Which to use?Menus and navigation buttons can really "make or break" the appearance of a web site. There are several ways to navigate around the web site with buttons, menu bars, tabs, image links, or just plain text links. While some of these are more flashy than others, they each have their place in a web site. We will look at these linking methods individually and point out the pros and cons of each.
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Text Link. | Text LinksYou see this type of link all the time right? The text link, not very attractive but they serve their function. These can be used when you have a lot of sub links that do not link to your main pages, and are often found in the body of a page or at the bottom of a page. One thing about these links is that they are small and very quick to load upon opening a page, which is very important. These links should generally remain a blue color because that is the normal appearance and very recognized as a link. |
Image LinksThis is referred to as an "image link". These are kind of neat to use and are a unique way of linking. They should however, be used sparingly because too many of them can confuse the user and they can slow up load time of your pages. |
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Rollover LinksThis is called a "rollover image" or a "button". These are actually made up of 2 images. The first as you see it alone, the second as you put your mouse over top. When you "roll over" the image it changes slightly to let you know that it is a link to somewhere. These are totally made from scratch and can be made into anything you can think of. Colors, text style, size, shape, or whatever. Text can also be placed on top. These are great for main navigation as you can see on this web site!
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This is Called a horizontal "menu bar". This can also be made vertically. These are very handy when you have a lot of links in the same category. They can be customized also with the color, font, size, and borders. They can be tricky to design and may cost a little more but they are worth it. The code behind these is complex and can be cumbersome to create, but only if it is extremely large. |
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This tab can hold your information. This can hold large or small amounts of information. Different information can go here You can place images and text in these. It's a nice way to condense space on a page.
This element is called a "Tabbed Panel". It's like stacking pages with tabs to identify the contents of that page. This form of linking is also customizable. Its advantage is that you can have several pages on one page without linking to all of them separately. Of course the drawback is that the pages can not be too large in file size (photos and sound etc.) which will slow down the page load because your computer will have to load all of the pages before it will work. |
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Click here for more ways to display your content!
Hello! This gadget is called a "Collapsible Panel". A pretty neat way to hide some things on your web page and save some space. These can also be stacked on top of each other to create several of them.
Use some of these examples to get ideas for your web site design. Remember that just about anything we use is made from scratch, which means it is custom made to your desires! All these techniques use CSS styling so they do not clutter up the web page with code, which allows search engines to read the page with ease. these types of navigation can create a unique appearance for your site, just another step in separating your business from your competition.
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