Menus

The Menu preferences screen is used to configure the behaviour of the NeatClubs.COM menus system.

The actual contents of the menus are configured elsewhere using the Top Menu setup and Side Menu setup links that appear when logged in as an administrator.

NeatClubs.COM supports two distinct menu technologies.

We recommend that if you have a choice, you consider using our native menu technology since it is "lighter weight" and over time will provide better functionality ("fat menus" as an example). Also, it is easier to style the native JQuery menus with CSS controls.

The JQuery menus also have the advantage that they will improve site performance by reducing the "weight" of the page. The Tigra menu system requires the inclusion of an additional Javascript library that needs to be downloaded into the client browser making it slightly slower to load.

The menu properties setup screen is shown below.

Information about the function of each setting is accessed by clicking on the question mark to the left of each item.

Menu Contents

You can use the "Top Menu Setup" or "Side Menu Setup" links above to change the menu contents.

When logged in there are other "quick links" to change the menu setup as shown below

When you edit the top or side menu, a screen similar to the one below will appear. The text associated with each pull-down appears.

You can embed simple HTML directives in menu item text as needed to center or highlight menu items.

Advanced users should avoid entering colors or specifying fonts as embedded HTML, since colors and fonts are configured elsewhere system-wide more efficiently.

The space allocation for each title is intentionally limited - menu item descriptions should be short and concise.

Configuring the Top Row Pull Down Names

If you leave a menu item blank it will be "skipped" and will not appear in the menu, although it is good practise to structure your menus without skipping items. A graphical symbol to the left of the EDIT SUB-MENU button serves to indicate whether the menu items is visible to the public or whether access is restricted in some way.  A padlock will indicate that the public cannot see the item where as an icon of a person (as shown above) means that the item is visible to the public.

If you are using JQuery style menus you may use a syntax like "Title/subtitle" to automatically have a menu entry at the top level appear in two lines with the subtitle having a smaller font. (the slash character is interpreted as the separator - this slash will be ignored if using the Tigra / non JQuery menu subsystem and displayed "as is")

If menu items are not appearing when you are logged out of the website, it is likely that the menu item has not been exposed to the public.  Hiding a top-level pull-down item from the public makes all of the sub-menus invisible regardless of their permission settings.

Configuring Items under each Sub-Menu

Select "EDIT SUB-MENU" to show the menu items under each heading.

Up to fifteen sub-menu items may be associated with each pull-down title. Properties are controlled for each of these menu options by clicking on the "Action on Selection" button (or simply ACTION in later versions of the software).

A visual indication is provided reflecting whether menu options are visible to the public or whether content is restricted to particular member categories.

Some menu options may be configured to open a new window (or tab depending on your browser) when selected.

If linking to another web-site, or loading a PDF document, sometimes opening the content in a new window is useful.

Defining an Action on Selection

The screen below shows how content or actions are associated with individual menu items.  In the example below, when someone clicks on a "Board of Directors" menu button in the example below, we instruct the system to load a document or file in the document library. In this case a document in the "WEB PAGES" category called "Board of Directors".

We've indicated that this menu option is visible to all web-site visitors and that when selected, the document will appear in the current browser window.

We could just as easily "uncheck" the Public box to make our Board of Directors button inaccessible to non-members.

Some additional important information about linking to various types of NeatClubs.COM content items is provided below:

Linking to Documents or Files

Documents and Files are treated in a similar way by NeatClubs, however they are subtly different.

Documents refer to web-page content (expressed in HTML) that is stored directly in the NeatClubs database.  Files are separate items that have been uploaded to the system (PDF documents, Excel spreadsheets, Videos etc.)  While information about the file is stored in the database, the file itself is stored in an "uploads" directory on the server.

When you link to a document, NeatClubs will automatically display the contents of the file in the center panel when the menu item is selected.

Linking to a file results in different behaviour since depending on the file type the system will attempt to present it using a built-in viewer (an Adobe PDF viewer as an example) or simply provide a link directly to the uploaded content.

Linking to Event Descriptions

NeatClubs.COM supports a number of different event types. When you link to an event, you will be invited to proceed with some sort of an on-line registration activity. Whether you are asked to login or create a membership profile in the course of the registration will depend on how the event is configured. (anonymous events do not require a membership record to be created or be present for registration to occur).  Normally events will be invoked by calling an event handler script (event.php) which will "run" the event for a particular event ID in accordance with the event specific policies previously setup by the administrator and stored in the database.

Some types of events such as Resource Reservation Events are handled specially by the system.  Because resource reservation events require a user of the web-site to select an available resource at a particular date and time, the resource reservation schedule will be displayed as a first step in a registration process for this event type.

Linking to Photo Collections

When authorized users or administrators contribute photos NeatClubs.COM system, they are asked to associate the photo with a photo collection name.  When linking to a photo collection, you are linking to a representation of all photos in a collection a user has permission to access (based on their member category).

As shown above, we can view the photos collections in a number of formats: