By following this tutorial you will learn how to use MX CSS Menus to generate a database-driven CSS menu in your MX Includes-built site, and then include the menu in the main page. You will use the InterAKT table structure required by the Database-driven CSS Menu component (wizard or server behavior). The tutorial regards the presentation of some software products (Dreamweaver extensions), but similar applications can be built for any other sites that need a menu: product catalog, online library, personal website etc.
For building this website you will:
Generate the database-driven menu in one of the site pages, and then include this page in the main one.
Note: The site is built using MX Includes, so all the content is loaded in the same page. The section that changes, changes according to the value of an URL parameter.
Design the layout of the main page in a CSS manner, using only divs.
Build the menu items links using the values of an URL parameter - these values are stored in the database (you can also build the links by retrieving the complete URL from the database, as shown here).
The two Dreamweaver extensions you need in order to follow this tutorial are:
The estimated completion time for this tutorial is about 30-40 minutes. It also depends on your authoring knowledge with Dreamweaver, MX CSS Menus, and MX Includes.
Plan the database-driven menu application
Create the header, footer, and site menu pages
Generate the database-driven menu
Build the main page using MX Includes