These are the instructions for the Twelfth module of this course :

This week we discover how to organize our Interactive content with Pull down menus.

You are already familiar with pull-down (or better called, drop-down menus) as a user, since both Macs and PCs use them as a way to organize their user interface.
(look at the uppermost bar in your computer).
Most programs also use this technique to organize their extensive list of menu-items in a constricted space.

1. This structure produces a very dynamic interface that demands a pro-active attitude in the user: he or she makes decisions with the position of his/her cursor over the content.
It implies rolling over a section and choosing among the sub-section elements.

2. A Pull-down menu helps optimize the use of "the real state" in your site (the surface of your web-page, in this case the area of your Stage)
by using the same area of the stage for different content, displayed on demand by user interaction .

3. Most pull down menus work on Roll-Over of the menu item.
This type of interface speeds up the access to the content by allowing you to visualize the content of a menu without having to click on it.
According to some studies in web-usability, the number of clicks required to access your content highly influence your chances of keeping the visitor attention, with less chances to keep your audience's the more clicks your demand in order to access the content.

Building a drop-down menu in Flash requires an already organized and set list of content divided in groups (with menu names and submenu items).
It also requires an elaborated construction with buttons inside movieclip-symbols and some simple Action Scripting commands to add the functionality to the project.

Complete this week's assignment building a Pull down menu with at least 2 menu-lists, so we can visualize how the rollout of each section is working, and access one or other menu's content by just moving the mouse towards the section name.

Each menu should have 2 to 4 subsections, with some kind of content.
Be creative but keep file-size in mind.
Watch the size of bitmaps and sound files and remember to set recompression settings.

PLEASE remember to break the text, from an active-font format to a simple vector shape ( Apple_B or Control_B, break group twice).
If you are using a font that we don't have and you are designing tightly, it can look pretty horrible interpreted in a default font nd flash does NOT embed the font in the project.

Post your comments or problems you think the rest of the group can share, advice ideas and more on the discussion.