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HM5 Status Report: Adding Opera
D.M Ragle, March 12, 2003
Welcome to our first installment of HM_InProgress, a new area
of HierMenusCentral.com. Here, we intend to post information that pertains
to the ongoing development of HierMenus; from status updates, to maintenance
releases, to brief tips and tutorials focused on making the best use of HierMenus on your
site.
First, let's address the most popular question we've been getting on HierMenus
of late. Specifically: "When will we see the next version of HierMenus?"
While a target date for HM5 hasn't been set in stone, I can report that
our HM5 development efforts are proceeding in earnest. HM5 will provide two of our most
oft-requested features: cross-frames compatibility (where you can create HTML links in one
frame that, when clicked or rolled over, pop-up your navigation menus in a second frame),
and support for the latest Opera browser, Opera 7. We're impressed with Opera 7, and
especially pleased to report that it now sports all (well, ok, most... we'll get to
that in a minute) of the crucial functions we need to support it in HM.
Before continuing with this update, let's address another critical HM issue,
that being the time it's taken to provide this update and new HM releases in general.
You may have already noticed that this article is not being written by HierMenus creator
and developer, Peter Belesis. Regrettably, Peter's work on his other projects has been
absorbing him, leaving him hardly free to eat and sleep--let alone continue to crank
out the top-quality updates and informative articles that he has for the past
5 years (that's right: the first version of HM appeared over 5 years
ago!). I'm therefore chipping in on the ongoing HierMenus development. While I've
clearly got a lot of catching up to do (5 years?!? Yikes!), I hope to
provide the kind of continuous updates and informative articles that both HM fans
and DTHML developers have come to expect from our little corner of the Web. (Not to
mention providing Peter with a long and well deserved rest from his tremendous
efforts.)
To get started, let's have a look at the latest release from the Opera
camp, and see what it takes to add support for Opera in HM. While
the remainder of this article focuses primarily on techniques and issues specifically
relating to the development of HierMenus for Opera 7, the information presented can be
appreciated by--and may be useful to--all DHTML developers.
    
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