New Module: Structure - Uses entries to create a page hierarchy for static and listing pages

There’s so much traffic here I don’t follow it all, but wanted to mention that the extension for version 1.3.1 still says version 1.3.0 (although the module itself says the correct 1.3.1). Assuming that was an oversight, and not intentional (I’d think that it would list 1.3.1 even if no changes were made from 1.3.0)?

@Brian M. Yes, sorry Brian

Just to let users of Structure know I have written a small plugin to make it easy to automatically redirect to the first child of any parent Structure page. This is similar to Redirect301, except you don;t need a custom field - it just redirects to the first found child respecting the Structure page order.

First Child Redirect http://ellislab.com/forums/viewthread/129865/

Enjoy 😊

Nice work, Mark!

It would be very nice to be able to do “exclude” on the sitemap tag. Sometimes you just don’t want every single page to show up in a sitemap, and don’t want to have to do special statuses.

Didn’t see anything in the docs, but how do I get structure to utilize my raw domain as a top level page.

So I have: Home - About - Contact I want Home to be http://www.mydomain_name.com

Currently all I can do is create: http://www.mydomain_name.com/Home

I am removing index.php but have tried it both ways. In pages I am able to do this (if I remember right) by removing the text in the Page URL field. In Structure it gets rewritten to the url_title of the entry.

What do most people do, a redirect on the default index? I would rather not as it messes up SEO.

Thanks

Hi Travis

Great module.I think I am going to use it for my new project. I installed it but the cp theme doesn’t work as shown on screen shots form your site.

the screen shot shows the cp of structure with the default cp theme installed. All quite small etc).

Thanks heaps

@Interfacer: You probably dropped the Structure folder in the themes directory… in fact you need to place it in themes > cp_themes > default

I was wondering if the following is possible:

Currently I’m in need of a listing on an overview page of that particular page’s children. Not just a sub_nav, but an actual listing too. So… on the left I’d like to have the sub_nav (which I have) and in the content area a listing of the child entries.

Right now I made the page a listing, but those child entries won’t show up in the sub nav (as expected). If I where to add them as children of that page… is there a way to filter {exp:weblog:entries} for just those children you need on that page?

It would be nice to have an extended {exp:weblog:entries} tag where you could use a something like the start_from parameter used in the {exp:structure:nav_sub}.

If I’m not making sense, just tell me… I tend to do that every so often. :roll:

Greetz, Wouter

thanks, that fixed it.

@philfreo Next version

@Michael Hahn make your home page_uri “/”. You can also use a separate template for the homepage and use entry_id to call the exact entry you want.

@Wouter Vervloet You cna use start_from with nav_sub. Extended ways to grab Structure data and ordering are on the way for weblog entries.

@Wouter Vervloet You cna use start_from with nav_sub. Extended ways to grab Structure data and ordering are on the way for weblog entries.

Should I hold my breath for those extended features? Or is it still a long ways off?

@Wouter Vervloet timeframe to be determined VERY soon and I’ll let everyone know here.

First, I just want to say I’ve used Structure for a few projects and I really like it, so great work.

Second, in using it I have come up with a few frustrations that I want to note here so that maybe at some point in the future they could be addressed. If these things have already been noted, go ahead and ignore them here. I’ve read through a few pages of this thread, but not all 50+ yet.

So, without further ado, here are my suggestions:

1. Standardization of navigation tags

Right now there are three tags that will output a navigation list (ul). The nav_main, nav_sub, sitemap. I understand the logic in offering these three tags and appreciate the reasoning behind it. But to increase flexibility, I would suggest making these more versatile.

Specifically the problem I often encounter involves that I often will want an entire sitemap output that I use with some css/javascript to create drop-down navs. I can create one with the sitemap tag, but the sitemap tag doesn’t offer the exclude/include, depth limiting, etc. options that the nav_sub offers. This often leaves me having to hard code a lot of my nav so that I can get it do function properly. This is okay, but not ideal.

In terms of a suggestion, I think that all of the output tags should have parameters to do anything that any of them do: include_ul or not, exclude/include statuses, exclude/include entries, specify class or id for the main ul, specify a start_from parameter, show level classes, show overview link, limit depth, or show depth via classes.

If that’s too confusing or unnecessary, maybe creating a new all-inclusive tag would be a better alternative. It could, by default, show the entire site map, but then accepted any of the parameters.

To me, I think this would be super helpful and provide a wider range of implementation options.

2. Offer customization of navigation output

My other idea/suggestion is, in the true spirit of EE, give a tag pair that will loop through each of the navigation items requested, and allow template creators to specify the exact output.

The syntax would be much the same of the {exp:weblog:entries} tag, but there would be slightly different tags offered. There could be some tag pairs inside of the tag to specify different parts of the output. (like there are {pagination}{/pagination}, {no_results}{/no_results}, etc. tags inside of the {exp:weblog:entries} tag.)

Those are my thoughts. Again, I want to say I really like Structure. The admin side stuff is awesome and super helpful for those managing the content. Great work and I look forward to future releases, even if they are paid for. 😊