dropdown menu with persistence?
 

I'm not sure if I should post this in here- it's HTML, CSS, and JavaScript all together.

What I've got:
Top level items in menu have a rollover effect, and when rolled over a submenu for each item appears horizontally under the main menu item. When a user rolls over the submenu, the top level item rollover effect disappears and rollover effects for the submenu items appear. When the mouse leaves the submenu, the submenu disappears.

What the boss wants:
(effect like menu under logo at http://www.mercury.com/us/)
Top level items in menu have a rollover effect, and when rolled over a submenu for each item appears horizontally under the main menu item. When a user rolls over the submenu, the top level item rollover effect *persists* and rollover effects for the submenu items appear. When a submenu item is clicked, submenu and clicked-submenu-item rollover effect persist while new page loads (in another frame. don't blame me, I hate frames too). When the mouse leaves the clicked-on submenu, the previously-clicked main menu rollover effect and the submenu *persist* until another main menu item is clicked.

Any ideas? I've been looking everywhere and can't find the code to do this. Please help if you can- it'll be an early birthday present for me!

It's pretty simple really.

Google is your friend ;)

There's a few ways to do it. But (if you have it and know it) Flash is the easiest way to go.

No, it isn't. Please don't give out bad advice.

Javascript or DHTML Is the easiest way to go. This tutorial may be of interest to you: http://www.spoono.com/javascript/tut...rial.php?id=17

maybe it's just me. I tried the other ways before and I personally found flash to be the easiest way for me. But I guess it really just depends on what your preferences are.

Flash is way over-rated, and horribly inaccessible - at least with JS there
is a graceful fallback for those without it...

Plus it's nonfree and not a standard.

Flash is much more cleaner cut, but it's only more usefull if you know flash as well as JS. For all intensive purposes, a JS menu is easier to built.

But a flash menu is usually much nicer :)

This is not true. Flash Player is free. And it is installed on virtually every computer.

Example: In December 2002 the free Flash Player had been installed on 98 percent of personal computers worldwide, or close to half a billion machines, and around three quarters were running Flash Player 6, according to a survey conducted for Macromedia by research company NPD Online.