to work properly, yes, it may be somewhat complicated & confusing but to dismiss it based on that is absurd. (Computers and automobiles are more complicated than pencils and horses. Will you still opt for the simpler?)
That said, what I would welcome and consider extremely useful is some simple annotated comments in the rMenu css file.
If for no other reason, I think rMenu should be kept as it offers an alternative. Correct me if I'm wrong but is it not true that if one really wants to use Suckerfish they already have that option by simply turning off the horizontal drop down menu bar(s) in Atahualpa Theme Options and instead using the PixoPoint Multi-level Navigation Plugin (which uses Suckerfish)?

If you do use this thread/Poll to influence your decision, please look beyond the poll result numbers and put at least as much weight on the stated "reasons" behind the vote: easier vs better, "I voted ..because you think it's better". Come on!

This got me thinking so I looked into it further and found that the annotated comments I wanted do already exist and are available at http://webhost.bridgew.edu/etribou/l...Menu/rMenu.css. I'd recommend this version of the css file (with whatever neccessary modifications) be included in your template; Very useful!

Also, In the general instructions I learned that the Internet Explorer fix used is based on Son of Suckerfish so, in some regards, in effect, it already is Suckerfish ...and more! Yet another good reason to continue to use rMenu instead.

Hi flynn, if the css style's can be kept the same and the performance increases with son of suckerfish, then please implement it

Now I'm curious.

Since it seems that Ruthsarian used everything good that both Suckerfish and "Son of Suckerfish" had to offer but then continued to further develop and improve upon it/them to create rMenu, I'd like to know from anyone that is actually familiar with both of these what it is they feel could be gained by what could only appear to be a step backward?

Ruthsarian's rMenu has a big BUG for me. I just hate it.

when I'm on a page that is the first level of a multilevel page, the sublevel pages are showned like I'm on theme as well. And that is very confusing sometimes.

sorodocul, could you elaborate - or explain in a different way. It may be my head cold, but I don't get what you are saying.

Learning how to manage properly with "Ruthsarian's rMenu" take a lots of time
BUT
at the end you could give a lot of satisfaction: →.
ANYWAY
i voted for Suckerfish 'cause i can realize that is it easier share with it ( setting it), i.e. i could save my time.

PS
Only one note: now that i know excatly how to manage and set Ruthsarian's rMenu i will have to learn somenthing of new....

i voted suckerfish because it is easy to modify after playing around it.
i am implementing on my motherhood maternity blog

My concern regarding this subject would be styling and positioning. Would the proposed Suckerfish menu system be easier to style in terms of background images/borders/exact positioning etc? Because I am finding it a bit of a pain to get the rMenu to look the way I want it. This may however be simply due to my lack of experience..

Oh, and can one apply nice JavaScript effects like with rMenu?


Regards,
Allan

This is an old thread and I'm going to close it.