submenus in email

[mfurf]

This probably isn't meant to work, but I thought I should hang it out there. I can copy and paste an html page into an email window and have the milonic menu travel with the email with the following lines:

Code: Select all

<script type="text/javascript"
 src="http://www.ohsaratoga.com/milonic_src.js"
 language="JavaScript"></script>
  <script language....etc.  </script>
  <script type="text/javascript"
 src="http://www.ohsaratoga.com/email_menu_data.js"
 language="JavaScript"></script>

Therefore one can click on the menu's Home command and open the website in a browswer. However the submenus wont work in the email window. I was wondering if there is a way to manipulate the showmenu= parameter to add the submenus.

I tested it in Outlook Ex. and Thunderbird. But I don't imagine it is designed to work. N'est-ce pas? /mfurf

[Ruth]

I don't understand what you are doing. If you paste a link in an email, you will get the link. What do you mean about getting the menu? Do you mean the person actually has a menu in the email?

Ruth

[mfurf]

Ruth: I don't want to email a link. I kind of stumbled on this without really intending it and kinda liked it.

It's more like emailing an html page [in this case I experimented with a page I have in the main iframe but bear in mind it's not a clickable link, but the entire page] except that the menu travels with it due to src= acting like a URL pointing to the milonic javascript files on the server. If the menu contained only URLs [e.g. to different pages on the site, or different sites], it would work since I've already tested this.

As I type it just occurs to me I could do a work-around -- merge the main and submenus into a Master Emailmenu with only URLs. Then the Milonic menu will arrive with the email and the recipient can open browser pages from the email window [assuming Javascript is activated].

As I said, I doubt there is a way to make the submenu function in the email window... but hey, with Andy having so much time on his hands he might want to work on giving the showmenu parameter some external functionality. Am I making any sense? Seems to me it could be a selling point for these fine menus. /mfurf

[Ruth]

How exactly did you do this? I tried copying what you had in the post, but it just comes through as the same code as in your post. I didn't get any menu.

Ruth

[mfurf]

Step One: in my html editor , I edit the scr= parameter so that it includes the code above.]

Step Two: I click back to Normal from Source so it's more, er, gooey, er GUI.

Step Three: I browse it and in the browser I click Control/A followed by Control/C. This copies the entire page to the clipboard.

Step Four: I paste it into a blank Email Window with Control/V or my context menu. I now see the menu "shell" in the outgoing window.

Step Five: I now fulfill the commandment: Email Thyself. The page will arrive back and as I run the mouse over the Milonic menu, I will see the various UrLs [but no submenus, they don't work] in the status line.

Hey, I knew these menus were good. Now I'm going to try to merge the main and submenu into a single menu and I'll let you know how it works. /mfurf

[mfurf]

I edited a correction out of this message into the foregoing. This message is now defunct. /mf

BTW, when mousing over the Edit button, the tooptip says "Edit/Delete" but I didn't find an actual delete option. /mf

[mfurf]

Ruth:
Pretty neat. It worked. I emailed the longer [11 choice] submenu and recipients on my listserv can open a bunch of pages from their email window including a Contact Us email window. Already I'm getting rave reviews from some of them.

To do this I created a separate menu data file

Code: Select all

<script type="text/javascript"
 src="http://www.ohsaratoga.com/email_menu_data.js"
 language="JavaScript"></script>

because the file needs to be edited to insert the URL path into each menu option.

I reduced font sizes and commented out unneeded parameters but due to colors and fonts one would think it's the exact same submenu one finds on my website.

Q.E.D. Still it would be exquisite if showmenu could include a URL. /mfurf

[mfurf]

Ruth:

How exactly did you do this? I tried copying what you had in the post, but it just comes through as the same code as in your post. I didn't get any menu.

Did you try my method? Interesting how it gives access to menus to any emailer but of course, that's what website and menus are for... so others will use them.

Still, it leaves the showmenu= question hanging for emails and limits its usefulness to a single [expanded] main menu. /mfurf

[Ruth]

I tried it, but all I got was an email with code in it. I must not be doing it right.

Ruth

[mfurf]

Start in an html editor with any html file you have handy, insert the javascript file calls [you can use mine or if you have a site, you can point the src= at yours, or anyones]. Mine would be better for demo since I've edited the menu items in the server's email_menu_data.js so they are all URLs, i.e. none of them try to call a submenu.

Don't copy and paste from the editor, browse it first, then Select All and Copy.

