COOLjsMenu

There are many drop down menus available, but we feel COOLjsMenu is a very good choice for a these reasons:

• excellent cross browser support (even Opera 7!)
• easy to use
• small file size (fast loading)
• reasonable pricing (commercial $29/non-commercial free)
• nice 'PRO' option (image support, fancy borders, form element compatibility, etc. $49)

Drop down menus, which use a combination of javascript, DHTML, and style sheets, are very tricky, since every version of each browser has it's own peculiarities and requirements. Furthermore, even with the best drop down menu, there are some things you still have to watch out for. For example, the drop down menu item (in IE) will often drop down under html form elements, which looks ridiculous, so you should position these form elements well away from the drop down lists. Some of these menus have workarounds for this, but this adds complexity to something that is already pretty complex.

News update: CooljsMenuPro ($49) reportedly has now been updated to drop down over form elements! I haven't checked this yet myself but it is a big improvement.

If you are considering using a drop down menu, visit the COOLjsMenu site and download a trial version (free for non-profit personal use).

As additional support for users of COOLjsmenu, we've set up a color layout design page which can really speed up the process of finding a pleasant color combination for your drop down menu and page layout. Unlike the menu itself which works in all browsers we've tested, our color layout design page only works in IE5 and up, and in Netscape 6 (with a few minor bugs).