CJ Menu 5 [discussion]

[CodingJungle]

Hey guys and gals,

as some of you might know, cj menu was my first app for IPS 4.0, and it was also a "testing" ground for various ideas, some better than the others. to put it simply i made a lot of bad mistakes with cj menu. things i didn't quite understand at the time due to lack of documentation and/or experimenting with the framework in different ways helped a bit there. cj menu does work and remained relatively solid for long periods, but its "code" base i would've said when i came out with it would've allowed flexibility to add new things in easily, i now say is a beast with two left feet and a gaping maw that constantly runs into walls. so i would like to know everyone's thought one CJ Menu 4, what you liked about it, what you hated about it, and what you would like to see in 5. 

It would be invaluable to get your feedback on things, so i have an idea where to take it. cause CJ Menu in general was well "CJ's Menu" not a true "Menu Manager" i had envisioned it be. as for the version bump, i will not be "re-releasing" it, it will replace CJ Menu 4, so there wont be any messy "re-buys" to it. this is something i owe the people who have bought it and been supportive of it for a long while, so it wouldn't be right of me to recharge cause i messed up a few years ago when designing it. look forward to hearing form you all. 

[WOFman]

Ok, well I loved the embed feature and that was what I bought it for to begin with. That being said, if it only works with IPS default theme, it is useless.

[CodingJungle]

4 minutes ago, WOFman said:

Ok, well I loved the embed feature and that was what I bought it for to begin with. That being said, if it only works with IPS default theme, it is useless.

I am not sure i know exactly what you mean by "embed" feature, are you talking about the widget or the template plugin?  or are you talking about it might not be able to replace the default menu without some work on third party themes? or is it something else you are referring to? I'm hoping to improve these things with 5, it is why i'm asking here, so if you could elaborate a bit more, it be appreciated. 

[Loren]

Thank you for all your great work. I look forward to "the next" iteration.
 

I would like to have the ability to stack menus - like the one here at IPS.
Perhaps too fancy but maybe even drag and drop menu items (in the front end).

 

 

[CodingJungle]

15 minutes ago, Loren said:

Thank you for all your great work. I look forward to "the next" iteration.

no, thank you

15 minutes ago, Loren said:

I would like to have the ability to stack menus - like the one here at IPS.

you mean like this?

if so you can do that already, CJ menu has a output plugin, that you could create a custom group, and then use the output plugin in a hook (an example is in documentation, i know it the documentation is badly formatted, but the direction on how to do this are in there, and feel free to contact me anytime i can assist you in this). you could also use the cj menu widget, but you would only be limited to the standard widget areas. 

15 minutes ago, Loren said:

Perhaps too fancy but maybe even drag and drop menu items (in the front end).

 

you mean like allow the user to organize the menu the way they want? i thought about this, but never gave it much thought. i'll take it under consideration. 

[WOFman]

9 hours ago, CodingJungle said:

I am not sure i know exactly what you mean by "embed" feature, are you talking about the widget or the template plugin?  or are you talking about it might not be able to replace the default menu without some work on third party themes? or is it something else you are referring to? I'm hoping to improve these things with 5, it is why i'm asking here, so if you could elaborate a bit more, it be appreciated. 

You could create a tab and have it embed the link into the wrapper of the forum.

[Loren]

Yes, stacked like the current IPS site.
I will give that a try and let you know if I have problems. Thank you!

 

[CodingJungle]

12 hours ago, WOFman said:

You could create a tab and have it embed the link into the wrapper of the forum.

i actually use that feature on my personal site, as i took the idea from joomla (as the site before i upgraded it to IPS was a joomla site), so i don't see that going any where  any time soon  

8 hours ago, Loren said:

Yes, stacked like the current IPS site.
I will give that a try and let you know if I have problems. Thank you!

yeah its been capable of that since before IPS rolled it out on their site  i am just a horrible "description" writer as i try to modest in them, often times "underselling" the features and what it is capable of. 

[InsideEdge]

I started using CJ menus back with the Pro-Menu and frankly CJ's Menus have surpassed anything given in the standard IPS format.  Technically some of the extras that CJ Menu does is probably greater than I understand, but they have always done what I'd like them to do.  I'd like to see more examples of what different sites have done with CJ's menus.

Some of the things I like best:

• Horizontal Child menus - I love the ability to post 50-80 forums in one dropdown menu.
• Use of Font-awesome icons
• Use of custom icons
• To Hover, Slide, Fade -- great options as they all work so smooth.
• Having the menu -bar in a single line 
• docking feature
• Enjoy both the Header and Primary Menu

I think   https://www.nhl.com/  has a menu of what I'd like CJ menu's to do in the future with being able to add full images in the menu.

[CodingJungle]

28 minutes ago, InsideEdge said:

I think   https://www.nhl.com/  has a menu of what I'd like CJ menu's to do in the future with being able to add full images in the menu.

it is capable of that now  with the magic block.

you can go to my site and click on "demonstration" it will greet you by name, to show also the dynamic nature (as i'm using php in there as well). 

i feel now i have really done a poor job at showing off what CJ Menu is capable of. 

i can help you designing this for your site when you are ready, drop me a PM here or at my site. 

[InsideEdge]

1 minute ago, CodingJungle said:

it is capable of that now  with the magic block.

you can go to my site and click on "demonstration" it will greet you by name, to show also the dynamic nature (as i'm using php in there as well). 

my i feel now i have really done a really poor job at showing off what CJ Menu is capable of. 

OH WOW!  - I had no Idea.  That is awesome.   

And yes, you do need to do a better job showing off your talents as I didn't really understand magic block.    Non-coders like me need examples to copy from.  

[CodingJungle]

3 hours ago, InsideEdge said:

OH WOW!  - I had no Idea.  That is awesome.   

And yes, you do need to do a better job showing off your talents as I didn't really understand magic block.    Non-coders like me need examples to copy from.  

i do have a tutorials section on my site for cj menu:

https://codingjungle.com/tutorials/cj-menu/

its mostly some older youtube videos i had made to show off some of the abilities. i'm afraid they don't go super duper advanced, but just give basic ideas. 

also in a magic block you can use IPS template logic and css:

https://invisioncommunity.com/4guides/themes-and-customizations/template-syntax/introduction-to-template-syntax-r137/

https://invisioncommunity.com/4guides/themes-and-customizations/css-framework/introduction-to-the-css-framework-r88/