Constructing the Main Menu and using JavaScript

In the time since I last posted, I've updated the menu into a megamenu. Instead of using the default Orchard menu, I chose to use an HTML menu item and created an HTML table to format the megamenu. The first level of the menu was formatted using CSS and the hover method, which added the orange top border with the mouse hover. The second-level megamenu was formatted using a gray-to-white image gradient repeated horizontally.

I also created the custom content type called products, which went with another custom content type called product features. The product features (the benefits, features, implementation, etc) would fit into a product (Nexsure Easy, Element, Express, Enterprise, etc). This was done through CodeGen, in order to create the Orchard structure files (bin, src, etc) and then with Visual Studio to code the models, drivers, etc. The Orchard Documentation goes through this in detail, which offered a good walkthrough.

JavaScript turned out to be easier than I expected. The actual JS code was maybe 30 or so characters. The main issue was formatting the content so the JS could turn them into tabs. Each tab would represent a Product Feature of a Product. I had to work with a text field in order to customize what tab name I wanted to use, else it would default to using the Product Feature name.

Day 2

Using custom HTML for the menus didn't seem to work very well, since it leaves gaps between the menu options which closes the submenu if the cursor enters the gaps. Added in some more content (such as Nexsure Enterprise) for the website and deleted the Badge of Honor (which removes the "Powered by Orchard"). Still exploring some of the modules. Also added Partners, About Us.

First Post

My dad encouraged me to start a blog, since I'm now interning at his company, XDTI. I've been learning to develop websites under the content management system (CMS). The current program I'm using is Orchard, which is used through WebMatrix 3. Orchard allows me to use themes, as well as creating new ones, to design websites. I've so far managed to create a prototype homepage for XDTI.com because XDTI wants a website that can be edited by non-HTML-experts (as the current website is entirely HTML hard-coded).


Designer Tools 1.6 with Shape Tracing is a very useful Module. I have to disable it later else it'll be enabled by users as well. So far, the menus aren't very pretty and have to be re-skinned to fit the XDTI theme. Also, I'll have to spend some time to work with the megamenus. Stack Overflow and Codeplex are two forums for Orchard developers to use.