When used to saying 'manipulate', 'menupilate' is a bit of a mouthful, but Menupilator is the name the latest stack from Marathia's stacks. Jeroen has a thing for allowing you to manipulate your site's navigation and Menupilator is the fourth of his stacks that can alter menu functions.

Annoying fact: Your website's 'Home' button will usually reload your home page if clicked when you are already on the home page.The same will happen if you click on the link of any page that you are already on. Confusing, or what? Menupilator can deactivate the 'Home' link and any other link on your site to avoid confusion.
Does your client want you to add a new page to an already bursting navigation bar? You could shorten the page titles in the page settings to make room for another menu item, but this might damage SEO results. You could, however, shorten the page titles using Menupilator and leave the SEO results intact (I just altered a page title from "Wir über uns" to "About Us" with three mouse clicks).

If you need to highlight a specific menu item e.g. so that a visitor immediately sees how to contact you, Menupilator can quickly do the job. Menupilator can also trigger a lightbox instead of opening a new page. It could also trigger a dropdown that offers different language versions of your site.

Here's a list of everything the new stack can do. Menupilator comes in handy when you want to:

• put extra emphasis on one ore more menu items (by changing their style and/or color)
• disable a menu item (e.g. to turn it into a placeholder for submenu items)
• make a menu item do something that cannot be defined by RapidWeaver (trigger a lightbox, a shopping cart etc.)
• link a menu item to the corresponding page in another language
• make a menu item behave differently on one (or some) page(s) only
• remove a menu item on one (or some) page(s) only
• make a more colourful menu

Note: Menupilator combines the functionality of the NoLink, the NoCurrent and the Lang­Menu stacks from Marathia's stacks, but adds functionality not in included with any of of those stacks.

Damn, I recently purchased a stack specifically to alter a menu's function. If only Menupilator had been around then, it's much more flexible.

Just out of interest, I went through and counted the button stacks in my RW Stacks library. I have twelve different button stacks – not counting those that are linked to a specific framework, theme, or have a specific function in a form etc. The collection has grown gradually over the years as developers managed to convince me that "this new button stack is the one-and-only-never-buy-another".

On the Marathia EasyButtons Page, Jeroen simply states that EasyButton is a very versatile stack to create all sorts of links that look like buttons in a grid layout. Now 2019 has only just begun, but I'll be bookmarking the statement for my understatement of the year contest. 'Versatile'. EasyButtons delivers more than 100 configuration options. Yes, one-hundred! And it automatically configures itself to a grid, if you add more than one child stack.

EasyButtons is a 2D button without highlights and without shadows. It can easily be configured as a ghost button, but can just as easily be configured as a coloured button with fill, frame and font colours that change on hover. It's the hover effects that make EasyButtons different:

Basic, 2D, Background, With FA Icon, Border, Shadow & Glow, Speech Bubble and Curl – These are just the Transitions. Each transition then has a bag full of configurable effects.
No, I shan't be listing them here. Just let me say that if you need the buttons on your page to look and act differently to those of your neighbour, then EasyButtons makes it possible.

It's not just the hover effects, though, that make EasyButtons versatile. As mentioned above; if you add more than one child stack to the main stack, EasyButtons forms a grid of buttons which can be configured horizontally or vertically, so that you could also build a simple menu bar of your own (sans dropdowns, of course).

Stack settings
Space Between – Horizontal, Vertical
Direction – {Grid} Horizontal, Vertical
Align – Left, Right, Center, Justify
Width – Auto, Fixed, Fluid, Responsive
Full Width Below – px

If you're quick, there's a 25% available when you add EasyButtons to your cart using the discount code EB25OFF.

Over the past eighteen months, numerous navigation helpers have been released. Fixed, floating, slide-out, drop-down, pop-up; the variations have been so endless that yet another of these menus seems like pouring water onto a hot stone – it's just going to vaporise along with the rest…
Weavium recently released just such a menu stack, but this one takes the idea a whole step further – A multi-level floating menu that is either permanently visible, or appears just when you need it!

I have to admit that when I first looked at the Dive demo page, my initial thought was "another one? Why?" Upon taking a closer look, however, I have to admit that Dive is different.

