Astralsound Menus and Site Structure
We hope that as well as being W3C compliant, the Astralsound website is reasonably accessible for anyone with appropriate software or device(s) to cater for their individual requirements. If you don't find it accessible yourself, please let us know, and in the light of any suggestions you make we'll do what we can to fix it.
What follows below is a description of how navigation functions operate on this site in most mainstream browsers.
Link formatting in the paragraphs below is for illustration: buttons emulate link-behaviour when hovering over or clicking on them, but they do not link to other pages.
Our site structure, menus and internal links have gone through a number of revisions since the Astralsound website was launched in 2001.
The main navigation tool is a single expandable (drop-down) menu at the top of every page, allowing direct access from any open page to any other page. This uses only HTML and CSS, and should function correctly in any browser that complies with W3C standards for HTML-5 and CSS-3. Older browsers may not render it correctly, and there are known issues in Internet Explorer 8 or earlier. If you have a browser that is affected we recommend that you update it as soon as possible, as security features in an older browser will be compromised as well as display.
In standard browsers using their default settings on most full-sized displays (1024 × 768 or greater), the at the top of each page provides links to the main website sections.
On smaller displays (tablets or other devices with a screen-width less than 768 pixels) navigation is provided a breadcrumb menu (see below).
are denoted by a down-arrow on the Navigation Bar. Each section menu expands on mouse-over to show the relevant sub-menu.
A on a sub-menu item indicates that the page has its own subsection(s).
Positioning your cursor over any Navigation Bar or Sub-Menu button highlights that button by darkening the background-colour of that item and - if it is in a sub-menu - its parent(s). Clicking on a selected button, whether or not a subsection menu is also open, takes you to the to the page selected. Button text corresponds closely - in many cases exactly - with a page's subject and/or title.
Menu display and function has been checked in the latest versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari. If you are using one of these and experience problems with the menu, please let us know. There are known issues in Internet Explorer 8 or earlier, and you may find problems in some older and/or non-standards-compliant browsers. If this affects you we, apologise, but in that case recommend (if only for your security) that you update your browser and/or operating system.
If you cannot get the main menu to display or function correctly, or if you are finding navigation of the site difficult for any other reason but have managed to find this page anyway, please let us know (and preferably also tell us which operating system and browser - with version/release numbers - you are/were using).
Immediately below the Navigation Bar is the Breadcrumb Menu, accessible on all devices and in all browsers. On full-width displays this shows:
Parent ► Current Page ► Child-1 - Child-2 - ... - Child-n
with links underlined.
On smaller displays, breadcrumb‑menu links are represented by Link-Buttons.
A search-box at the top of each page acts as a local search engine: when you press the button it returns all pages in the Astralsound website containing the words you have entered, in order of relevance. Searches can be refined on the Results page, allowing Boolean AND and OR functions, and exact phrase matching (the default function for multiple terms is AND). The search facility can also be accessed on the Search page, which you can access using the Site Search link in the breadcrumb menu at the top of this page.
Where a topic has subsections, main subsection pages are generally linked by Link-Buttons.
On many pages there are also links within the text to other pages (or to bookmarks on the same page). Links and pop-up tips (for example, definitions of technical terms) are indicated by underlined text and font colour. Links should also be apparent when you pass your cursor over them, although your operating system, browser, and system/browser settings will determine how they become apparent. By default, links to other internal pages open in the current browser window and tab, while links to documents, images, or pages on other sites open in a new tab or window.
We regularly check all internal and external links to make sure they work and lead to relevant pages. Although we cannot accept responsibility for the content of other sites, we don't want to link to any pages that are immoral, illegal, offensive, or even - using euphemism to avoid unwanted traffic - decorative rather than informative. If a link anywhere on this site takes you somewhere you didn't wish or intend to go (whether or not it is decorative), or doesn't function as it should, please let us know.
At the bottom of each page is a link to the top of that page, and beneath this are links to the head pages of each main section.