Xara Menu Maker 1.1 review

Web design applications have come a long way but there are still related tasks that are better handled by dedicated applications.

Xara has found a role for itself in this field, and Menu Maker is a good example of its wares. Most websites require navigation bars but it can be tricky to create good-looking menus. Menu Maker works in the same way as Xara's other products, stepping through simple configuration screens and viewing changes in real time. You can start from scratch or simply customise one of the supplied templates.

The program has 43 pages of menu designs and each includes multiple examples of both vertical and horizontal menus. Once a design has been selected the labels can easily be adjusted in terms of their text, number, size and font. Colours are then altered to suit the website. Each element can be coloured separately, including 'mouse off' and 'mouse over' states. A menu's background can be left blank, you can choose from a range of supplied backgrounds or you can use your own graphic files.

Menu Maker provides tight control of the size of the finished menu. It shows the current width and height and a slider can make instant changes to the size of the overall menu. Resized text is initially jagged before being rendered smooth by the software. The width of the buttons can also be adjusted.

There are three ways of controlling width: manually defining each button, using each button's text to determine the width and specifying a width for all the buttons. This is one of the biggest benefits of using a tool such as Menu Maker. If buttons need to be added or edited, it could just be a few seconds of work.

The last thing to be done on a menu is to provide the configuration information. This includes the URL and target frame each button is to point at plus optional pop-up text for when the mouse pointer hovers over a button. A figure can be specified for the spacing between buttons and it's possible to activate the additional mouse state of 'selected'. When saving a menu there's a choice of GIF, JPG and PNG for the graphic files. Menu Maker outputs a series of graphics, a small HTML file to load the menu as well as JavaScript and DHTML to control the menu.

Sub-menus are supported and additional browser compatibility is included for Opera, Mozilla and Safari on the Mac. As with other Xara products, a plug-in allows Menu Maker to be integrated with FrontPage and Dreamweaver.

Menu Maker is simple to use and its output is compact, so its menus are not a drain on bandwidth. Users will no longer find it a chore to create and edit website navigation bars.

Author: Matthew Holbrook