Creating same-width hit-zones on MenuItems in ASP.NET 2.0 Menus that include MenuItems added at runt
- by Cary Jensen
In an ASP.NET 2.0 application, I want to permit a user to select a MenuItem, even if the user does not click the actual text of the MenuItem, but instead only clicks the highlight area that ASP.NET places around the currently selected MenuItem (represented by the DynamicHoverStyle.BackColor property). Since the BackColor is displayed the same width for each MenuItem in a submenu, based on MenuItem with the longest text, I would like to make the hit-zone (clickable area) of each sub-MenuItem the same width (same at the BackColor area), regardless of how much text is displayed in the in each individual sub-MenuItem.
Here's the setup. I am using a Menu on a MasterPage to display a similar menu on each of my pages. Some of the pages suppress this menu, and some of them add addition MenuItems, sometimes to the top level, sometimes adding sub-MenuItems to an existing top-level MenuItem, and sometimes both (adding a MenuItem to the top level and then additional MenuItems as submenuitems to that newly added top level.
This menu has a horizontal orientation, and it is dynamic, in that only the top level is initially exposed, and the submenus are displayed when selected.
During usability testing, we noticed that users would select a top-level menu item to expose the submenu, and then select a submenu item, but not by necessarily clicking on the submenu item text, but instead clicking on the BackColor area of the submenu item. Since the text of some MenuItems are longer than others, MenuItems with short Text have a rather large BackColor area. When the user clicks on the BackColor area, but not directly on the MenuItem Text, nothing happens, since the user didn't actually click on the submenu item hit zone.
Although there are visual cues as to what part of the displayed MenuItem is clickable (the mouse pointer changes to a link cursor when the mouse is positioned on the MenuItem Text, but not when it is only hovering over the BackColor), this behavior confused the users. They highlighted a MenuItem, and clicked it, but nothing happened.
I would to make clicking a MenuItem successful, even if the user did not click on the actual Text of the MenuItem, but simply click on the BackColor area.
It seems like there should be a property somewhere to control the width of the active area of the displayed MenuItems, but I do not see it. Any suggestions, given that I am creating some of these MenuItems at runtime?
