Thu 23 Jul 2009
PixoPoint Menu
Posted by Ryan under Plugins[13] Comments
(103 votes, average: 4.26 out of 5)
Loading ...Adds an SEO friendly, accessible regular or dropdown menu to your WordPress powered site. To see a live demo of the plugin in action, please visit our demo site.
Demonstration of the PixoPoint Menu plugin in action. This example demonstrates a dropdown menu with a graphical shadow.
Restyling your menu
Unlike other menu plugins for WordPress, this one allows you to totally restyle your menu to look however you want, but you never need to touch a line of code to do it. You can totally restyle your menu and rearrange the menu contents all within your WordPress installation via an easy to use interface.
The editing panel used to restyle the design of your menu. You can change colours, text sizes, boldness, italics, use graphics or even add a smooth shadow effect to dropdown menus all from the easy to use interface.
The editor system operates from your own site, but behind the scenes it sends your design preferences back to the PixoPoint server for processing. The required CSS data is then sent back to your WordPress install for it to be used in your menu. When you save your design, that CSS is saved into your WordPress database. The plugin only needs to access the PixoPoint server if you choose to modify the design in the future.
Arranging menu items
You can choose from a selection of different menu items to include in your menu, from Pages to Categories, Blog posts or even a search box can all be added to your menu via an easy to use drag and drop interface in the plugins admin page. For those of you looking for the ultimate control, you can even choose one of the custom code boxes to insert whatever HTML code you wish. For those using the Pages option, you can rearrange your WordPress Pages via another simple drag and drop interface under the ‘Advanced’ tab in the plugins admin page.
Drag and drop interface for modifying the menu contents of the PixoPoint Menu plugin.
Installation
Upload the complete pixopoint-menu folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory OR install it via the WordPress plugin repository browser
1. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
2. Either: Add <?php if(function_exists(‘pixopoint_menu’)) {pixopoint_menu();} ?> to your theme wherever you want the menu to appear (usually your header.php file) or choose the ‘Auto theme support’ option in the plugins admin panel (works with Hybrid, Thematic, Thesis and many other popular WordPress themes).
3. Visit the “PixoPoint Menu” page in your WordPress settings menu and control how the menu behaves via the plethora of different options
4. Click the ‘Load editor’ button in the plugins admin page to modify the design via the easy to use editing panel
Support
If you follow all of the instructions here and if followed all of the instructions in the plugin and on the installation page then please post a question in our support forum.
(103 votes, average: 4.26 out of 5) Loading ...
[...] the rest here: WordPress Plugin Competition Blog » PixoPoint Menu Comments [0]Digg [...]
While this plugin seems well-crafted, I don’t see how it can legitimately be considered for this competition, as it seems to skirt or break three separate rules:
1) “True WordPress plugins only. No manual modifications can be required of users. No editing of core files allowed.”
- The majority of users are going to have to follow installation step “3a. Either: Add to your theme wherever you want the menu to appear (usually your header.php file).”
2) “You cannot submit plugins that have been released already. Modification or re-use of existing code to achieve completely new functionality allowed.”
- While the plugin seems greatly-revised and polished, the functionality does not seem significantly different from its predecessor, http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/multi-level-navigation-plugin/
3) “Preliminary support for the plugin has to be provided to the public.”
- http://pixopoint.com/pixopoint-menu/ clearly states, “As this product is still in beta, we will be providing limited support in our support forum. For paid support, please consider our Premium Support deal.”
Again, I’m not knocking this plugin, and I realize that all these points can be argued, but it is my opinion (as a non-biased 3rd party), that this plugin should not be in this competition.
1. No core theme files need to be modified at all. Only the theme, and even then if the theme includes an appropriate hook then that isn’t necessary.
2. This plugin is significantly different from it’s predecessor. I guess that’s a matter of opinion though.
3. I provide more support than most plugin authors. By “limited support” I still mean more than most other plugin authors. Having said that, the text you quoted should have been removed already anyway, I just added that back when I made that blog post as I didn’t want to be inundated with support requests before I had the majority of the bugs ironed. The plugin is nearing leaving beta and probably will have by the end of the plugin competition.
[...] was a plugin I don’t it was stand a chance of winning. I’ve entered a separate plugin already … http://weblogtoolscollection.com/plu…ixopoint-menu/ FYI, here’s a separate thread about the "other" software I mentioned … WordPress [...]
I have an idea for #1 which would not only not require any core files being modified, but also wouldn’t require editing theme files either. I’ll see if I can get it working before the end of the plugin competition.
I’ve removed the comment about “limited support” and the plugin now uses wp_page_menu() instead of it’s own function to load the menu. Any themes which already use wp_page_menu() will automatically display the plugins’ menu.
[...] PixoPoint Menu [...]
[...] for download. They range from the very simple to the very complex. My personal favorite is the Pixopoint Menu Plugin, but there are some other great ones there as well. Check it [...]
Cool. Great Job. And SEO Support =) +++
$99.99 p/year seems a bit harsh for extra dropdown options.
No. It’s $5 to upgrade to the premium features of the CSS generation tool which this plugin utilizes. Users would only pay the $99 fee if they were wanting to redesign their site (or multiple sites) over the entire year.
Most users of the plugin have no use for the upgrade features of the CSS generation service since most of them are available for free anyway.
Hi there
Great plugin, but can this one work on a category and vertical fly-out menu?
My category menu is on the left side-bar, and I want to have a fly-out menu at the end of a single category. Is this possible to do with this plugin?
Thanks in advance
CHEERS
Hi Danny,
Yes it can do a vertical flyout menu for a single category if you want. The editing panel does not support vertical flyout menus (yet) but you can use the premium version of our CSS generator (http://pixopoint.com/suckerfish_css/) to create the CSS, then enter that into the advanced tab of the plugins admin page (don’t use the editing panel). You can limit it to a single category by using the ‘include’ category ID option.