Okay,

I'm trying to skin my DNN site and am making very slow progress despite viewing lots of tutorials, and the helpful documentation provided here.  I can't help thinking I'm just going about this the wrong way, so my question is one of strategy more than anything else.

My designer provided me an XHTML template with the menu rendered like this.  I shorted the code for brevity:

            <ul id="nav">
                <li class="active">
                    <a href="#">
                        <span class="left">&nbsp;</span>
                        <span class="middle">Home</span>
                        <span class="right">&nbsp;</span>
                    </a></li>
                <li>
                    <a class="drop" href="#">
                        <span class="left">&nbsp;</span>
                        <span class="middle">Talks</span>
                        <span class="right">&nbsp;</span>
                    </a>
                    <!-- drop down -->
                    <div class="drop-down">
                        <ul class="drop-top">
                            <li><a href="#">Click through</a></li>
                            <li><a href="#">Rollover</a></li>
                            <li><a href="#">Normal</a></li>
                        </ul>
                        <div class="drop-btm"></div>
                    </div>
                </li>
            </ul>

And the CSS looks like this.  Again, this is just a snippet:

#nav {
position:absolute;
top:173px;
left:0;
margin:0;
padding:0;
list-style:none;
font-size:11px;
line-height:30px;
letter-spacing:0.1em;
text-transform:uppercase;
}
#nav li {
float:left;
}
#nav a {
display:block;
color:#707675;
}
#nav a span {
float:left;
cursor:pointer;
}
#nav a .left,
#nav a .right { width:21px;}
#nav a .middle { padding:0;}
#nav a:hover {
text-decoration:none;
color:#fff;
}
#nav a:hover .left {
background:url(../images/bg-menu-hover-left.png) no-repeat;
}
#nav a:hover .right,
#nav li:hover a .right,
#nav li.hover a .right {
background:url(../images/bg-menu-hover-right2.png) no-repeat;
}
#nav a:hover .middle,
#nav li.hover a .middle,
#nav li:hover a .middle {
background:#bcb391;
color:#fff;
}
#nav a.push .left {
background:url(../images/bg-menu-click-left.png) no-repeat;
}
#nav a.push .right {
background:url(../images/bg-menu-click-right2.png) no-repeat;
}
#nav a.push .middle {
background:#928655 !important;
color:#fff;
}
#nav a.push:hover .right {
background:url(../images/bg-menu-click-right2.png) no-repeat;
}

So the menu is a styled ordered list -- nested for submenus.  Ideally all I have to do is write code that injects my links and site map into this structure.  But I've had no end of trouble getting DNNMenu to deal with this markup and styling.  I'm finding I'm throwing away all of the work from my designer because this strategy isn't working.  I can't even get the DNNMenu (v2 -- I'm on DNN501) to render a nested structure of ordered lists, much less style each item in the list in 3 parts like the designer has done (left side of tab, menu text, right side of tab).

It's hard to come up with a specific question at this stage, because I've got the hunch I'm doing this completely the wrong way to begin with.  It really shouldn't be this hard.  So what is the best practice strategy for taking an XHTML template rendering menus as lists and converting it into DNNMenu?  Is there a way to get a nested list structure out of that control?

AldenG

Thanks for your reply Mike, although it doesn't sound very encouraging.  I see the HouseMenu claims to only support DNN4.  Is there anyone out there using this on DNN5?

I've already viewed the CodeEndeavors tutorials.  Very nice, but I got completely bogged down trying to convert my template using those styles.  I'm thinking I might be better off trying to go the other direction -- start with the CodeEndeavors skinning template and try to introduce the styles from my template.  At least that way I'm starting from something that works in DNN, rather than trying to convert a ul/li/a approach to DNN.

But if people are having good luck with HouseMenu in DNN5, then I'll try that next.

AldenG

Have you looked at this option? 

http://www.snapsis.com/tabid/589/ProductID/13/List/1/DotNetNuke-CSS-SEO-Menu.aspx