Getting Hover Buttons to work

[mutley]

I'm having considerable difficulty getting hover buttons to work. Using FP98
on a Win98 machine with 128Mb RAM.

I have a web page with a column of about 10 hover buttons to left of the
page, another column of 2 hover buttons to the right.

When I test the page in my browser (IE6) some of the hover buttons show text
and links to the correct web pages, but some hover buttons are greyed out
without any text in them. They don't work at all but show
"exception:java.lang. Illegal Argument Exception" when I hover over them.

I have checked several times and can't see any differences in the 'setup' of
the buttons which work and those which don't. Also I get different 'dud'
hover buttons each time I test the page! Sometimes only 2 or 3 are 'good',
sometimes it's 6 or 7.

'Fraid I'm lost.

 

[Chris Leeds, MVP-FrontPage]

hover buttons are actually Java Applets. their use is discouraged because a
great number of machines don't have JVM's anymore (required to see them).
you should make individual image buttons, a FrontPage navigation bar, plain
links, etc and replace the Hover Buttons.

HTH

--
Chris Leeds,
Microsoft MVP-FrontPage

ContentSeed: great tool for web masters,
a fantastic convenience for site owners.
http://contentseed.com/

 

[Jay]

So why are hover buttons even included with FP if their use is discouraged?
Seems like if they didn't want them to be used they wouldn't include them at
all, the would stop the problems before they happened instead of giving us a
tool they don't want us to use.

 

[Joe Rohn]

Jay,

When FrontPage 98 was released...there wasn't as much of a problem with
using Java Applets as there is today. The newer versions of FrontPage while
not totally eliminating Hover Buttons..at least make them a little more
difficult to find and use..while at the same time making other means (like
interactive buttons) easier to do.

 

[Chris Leeds, MVP-FrontPage]

IMHO, the only reason they're still in FrontPage 2003 is for people to be
able to edit existing buttons.

--
Chris Leeds,
Microsoft MVP-FrontPage

ContentSeed: great tool for web masters,
a fantastic convenience for site owners.
http://contentseed.com/
--

 

[Jay]

Ok, that makes more sense to me then. Thanks for clearing that up for me guys.

 

[E. T. Culling]

You can also ask why the photo gallery component is still offered when it
doesn't work well at all!
Eleanor

 

[E. T. Culling]

Here's an article for you to read:
http://www.eleanorstravels.com/frontpage-dontdo.htm See the first link
also!!
Eleanor

 

[Cheryl D Wise]

They are not installed by default with FP 2003. They only exist there at all
for backwards compatibility and to you them you must configure support for
them under the Tools | Page Options | Java Applet. So if you haven't used an
older version you would be unlikely too even find them.

Creating new ones is discouraged.

--
Cheryl D. Wise
MS FrontPage MVP
http://mvp.wiserways.com
http://starttoweb.com
Online instructor led web design training - Next Session June 26th

 

[Chris Leeds, MVP-FrontPage]

Hi Eleanor,
have you tried www.picasa.com? it's got a gallery making component you may
be interested in for your tips page.

--
Chris Leeds,
Microsoft MVP-FrontPage

ContentSeed: great tool for web masters,
a fantastic convenience for site owners.
http://contentseed.com/
--

 

[Rob Giordano \(Crash Gordon®\)]

I didn't think you could make web galleries with it though.
Can ya?

 

[Andrew Murray]

However a Windows 98 machine should have JVM...if it has a release of
Windows dated before the lawsuit against microsoft by sun microsystems.

 

[Chris Leeds, MVP-FrontPage]

I believe so..

--
Chris Leeds,
Microsoft MVP-FrontPage

ContentSeed: great tool for web masters,
a fantastic convenience for site owners.
http://contentseed.com/

 

[mutley]

hover buttons are actually Java Applets. their use is discouraged because a
great number of machines don't have JVM's anymore (required to see them).
you should make individual image buttons, a FrontPage navigation bar, plain
links, etc and replace the Hover Buttons.

Thanks, I guess it's back to the drawing board!
Thanks also to Eleanor for the useful links.

regards,
mutley