Paste it into the blank email window and email yourself. Whee! A milonic menu on the fly. /mfurf

[Ruth]

I think either it's something in my email settings or the fact that I have OutLook Epress 5.0 because even using what you have, I just get the html code. How about I send you an email so you can send me your 'email menu' and I can see if it works?

Ruth

[mfurf]

I tested it in the beginning in Outlook Ex 6.0 and it worked. If you have javascript activated in 5.0 you shouldn't have a problem. Put a big AT sign between ppio and taconic.net and you have my email address. I'll forward one of the emails I sent myself or got back from my listserv members. This is not my "HOME" menu but my submenu made into a main menu for purposes of email.

If showmenu= URL worked in an email window, I wouldn't have to make a separate menu data file.

I think the showmenu limitation is because the email window has a different "current dir" setting from the browser window. I think that's the problem, or part of it. Since the src= calls support a URL as do the menu choices, the current directory is irrlevant. But showmenu= expects to find the code in the current directory. Methinks. /mfurf

[Ruth]

I have javascript enable on my browser. I don't see any place that says anything about javascript in my OutLook Express. Just html or plain text. I sent an email. It should say from innkeeper9, but the subject line is for email menu test. Thanks

Ruth

[Andy]

Hi,

Just speed-read most of this topic so probably missed all the juicy bits.

Anyway, is there anything I need to do, or did you get it going in the end?

Cheers,
Andy

[Ruth]

Hi Andy

I think it must be me, I must be doing something wrong. When I try sending the menu as described I just get html code, but mfurf seems to actually get the menu.

Ruth

[mfurf]

Ruth: Just sent you an email. The message part addressed to you personally [should be blinking] I typed in the email window. The rest was pasted in from my browser window.

Andy:

Anyway, is there anything I need to do, or did you get it going in the end?

The answer is that one can generate a sufficent work-around to get the parts of one's menu one wants to email into an email message, and therefore a separate menu data file needs to be on the server just for emails.

But the showmenu= lacks external functionality in an email. I think the email client can recognize a URL but doesn't know what to do with showmenu= /mfurf

[Ruth]

Hi mfurf,
OK, I got a real page, with the menu at the top and an attachement, which is also the page. When I try to mouseover the menu I get an error message:

Code: Select all

Line: 106 Character: 1 Error: Object expected Code: 0 URL: mhtml:mid://00000014/

What I have to do is actually open the attachment. I don't know if that's some setting in my email or perhaps my AVG antivirus that scans my email? When I open it I get a page and the address in the windows explorer bar is: mM1.htm .html .shtm .shtml, I guess that's not really a URL, it must be the attachement name. But, it does work if I double click the attachment which opens the page in a small browser window with the menu on it. Now I just have to figure out why I can't send a page like that I must be doing something totally wrong.

Ruth

[mfurf]

Ruth:

My guess is it's your virus scanner. I sent it to my listserv and didn't get any reports of anyone not being able to open it. /mfurf

[Ruth]

Yippeeeee I got it. Even though my program is set with the rich text checked, to put the page in, I can't copy it. I have to use the insert/text and then change the file type to html. That must have been what you meant by browse to it.... It gives me a blank screen to look at when doing it but when I received it I got the page Too bad about submenus, but that's not the menu, that would be the email program which doesn't recognize the dhtml/javascript menu code of url= as a hyperlink.

Ruth

[Ruth]

OK, I have a menu that will open submenus in an email You have to use the listbased menu with some changes and the pre-release 7.20is what I used, I don't know if it works with the 5.719 but you could try it.

I had to make these changes because my email program would do a fatal error and shut down if I left the menuStyles on the page in script tags. Yours may allow you to do that. If not do the following, the only thing that won't work, because I had to use a menu_data type file is any images, like the submenu arrows. If the menuStyles could be left on the page as they are then they would work, also.

In the listbased menu, on the html page you have the menu items and then in script tags you have the menuStyles and then another script tag with the call for the listmenu.js file. You leave the list menu on the page, and the call for the listmenu.js just as it is, but you cut out the menuStyles coding including the last line:

Code: Select all

listStyle=menuStyle; // Tells the menu system to use menuStyle as the default style
mainMenuSettings="alwaysvisible=true;orientation='horizontal';top=10;left=10;" // Properties for the main menu

and you paste that to a blank doc saved as a js file. I called mine list_email.js Then at the top of the page where you have the calls for the 3 base Milonic files you also call that, just like you do a menu_data.js file.

I sent you an email with the menu on it. It worked when I sent it to myself.

Ruth