CMS400 MENUS: THE BASICS
Ektron CMS400 has some serious menu capabilities built in to the content management system. Whether you want vertical or horizontal drop downs, the most basic or the most advanced flex menus, complementary navigation elements, or something you haven’t even thought of yet, it's likely that WSOL can give you control of the menu system via CMS400 using what’s already there.
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
Do these look familiar to you? They were the standard Ektron CMS400.NET drop down menus available in several of the older versions. Yes, they are functional and easy to use, but style wise, they obviously are less than desirable. 
Why do people use them? Because they are "out-of-the-box", requiring little time to customize and implement. But there are problems with these menus when it comes to usability, browser compatibility, and the ability to control the appearance. These menus always gave us problems when it came to changing the colors and size, and always gave us cross-browser issues. For the negatives that came along with them, they were/are still incredibly popular, cost effective, easy to manage.
FLEX YOUR MUSCLES
When WSOL realized there had to be a better way, we dove into flex menus. Flex menus allow for greater control over appearance, allowing you to manage the display using CSS. This lets you create more usable menus as well as gives you control of the layout of the menus so you can make them vertical, horizontal, etc... 
In addition, flex menus allow users to continue to use CMS400’s menu capabilities for administration while providing so much more flexibility in terms of presentation. Dynamic horizontal navigation (as shown below) that goes several levels deep works (and looks) way better than a vertical drop down with four submenus filling the entire width of the screen. Whether it's using flex for horizontal drop downs or vertical ones, complementary navigation items (such as an I WANT TO GO HERE option), or other navigation requests, it opens up a whole new world of CMS400 controlled menu options.
THAT MENU IS Sweet
Menus are the visual representation of all the hard work that goes into your information architecture, content strategy, and other discovery efforts. Because menus are trending towards being more of a section preview than just a simple list of items, they need to be flexible enough to meet you requirements. CMS400 provides a great foundation for this.
Menus (like the one shown below) can be deployed via CMS400 without sacrificing the capabilities of the built-in menu controls. Extending the flex menus provides the freedom to re-evaluate the organization of the links and menu items (you are not restricted by the limitations of traditional drop down menus). But in order to extend the menus, you need to find a developer that is willing and able to customize them as this approach requires custom XSLT programming and some advanced CSS and javascript techniques. Obviously, we know a good one to talk to...
YES, CMS400 CAN!
If anyone tells you that a CMS400 menu can’t do what you want it to do, like many other things in life, it’s probably because they just haven’t done it yet! CMS400 doesn’t limit what you can do with your navigation; it enables you to do what you need to be able to.
Be sure to share your thoughts below and be on the lookup for the next mini-blog!