Transmenu drop down delay with setTimeout

Hi there,

I couldn't find an answer to this anywhere so I eventually found this forum and for some reason I don't have an account here yet. Well it looks as though it is a really good place to come. So if anyone can help me that would be fantastic!

Here is my situation. I am using a menu component for Joomla 1.5 called swmenu. It is the free version. I am using the transmenu drop down option it has which is probably a somewhat modified script I assume and it is this script which I have to edit to make the menu delay before dropping down.

Here is a chunk of the code:

	function timedOver()
	{
		var t=setTimeout(actuator_mouseover,1000)
	}

        function initEvents() {
                // hook item mouseover
                for (var i = 0, item = null; item = elmCache.item[i]; i++) {
                        item.onmouseover = item_mouseover;
                        item.onmouseout = item_mouseout;
                        item.onclick = item_click;
                }

                // hook actuation
                if (typeof oActuator.tagName != "undefined") {
                        oActuator.onmouseover = timedOver;
                        oActuator.onmouseout = actuator_mouseout;
                }

                // hook menu mouseover
                elmCache["content"].onmouseover = content_mouseover;
                elmCache["content"].onmouseout = content_mouseout;
        }

        function highlight(oRow) {
                oRow.className = "item hover";
                if (childMenus[oRow._index])
                    if (TransMenu.sub_indicator &&   oRow.lastChild.firstChild.src){
                        oRow.lastChild.firstChild.src = TransMenu.dingbatOn;
                    }
        }

        function dehighlight(oRow) {
                oRow.className = "item";
                if (childMenus[oRow._index])
                if (TransMenu.sub_indicator &&   oRow.lastChild.firstChild.src){
					oRow.lastChild.firstChild.src = TransMenu.dingbatOff;
        }          }

        function item_mouseover() {
                if (!animating) {
                        highlight(this);

                        if (childMenus[this._index]) 
                                childMenuSet.showMenu(childMenus[this._index]);
                        else if (childMenuSet) childMenuSet.hide();
                }
        }

        function item_mouseout() {
                if (!animating) {
                        if (childMenus[this._index]){
                             //   childMenuSet.hideMenu(childMenus[this._index]);
						} else{    // otherwise child_deactivate will do this
                                dehighlight(this);
						}
                }
        }

Code (markup):

Before I added the timer function it would highlight the menu item and drop down the menu instantly which is no good if you are just mousing over the menu for a second to go to the top of the browser for example or to the bottom etc.

Currently with the timer function it is not highlighting the menu and it will delay the drop down for a time and then no matter if the mouse is over it or not it will still drop the menu down. And if you mouse over all the menus quickly it will have a delay and then drop them all down and then some will go back up except the last one you moused over.

Ideally it would highlight the menu item being moused over for a second before dropping the menu down. But if the mouse goes out before the timer comes up the highlight goes off and the menu never drops down. But if the mouse stays over it drops down the menu and the highlight stays on until the mouse goes out and then the menu goes away and the highlight goes off.

I guess that is about it!

Thank you for any advice, fix, help, etc.

Ryan