Menu Manager
n-gen.net CMS navigation menu system supports:
- Multi-level menu hierarchy with (almost) unlimited number of sub-menus,
- Mobile friendly touch enabled menu layout,
- Emojis/smilys and HTML entities (i.e. · [ · ], ? [ ? ], © [ © ] etc.)
- Configurable text sizes, fonts and background colours including background gradients,
- Left, centred, right or full width alignment,
- Always display of mobile menu
- Easy ordering of menu items order.
- Integrate pro modules in pick list.
n-gen.net CMS navigation menu is easy to manage.
When opening your Menu Manager you will see the menu structure as in your website but in Admin mode.
Admin mode is always showing your navigation menu in desktop view. Also if you have selected "Always show mobile menu" in the Style Manager.
Admin mode background colours are always displayed in greyscale and text is black and white to give the Admin proper contrast.
Menu item divider style and rounded corners are not displayed in Admin mode either.
Admin mode always shows Action Tool icons to the right of the menu text or symbol.
In Admin Mode all menu items consist consist of five items:
[Menu Text] 
Menu Text or symbol: Clicking the text or symbol will cause the menu to behave exactly like the your website's actual menu: Opening a link or a submenu (or both: In desktop mode a mouseOver might open a submenu and a click opens the link).
The red minus icon: Clicking the red minus icon will delete the menu item. Before deleting the system will automatically check if the menu item has sub-items (children) If a menu item is a parent (has children) the menu item can not be deleted until all children are either moved to another parent or the last child has been deleted. It is a simple safety mechanism to ensure that no unreachable orphans occupy the database and all menu items will be visible to Admin. If the menu item has no children the admin will have to confirm the deletion. When confirmed the menu item is removed from the database and the menu is updated.
?? Note.
There is no way to undo a database deletion. The only way that the menu item can be restored is if you have made a backup of your menu table.
The black arrow down icon: Clicking the icon will lower the priority for the menu item (increase the integer value) for the menu item without opening the "Edit" form.
The green plus icon: Clicking this icon will will open the modal form required for creating a new sub menu item under the current menu I item.
The yellow pencil icon: Clicking this icon will cause the modal form to open the selected menu item with editable values.
Creating a new menu item.
New menu item in the menu bar:
? Click the green
+ New Menu Item button.
New child menu item (sub menu):
? Click the green
to the right of the menu item (parent).
Now fill the form to complete the new menu item.
Menu text: Type whatever text or symbol you want to display in the menu or submenu.
Existing Page: From the drop-down you can select any existing page on your web site.
Note that the drop-down also include your web pages categorised as "News" and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) if the Pro FAQ module is installed.
Tip: To make it really easy to setup your website navigation you should make your web pages before you make the navigation menu. Then you can just pick them from the list.
You can also select "External link or Module". If you do that an URL line and an information icon is displayed. In the URL field you can enter any website or resource on the internet you like. The link will automatically be checked for syntax and if it is reachable as you type. For visiting the actual link click the ?? icon and the link will open in a new tab. Most common link types are Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (Secure), http(s):// and relative links but also other types of links, i.e. FTP://, file link and mailto: links are accepted. See complete list of accepted links.
Note.
If you in any way can envisage that you will move your n-gen.net CMS from one host to another we recommend that you use relative links. Relative links mean that you don't link to the absolute URLs that qualifies both protocol and domain.
| Absolute URL (not movable by backup) |
|
Relative URL (movable by backup) |
 https://mysite.com/index.aspx?id=1 |
|
 /index.aspx?id=1 |
| https://mysite.com/home |
|
/home |
| https://mysite.com/photo |
|
/photo |
This syntax allows you to backup your navigation menu from "https://mysite.com" and restore a fully functional navigation menu to "https://myNewSite.com" or "https://subdomain.mysite.com".
Tip: If you click the information icon a popup window displays a list of n-gen.net modules. Clicking the right column text will insert the module URL into the link dialogue and close the popup list.
?? Note.
