Implementing the Menu Bar

The PT application implements application menus by using XSL files to transform an XML file containing the names of menus and menu items. The XSL transformation results in an HTML page that populates the application's menu frame. The page is created dynamically each time a browser requests a form and is never stored as a file.

The PT Admin application builds only a single menu. The PT User application, however, builds three menus, depending on whether the user logs on as an individual, evaluator, or auditor.

The application builds its menu frame as soon as a form is requested; gate.asp returns the frameset populated with HTML files for the logo frame, left pane, and right pane of the form. Unlike the menu frame, these frames are built by merging globalized XML template files with the lingo.xml file.

The following topics describe the process of creating menus and menu items:

• Generating Menus Dynamically with XSL discusses the design of this feature and provides a conceptual diagram that illustrates the transformation.
• Loading XML and XSL Files for Transformation discusses the code that loads XML and XSL files in ASP for XSL transformation.
• MakeMenuXML Function describes the code that modifies the menu.xml file in preparation for XSL transformation.
• Dynamically Adding Child Elements and Attributes to an XML Document Object describes how to modify an XML file to accommodate menu options based on the presence of locale files.
• Performing the XSL Transformation on menu.xml discusses the code that uses XSL to transform the XML file in which menu names and options reside.
• Adding Menu Items to a Popup Object describes how the PT application presents menu items to users.
• Handling XML Parser Errors in ASP describes how to capture and return to the browser any errors that occur while the menus are being created.
• Converting Text from Unicode to Character Data with the decode Function addresses one of the major localization issues the PT Admin application raises.
• Localizing the Menu discusses how to provide the XML files necessary to create menus for each locale the PT Admin application supports for an arena.