how do you make a sliding drop down menu?

Drop Down Menu Tutorial

Go here for a free tutorial on dropdown menus using css and javascript. They have everything.

 

A JavaScript library such as jQuery would make this almost trivial. Check out the slideDown() method (and of course there's a corresponding slideUp() method).

As for making an item follow the cursor, establish a mousemove event handler on the body and grab the mousemove coordinates. Move the position of the element accordingly (also pretty easy with something like jQuery).

 

I wouldn't advise doing that unless you're making some type of game or interaction for a purpose. Having stuff follow your cursor on a website is annoying and completely out of style. It was all the rage back in the Geocities days and when everyone was first doing Flash based websites. Nowadays... cheesy.

 

Yeah, having something follow your mouse is annoying.

But... maybe not if you are showing your visitors how much you love having them visit your web site!

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex13/kisstrail.htm

 

Also, make sure that your menu is backwards compatible with browsers who don't support JavaScript (or for people who leave it turned off by default!). A lot of screen readers, mobile phones and search engine bots don't have a "hover" state.

If you can't make the main menu non-JS compatible, at least make the links available somewhere else on the page (footer, for example).

This is the one I love:

http://www.lwis.net/free-css-drop-down-menu/

I modified it slightly to work with the jQuery plug-in "hover intent" (link below) so that if their mouse "slips" off for a half a second, they don't have start over.

http://cherne.net/brian/resources/jquery.hoverIntent.html

HTH