Some of the module links require manual editing in the link dialogue. I.e if you want to display a specific photo in the Photo Viewer (the file named /photoShow.aspx) you must manually enter the image name: The inserted link is
/photoShow.aspx?imageURL=images/photogallery/XXX.jpg
but you must manually change the URL to reference your actual file name like
/photoShow.aspx?imageURL=images/photogallery/MyPhoto.jpg.
Similar for specific links to videos and documents in Pro modules Media Centre and Document Centre. Read about the syntax for referencing specific documents or specific media.
Target: In the Target drop-down you can select "Same window/tab" if you want the like to open in the current browser window/tab or "New window/tab" if you want the browser to open a new window or tab with the content of the link.
Tip: Though you are in complete control of the target it is best practice to select "Same window/tab" for internal links and "New window/tab" if the link leads to content you have no control over, typically another website in a different domain. But it is your choice.
Parent: In the "Parent" field select where to attach the new menu item.
If you want the menu item in the menu bar then select "No parent" otherwise pick any menu item you want to be the new item to sit under. Parents can be menu bar items or sub-menus items. The only parent that is not allowed is the item itself; you cannot be your own parent though many teenagers would like that!
Tip:
If you want a menu item as a parent but without opening anything just enter a "#" as the link.
The the menu item can act category name holding a number of submenu items without actually opening anything. I.e. you want the category "Games" in your menu bar but don't want clicking the text "Games" to do anything but being parent for a number of sub-menus like "Strategy", "Fantasy" and "FPS" then just enter a "#" in the URL field of "Games" and Select "Games" as parent for "Strategy", "Fantasy" and "FPS".
Likewise for sub-menus: If you want the submenu "FPS" to be a parent but not a link enter "#" and for sub-submenus of "FPS" like "Wolfenstein", "Quake" and "" select "FPS" as the parent.
Priority: The"Priority" field sets the order of menu items. By default the value is set to "Normal". But as menu items are ordered after parent, then priority, then IDs ascending the priority is the way to move a menu items. Say you make three menu items for your menu bar "1", 2" and "3". If made in that order they will be displayed from left to right "1", 2", "3" as they have same parent, no parent or top menu bar, the have the se priority and IDs will be 1, 2 and 3.
Now let's say that you want to make another menu item with text "0" and you want that to the left of menu item "1". The after creating the item it will appear to the right of your existing menu items as the all have the same parent, menu top bar, same priority -all items has default priority 4 - and the newly created "0" has a higher DB value.
To compensate for that you should either lower priority for all other menu items in the toolbar or raise the priority for that specific menu item to have a higher priority than the rest. Then it does not matter if the individual ID is higher that all the other menu items; it will still be placed before the rest as the priority is higher (it has a lower number => human brains work that way: My 1st priority is my family, 2nd priority is friends and my 3rd priority is colleagues. This means family first!)
Now all you have to do is hit the "Save" button. If for any reason you forget to fill a field of select a value you will see a warming in the upper right corner for 5 seconds and the form will not submit, thus your values will not be saved.
When successfully saved you will see a confirmation in the upper right corner.
If you want to edit any of the menu items click the pencil icon to the right of the text. Then the modal window will open with the current values of the menu item. The only difference from when you made the menu item is that you can no longer see the pick list for existing pages. So consequently you will have to enter the URL text manually.
After changing the values hit the "Update" button to store the entered values in the database. If a values is missing or invalid you will see a warming in the upper right corner. If not you will see a confirmation that the entered values are stored in the database.
The External URL Checker:
| Type |
Example |
Status |
http:// / https:// |
https://example.com |
Full validation |
file:// |
file:///C:/temp/file.pdf |
 Format only |
ftp:// / ftps:// |
ftp://files.example.com |
Format only |
mailto: |
mailto:user@example.com |
Format only |
tel: |
tel:+4512345678 |
Format only |
skype: |
skype:username?call |
Format only |
whatsapp: |
whatsapp://send?phone=123 |
Format only |
| Internal paths |
/install/install.aspx |
Server existence check |
| Internal routes |
/docs (global.asax route) |
Cannot verify - only format |
~/ paths |
~/photoIndex.aspx |
Resolves to physical path |
| Relative paths |
../images/logo.png |
Resolves from current context |