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#1 2009-01-19 13:34:39

ndrwtrvrs
Member
From: London
Registered: 2008-04-03
Posts: 25
Website

Giving a client control over navigation order

Hi everyone, I haven’t seen a message that directly tackles this issue, so apologies if I’m covering old ground here.

Here’s my issue. I’ve created a simple site for a client where the navigation works something like this…

  • Section 1
    • Sub-section 1
      • Article 1
      • Article 2
    • Sub-section 2
      • Article 1
      • Article 2
      • Article 3
      • Article 4
    • Sub-section 3
      • Article 1
      • Article 2
      • Article 3
  • Section 2
  • Section 3
  • Section 4 etc.

I’m currently using txp:cnk_sec_list (on TXP 4.06) to output this, show the current section/article etc. All working fine. So far, so good.

What I’d really like to do is to give the client the ability to specify the exact order of sections and – more importantly – articles, rather than relying on ascending/descending orders or date of posting/amending. To give you an example, one section lists biographies and I’d like the ability to say show the biographies in a specific order.

I think this might be do-able with an upgrade to 4.07+ and a bit of txp:section_list cleverness. Am I right or just hopelessly optimistic?

thanks
Andrew

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#2 2009-01-19 13:41:19

jelle
Member
Registered: 2006-06-07
Posts: 165

Re: Giving a client control over navigation order

Hi,

I’ve been planning to write a plugin that uses drag-and-drop to build navigation menu’s on the admin side that can be output on the frontside through tags. Haven’t written a single line of code yet though. Anyone got any ideas?

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#3 2009-01-19 13:41:49

Bloke
Developer
From: Leeds, UK
Registered: 2006-01-29
Posts: 11,453
Website GitHub

Re: Giving a client control over navigation order

ndrwtrvrs wrote:

I think this might be do-able with an upgrade to 4.07+ and a bit of txp:section_list cleverness. Am I right or just hopelessly optimistic?

4.0.7 (or 4.0.8 if you wait a day or two) is highly recommended. section_list is certainly a very capable bit of kit but I don’t know how good the sorting is. Guess it still depends on the discipline of the people writing the articles and/or your naming convention for your section names (not necessarily Titles).

Failing that, does stm_article_order give you any hope?

Last edited by Bloke (2009-01-19 13:42:43)


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#4 2009-01-19 13:52:58

ndrwtrvrs
Member
From: London
Registered: 2008-04-03
Posts: 25
Website

Re: Giving a client control over navigation order

Bloke wrote:

Failing that, does stm_article_order give you any hope?

Stef, thanks for the lightening fast response – I did have a close look at stm_article_order and it largely did what I was after apart from – I think, do correct me if I’m wrong – allowing sections within sections and fine control over the final output i.e. I could order the navigation, but not then output it just the sub-sections and articles for a specific section (rather than the whole thing at once).

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#5 2009-01-19 14:05:20

Bloke
Developer
From: Leeds, UK
Registered: 2006-01-29
Posts: 11,453
Website GitHub

Re: Giving a client control over navigation order

ndrwtrvrs wrote:

apart from… allowing sections within sections and fine control over the final output

I’ll take your word for it — I’ve never used the plugin, just heard that it’s quite useful at times :-)

Incidentally, since TXP doesn’t support sections within sections, how are you creating the list?


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Txp Builders – finely-crafted code, design and Txp

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#6 2009-01-19 16:41:30

ndrwtrvrs
Member
From: London
Registered: 2008-04-03
Posts: 25
Website

Re: Giving a client control over navigation order

Bloke wrote:

Incidentally, since TXP doesn’t support sections within sections, how are you creating the list?

I’m using cnk_section_tree for the sections within sections bit – which is working really nicely. However, if there is a way to do it without plugins that would be even better!

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#7 2009-01-19 17:29:44

Bloke
Developer
From: Leeds, UK
Registered: 2006-01-29
Posts: 11,453
Website GitHub

Re: Giving a client control over navigation order

ndrwtrvrs wrote:

I’m using cnk_section_tree for the sections within sections bit

Way cool, never checked it out. I think I’ll have to go and give that a whirl.


The smd plugin menagerie — for when you need one more gribble of power from Textpattern. Bleeding-edge code available on GitHub.

Txp Builders – finely-crafted code, design and Txp

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#8 2009-01-19 17:38:32

masa
Member
From: Asturias, Spain
Registered: 2005-11-25
Posts: 1,091

Re: Giving a client control over navigation order

ndrwtrvrs wrote:

However, if there is a way to do it without plugins that would be even better!

Subsections are a planned feature for 4.1, which will be released in the future. No dates have been announced so far.

Last edited by masa (2009-01-19 17:38:49)

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#9 2009-01-19 22:13:16

ndrwtrvrs
Member
From: London
Registered: 2008-04-03
Posts: 25
Website

Re: Giving a client control over navigation order

masa wrote:

Subsections are a planned feature for 4.1, which will be released in the future. No dates have been announced so far.

Thanks masa – that’s good to know for the future. Much appreciated!

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#10 2009-01-20 04:10:34

renobird
Member
From: Gainesville, Florida
Registered: 2005-03-02
Posts: 786
Website

Re: Giving a client control over navigation order

The ability to assign an arbitrary order to <txp:section_list /> would be wonderful – much like the functionality of stm_article_order (except for sections).

Any ideas?

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#11 2009-01-20 04:24:06

mrtunes
Member
From: Toronto, On
Registered: 2007-03-12
Posts: 575
Website

Re: Giving a client control over navigation order

Bloke wrote:

Failing that, does stm_article_order give you any hope?

does this plugin work for category lists too?

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#12 2009-01-22 09:19:46

ndrwtrvrs
Member
From: London
Registered: 2008-04-03
Posts: 25
Website

Re: Giving a client control over navigation order

Thanks for the responses everyone – lots of helpful stuff in there.

From what I’ve heard, it sounds like there isn’t currently (until TXP 4.1 at least) anything better than the cnk_section_tree I’m currently using, and relying on ‘forcing’ the order through date posted or similar.

I’d definitely recommend cnk_section_tree for people who are wrestling with this at the moment – fingers crossed we see controllable sections/sub-sections as an in-built feature in the near future.

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