Buttons - making a drop down menu

Hello,
I only know very basic flash. Right now, I am attempting to revamp a website. The buttons that are currently being used are only gifs that are hyperlinked and there are almost 12 buttons... I think that this is a ridiculous amount of buttons to have. It looks very cluttered.
So, I figured I should make 6 buttons and just fit the rest of the buttons into subcategorized buttons. And the way to do this is to create flash buttons with drop down menus. To see what I mean, go to this link and look at their buttons:
http://ca.msn.com/
Their buttons drop down into menus with sub-categories. I want to do this.
So far, I have gone into flash, created buttons and made graphics for the "Up" "Over" "Down" and "Hit". I have also added the menu buttons and graphics for the "Over" of each drop-down button-menu.
I have even provided the action script to link each button to where I need it to go.
HOWEVER, here is where the problem is. When I roll the mouse over the button, and then move the mouse down to click on one of the buttons in the drop down menu, the menu disappears, OF COURSE, because the mouse goes off the hit. I can't make the hit bigger, because the menu shouldn't open unless it's on the main button. But without the hit being bigger, the menu will always disappear.
IN ADDITION, I've never used flash buttons on a website before. I'm just using HTML. How do I link the button to the page? Do I save the file as a .swf flash file? And link to 6 different files? Or do I save the buttons in a line, and just use one link?
I'm on a bit of a deadline so any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance!
-Michelle

While I can't help you with your deadline, I can offer a little bit of input. To take a Flash approach you should find a Flash drop down menu tutorial thru Google and follow thru that to gain an understanding of how to construct one. The problem you are having with the rollover stems from needing to extend the rollover such that each element of the dropdown also carries that rollover command. Each button needs to be assigned code to process interacting with it and linking to some other web page. The swf file that you publish would need to be sized for holding the buttons and then must be placed on the web page.
The example you pointed to uses a CSS drop down menu, which you will likely find easier to create and manage if you have no familiarity with how to make Flash work in a web site. I suggest going to the Dreamweaver forum and looking there for information about that approach.

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//======================================================================
package com.ju.guiutils
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//```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
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//````````````````````````````````````````````````
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Attachments:
string stuff.vi ‏13 KB

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Message Edited by altenbach on 10-29-2006 08:35 AM
LabVIEW Champion . Do more with less code and in less time .
Attachments:
StringArray.png ‏4 KB

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Thanks for the reply Ned. The code I'm using on the buttons is the same method I'm using for the regular buttons (i.e. not with in a movie clip).
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