[Keith from shrewdiesMember]

The dynamic drive example is not a million miles away from my dropdown menu on http://www.shrewdies.net which is 100% Pods. If you are not logged in, you see drop downs on the last two items (Forum is a work in progress). Is that the type of thing you are after?

That example is pure CSS, but I see absolutely no reason why Javascript couldn’t be included. As it is CSS controlled, you can position it anywhere – in my example it is stuck to the top of the screen, but that is an admin option.

The links are a mixture of individually entered and code generated links, with anchor text, title text and URL straight from a Pods table. It’s just data after all, with code where you need to auto-generate, which is what Pods was made for.

[WebmistressMMember]

Yeah. The only thing I would need to change is getting CONTENT dropdowns, not MENU or SUBMENU dropdowns to be what shows up when they mouse over.

In this case, how would teh content for that content area be added/changed? A Pods page? A regular word press page?

Im not married to any particular method (CSS or javascript, or any other option) but I do need the Cafe Menu to fit the BOTH OF the following characteristics:

1) The cafe content (menu items, prices) can be controlled through the back end. No HTML coding is required (since my clients are not coders/designers themselves)

2) It is content that can be placed in a content box which appears when the corresponding navigation menu (vertical style) item is moused over

Hope that clarification helps. I feel I am on the right track.

[Keith from shrewdiesMember]

The dropdowns are simply lists output by Pods from the records entered, and though I restrict it to one-liners for my navigation tree, there is no reason why more content could not be displayed. There are hundreds of examples of dropdown CSS styling on the Internet, using both ul and dl lists.

The content is usually entered in the admin area on standard Pods data entry forms, which are automatically generated from your table construction. Public data forms can also be used in the front-end, though this does not sound useful for you (unless customers are designing their own menus!)

That more or less takes care of point 1.

Point 2 requires a more detailed analysis of precisely what data you want to be displayed, and where. Pods data can be output on its own pages (like the forum here) or incorporated into standard WordPress posts & pages.

With Pods, it pays to spend some time on planning the outcomes you need, then working back to plan the data that will feed those outcomes. On the other hand, you could just dive in, and quickly create a mock-up to get a clearer idea of the finished plan, discuss that with the clients, then tweak it.

[WebmistressMMember]

Well, the data is again, data that would be created through Pods. Simply put, in the HTML version I used a table (since it is indeed tabular data).
Column 1: Item Name (in this case a dish on the menu)
Column 2: Breakfast time price
Column 3: Lunch price
Column 4: Dinner price

In chat last night it was suggested that I also download Pods UI, which I did. They said that the link (seen in the original post) can be recreated within the WordPress templating system no problem. Will it load as efficient as it did in the HTML "environment"? We’ll see.

[WebmistressMMember]

Update

So far, Im still not understanding how I can plug in values for the columns I have created. To try and understand it, I attempted to put the appropriate PHP code into a page to test but I think I need a plugin to parse that PHP since regular wordpress doesnt usually parse it.

I tried reading the Monday By Noon material but it makes no sense. Very frustrated.

[Keith from shrewdiesMember]

It would be best to build a Pods page, as this allows you to embed the PHP to list your menu items wrapped in the code that creates the mouseover effects. Pods pages work almost like regular WordPress pages, but allow you to add PHP for extra functionality.

Without the context of the complete project, it is difficult to suggest what to do next. For instance, in the original question you mention navigation. Does this mean the items need to be clickable? In which case, where does the click navigate to?

Is the output to display on all pages, or selectively displayed on some pages? How is the site content beyond the item and price table to be generated?

If information is confidential send to keith at shrewdies dot net (privacy assured)

[Keith from shrewdiesMember]

I should have mentioned that if you want to include the output in a regular WordPress post/page, use the shortcode [pod name="" template=""], where name is the name of your Pod, and template is the bit where you call the fields, wrapped in li tags. Your page would include something like <pre><ul class="cafemenu">[pod name="menulistpod" template="menulisttemplate"]</ul></pre>.

I’ll see if I can knock up an example based on the dropdown code you mentioned.

[Keith from shrewdiesMember]

Edit (missing ‘s’):
[pods…
not [pod

[Keith from shrewdiesMember]

My interpretation of the requirement is at http://www.shrewdies.net/1445/wordpress-pods-food-for-thought/

How different is this from what you are trying to do?

P.S. The time lag between the last post isn’t because it takes a long time to do this type of thing. 10 minutes to create the Pods elements, 10 minutes to type in the test data, with the rest of the time writing the explanatory post, less a long lunch hour.

[WebmistressMMember]

Re: http://www.shrewdies.net/1445/wordpress-pods-food-for-thought/

With the exception of the vertical menu that has a pullout menu upon mouseover, this is pretty damn close. I just am going to have a listing of the menu so that people can see all menu items and pricing in one go, rather than having to mouseover each one. This will allow them to compare at a glance rather than mousing over. Although I can think this will be useful for something in the future.

Thanks so much.

In my case, I probably will need the template to be made which will format my menu properly, pulling the data it needs from the pods I have set up. However, since my site is going to have the "mouse over a button, revealing a content area displaying a pod’s data" (see original post’s dhtml code link), I suppose I wont need the Pods Page side of things.

Thanks so much! I got some more feedback from my client and he is pleased with the idea I have. I just gotta show him.

…….now where is that drop-down selection box when I need it. searches forums

[WebmistressMMember]

Someone had recommended me to using PodsCMS in wordpress for my cafe website. I hope Im inquiring in the right place, but I still cant figure out if Pods is able to do dropdown content menus.

Basically, I am looking for a way of creating manageable dropdown content from a mouseover a navigation item. The content inside there would be a menu of items and the prices for them. Here is an example of a way it is done in javascipt and CSS in a non-CMF based page:

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex5/overlapcontent.htm

My template (Im using Rhea for the current moment), has a topside navigation menu (rather than a side one). I would like something similar to the way the dropdown content area works in the link above. However, I needed the pricing content manageable through the backend, which is why I need to use a CMF or CMS in the first place. If PodsCMS is not the WordPress plugin to do this, what would be better? Any idea if this is just too much to ask with WordPress?

WebmistressM

[WebmistressMMember]

Addendum:

I wanted to just edit my previous post but it looks like the feature is coming soon. I just want to clarify something since, after reading my post, it might be interpreted that I want help with the drop-down box rather than simply text posing (ala the MU*s) for humor’s sake.

Anyhow, I got a great helper via here for my dropdown selection box.

http://podscms.org/forums/general-discussion/how-to-create-a-dropdown-menu-admin

(see tokyograph’s response)

Thanks so much. This helps me immensely! Pods has actually proven to a point that I may not be able to live without it.

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