A menu button with an icon of your choice in any, or all four corners of your page that is either static and permanently visible, or appears when it is scrolled to and can disappear again when a scroll marker has been reached.
Each Dive child stack can have multiple levels, so if for instance you have "Support" in the first level, it can open up to offer "FAQs; Forum; Contact" when clicked, then whisk you away to the appropriate page on the second or third click.
The only disappointing aspect about Dive (as with other recent Weavium Stacks) is that, while you can have your visitors zip to another page or to a page anchor on the same page, I was unable to persuade it to open a lightbox.
I've mentioned this to the Weavium team and, with any luck, this may be remedied in the near future.

Stack settings
General
Z-Index
Offset
Align Vert – Top, Bottom
Align Horiz – Left, Right
Display Menu – Always, On Scroll To
Hide Marker ID

Toggle
Size – Button, Icon
Toggle Radius
Custom Icon
Toggle Icon Font – Six options
Toggle Icon

Menu
Max Width – px
Radius
Item Padding – Vertical, Horizontal
Item Text – px
Item Arrow – px
Item Icon – px
Icon Spacing – px

Colours & Fonts

Each Dive Item Child stack has the option to add Sub Items and options to customise the colours. There are also settings for choosing Icons and Icon colours, but I was unable to find a way to activate Icons. Probably an oversize on my behalf.

Dive is one of those navigation helpers that is a little different to the rest. The options for multiple levels are unique as are the show and hide options that can be activated for multiple page sections. This is certainly a useful stack!

There are a couple of stacks available that will filter RapidWeaver content; some more, some less complicated. One Little Designer has just released what is probably the least complicated filter stack available today.

Filter grid does exactly what it says on the tin. A grid of content that is filterable. Drag Filter Grid into a Stacks page and your first row of content is almost finished. All that's missing is your content. Drag any combination of content into a Filter Grid Column, add comma separated tags and you're ready to fly!
The possibilities are endless: Portfolios, travel catalogues, product catalogues, if it needs to be filtered, Filter grid is the simplest solution!

Filter grid is child's play to set up, does not require PHP and is very effective. See it on a site near you soon!

Several ThemeFlood themes have a rather special navigation bar which several users have requested be ported-over to Stacks for use in other themes such as Foundry and Foundation. Will Woodgate has complied with this request and released Gator.

Themes all have their own navigation menus built-in, but blank themes typically do not include a flexible menu. There are a number alternative navigation stacks available, but they all have their pros and cons.

A website's navigation system is possibly the most important aspect of any site design. If end users are faced with a navigation menu that's difficult to use, they will often navigate away to another website. A menu should look and feel as if it were an integral part of a completed web design; rather than giving an impression of something that was added as an afterthought!

Gator is derived from the same menu code that ThemeFlood themes have been using in for over 10 years, so you can be sure that it is tried and tested. This stack is expertly developed and includes a number of features never seen in other navigation stacks before. Particular emphasis has been placed on ease of setup, durability, user accessibility, responsive behaviour and flexible styling.


Gator can take the navigation links most RapidWeaver themes generate. Alternatively you can use our HTML markup as a template for custom-building your own menu structure. Menu types like tabs, nav bars, vertical blocks and even a simple multi-column mega menu are all achievable using Gator.

Common navigation problems Gator can provide a solution for include:

• Support for multiple levels of subpages.
• Configure the mobile / desktop breakpoint to avoid display issues.
• Essential accessibility features for website users with disabilities.
• Ability to hide the menu in print and PDF output.
• Subtle mouseover animation effects for a more professional feel.
• Quickly add additional content before or after the parent links.
• Toggle between a horizontal or vertical navigation menu on desktop.
• Restyle the menu to match existing theme styling or branding.
• No irritation of having to click parent pages to reveal subpages.
• Change link alignment within a few clicks.
• Safe incorporation of optional Font Awesome icons, next to link text.
• The hamburger mobile menu button is clearly marked 'Menu'.
• Modern markup and intelligent layout with CSS Flexbox.
• Easily handles long subpage links that span multiple lines.

Settings for Gator are split into 6 groups, ordered conveniently for experts working from a mobile-first principle:
1. General settings
2. Accessibility settings
3. Mobile menu settings
4. Desktop nav bar settings
5. Drop-down menu settings
6. Additional content

If you've tried other stacks but are looking for something different then take a look at Gator. This is a navigator stack that won't disappoint. A fully functioning free demo version is available for download. This free demo will help you experiment with all that Gator can do.

Beyond the standard set of style options provided in Gator, much can be accomplished by placing Gator inside other stacks such as 'sticky' bars and help is available for simple CSS modifications you want to make.

Gator is also available as a free variant for use in premium ThemeFlood themes, such as RWSkinz.