An Action Menu triggers a client script function to perform a particular task, typically to bring up a new page. It is different from a Page Menu because it can also bring up sub menus or display other dynamic information. This makes an Action Menu more interactive, but on the other hand, more programming works on the client.
Almost all features in the Page Menu Model can be used in the Action Menu Model, including the access control, login/logout form and search form. These will not be repeated in this section.
Instead, we focus on the interactivity of the client scripts in an Action Menu page. We use JavaScript as an example. There are three tiers of structure: Item is a unit of text clickable into an action; Menu is a collection of Items and is itself an Item (clickable in the same way); and Level refers to the depth in the menu hierarchy.
Here are some structures for you to specify the menu format:
JS Variable |
Description |
LevelOpen |
An array indexed by level containing the format of the text preceding the level text. |
LevelClose |
An array indexed by level containing the format of the text succeeding the level text. |
MenuOpen |
An array indexed by level containing the format of the text preceding menu text in the level. |
MenuOpen |
An array indexed by level containing the format of the text succeeding menu text in the level. |
ItemWhole |
An array indexed by level containing the format of text of an Item unit as a whole in the level. |
ItemSeparator |
An array indexed by level containing the format of the text between two consecutive items (but not before the first and not after the last). |
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| Note: These structures come with the Portal Object and therefore do not need to be declared (e.g. as "new Array()") or initialised (e.g. with ""). You only need to define the ones you need. |