Global Navigation: Overview

Concept

This global navigation is written in ActionScript 3 having the designer in mind. I wanted to have a solution where I can put 95% of my time into the creative part like ”what colours look nice?, what fonts should I use?, how will I animate it?” and only 5% in the technical part like ”how do I programm the spacing of the buttons? how do I handle the button states and submenues?”. I guess you know what I mean… :-D

There are 3 basic things you have to deal with:

creating the button SWF
define the menu structure and behaviour in an xml file
initialize the navigation by using the NavigationManager class

In the btn.swf there are the graphics and textfield for the different button states:

intro (called when the btn is initially loaded)
rollOut
rollOver
press
release
deactivate
outro (called when the button is faded out)

All scripting has been taken out of this button SWF and put in the NavigationButton class. So you don't have to worry about it and can concentrate on your design.