Meet the markup

To start, we should use the best method for defining a navigation menu — a list. For this example, we will work on a simple HTML unordered list. {Line wraps are marked ». –Ed.}

<ul>
  <li>Sunfishes
    <ul>
      <li><a href="">Blackbanded»
        sunfish</a></li>
      <li><a href="">Shadow bass</a></li>
      <li><a href="">Ozark bass</a></li>
      <li><a href="">White crappie</a></li>
		</ul>
	</li>

  <li>Grunts
    <ul>
      <li><a href="">Smallmouth grunt
        </a></li>
      <li><a href="">Burrito</a></li>
      <li><a href="">Pigfish</a></li>
    </ul>
  </li>

  <li>Remoras
    <ul>
      <li><a href="">Whalesucker</a></li>
      <li><a href="">Marlinsucker</a></li>
      <li><a href="">Ceylonese remora</a></li>
      <li><a href="">Spearfish remora</a></li>
      <li><a href="">Slender suckerfish</a></li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>

Quite straightforward really — nice and neat HTML that, as a result, is highly accessible. But now we want to transform this into a dynamic list — the first level of list items will make up a horizontal menu bar from which the second level lists will drop down.

(more…)