Hi all,

I have recently re-designed my website; rather than using a standard Bravenet template I have designed my own with a JavaScript menu.

It all looks fine when uploaded, but occasionally when I edit the website in the Visual Editor (only editing the content of the page nothing more) it breaks the JavaScript menu.
It appears to be altering the script tag:

type="text/javascript" src="js/ddsmoothmenu.js" >

for some reason putting something like:

type="text/javascript" src="js/ddsmoothmenu.js alt=something_random" >

instead.

Has anyone come across this before??

Thanks

Browser: All

OS: Windows

Then use a different editor

It's the Bravenet editor package that comes with the hosting, not sure I can just change it....its integrated software.

Browser: All

OS: Windows

Yes, the Visual editor is integrated into your Bravenet environment, and you can't change it, but you still shouldn't use it.

Bravenet's Visual editor has been broken for years. When you save your changes, the editor does a validation of sorts. Right or wrong, it will change some structures and simply delete others. Since they let it go for so long, I don't expect that Bravenet will fix it any time soon.

To show you some of the things the Visual editor can do to your web page, here is a quick test. Make a copy of one of your pages. This is so you can throw it away later. Then open the copy in the Text editor. Notice the "DOCTYPE" tag on the very first line. Then switch to the Visual editor, make a minor change, and then save your work. Now switch back to the Text editor. The "DOCTYPE" tag will be gone and any number of things in your document will be modified.

You created the web pages on your PC and then uploaded them to your web site. Stick with that editor. If you need to do some minor on-line editing, only use the Text editor. The Visual editor will ruin your page.

You should be aware that, while Javascript menus work well and look nice, search engines can not follow links that are buried in Javascript. The search engine will see your first page, but that's about it. Had you used a strict CSS menu system, this wouldn't be an issue. I assume that's the reason for all that tacky stuff at the bottom of your home page.

One of your pages should be a site map, that is accessible from a direct link and only contains HTML style links. Then all of your pages can be resolved by a search engine. You can create it yourself or there are services that will create site maps for you. However, I don't think the services can follow Javascript either.

Your web site visitors should not have to see that stuff at the bottom of your home page. Wrap a "div" or a "span" around it and set the "display" style attribute to "none". Google will still see it, but it won't waste space on your visitors display. But don't be surprised if your ranking goes down with Google. What your doing can be considered "keyword stuffing". If all that information was reasonably covered on one or more of your pages, you wouldn't need that area. A website can even exist without meta tag descriptors and still get first page ranking in targeted searches, as long as the content is good. Search engines rely more on content than anything else. Pay attention to content rather than SEO tricks.

Browser: Firefox

OS: Solaris, Redhat, Fedora, Suse

Hi Philo,

Thanks for your detailed response.

The menu that I'm using is a CSS list, am only just JavaScript to enable some of the items to be shown as drop-downs. The underlying HTML should be fairly standard so I hope that Google et al will be able to read it properly.

I'm not sure of any other way of creating a cascading menu structure without the use of JS or some such. It's a shame that Bravenet don't keep the visual editor up to scratch, I myself am fine with doing it in the text editor and prefer it - but I will be handing over the ongoing content updates to someone who doesn't code and so realistically requires the visual editor side...

Browser: All

OS: Windows

There are several good free editors available. I write all my pages on my PC as well, and then just upload the changes. Try this link to my web pages PhiloKvetch.com - Kvetching about Templates. The page on Template Template Editing has links to several good free editors. I use HTML-Kit for everything I do. HTML-Kit is a text based web page editor and it has built in upload capabilities (FTP). For a Visual editor, most people like NVu or Composer.

As long as your links are directly visible on your web page, you shouldn't have any problem. I wouldn't go changing what you alredy have, but it is possible to make a cascading menu that is strictly CSS. Try this link to DynamicDrive.com - CSS Library Horizontal CSS Menus. They have several good examples of menues with, and without, Javascript. The menu on the pages I linked to in the previous paragraph does not use Javascript at all.

Browser: Firefox

OS: Solaris, Redhat, Fedora, Suse