Navigation bars provide an easy and visually interesting way for visitors to your site to navigate between the site's main sections. A navigation bar often extends along the top or side of a Web page and includes text, images, or animations, displayed as buttons that link to other sections or pages in the site. The navigation bar provides the following:

	An easy reference for the contents of your Web site
	A way for visitors to navigate through multiple levels in your site structure
	A more convenient, customized alternative to a browser's Back and Forward buttons

Download the source files and code for the three examples:

Download the Windows version of the source files navigation_bars_sample.zip (128K)
Download the Macintosh version of the source files navigation_bars_sample.sea.hqx (352k)

To help you decide what kind of navigation system best suits your needs, begin by looking at the examples below.

Example 1: Text-only navigation bar made in Dreamweaver

Example 2: Graphical navigation bar made in Fireworks and implemented in Dreamweaver

Example 3: Animated navigation bar made in Flash

Choosing a method for creating a navigation bar

Creating a text-only navigation bar in Dreamweaver

Creating a graphical navigation bar in Fireworks

Creating an animated navigation bar in Flash

Mary Burger Mary Burger is a Senior Technical Writer at Macromedia. She specializes in Macromedia Flash documentation. navigation bar, button, rollover, JavaScript, visited link, graphical navigation bar, animated navigation bar, text-only navigation bar, Flash 4, Dreamweaver 3, Fireworks 3 7 February 2000 9222