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

@rockthenroll, @philfreo, @New Tribes Mission, @Jorg:

I’ve seen the same problem crop up a few times (twice in several thousand entries). Other than manually editing the serialized string, has anyone else uncovered a solution?

FWIW: the two entries that have had that problem both have older revisions where the url_title and Structure Slug have been saved with different values. (IE a-entry vs. a-entry-about-y). This situation doesn’t seem to be the sole predictor though, as there are other entries with the same revision history, and no problem with orphaned URLs in the serialized string.

@illustrationdan and @Verdel Automatisering

I’m using your code to build a dynamic dropdown nav. Only if a parent has no childs it generates an empty <ul></ul> This gives w3c errors and Css problems.

Do you guys have any ideas how to fix this? Otherway it’s working perfect!

Code i’m using:

<?php 
global $IN, $DB, $PREFS;

$sql = "SELECT node.entry_id, expt.title FROM exp_structure AS node INNER JOIN exp_weblog_titles AS expt ON node.entry_id = expt.entry_id WHERE node.parent_id = 0 AND node.site_id = 1 AND (expt.status != 'closed' AND expt.status != 'Verborgen') GROUP BY node.entry_id ORDER BY node.lft";
$result = $DB->query($sql);

$segment_1 = $IN->fetch_uri_segment('1');
$site_pages = $PREFS->ini('site_pages');
?>

<?php if(count($result->result) > 0): ?>
<ul id="navmenu-h" class="mainmenu">
        <?php foreach ($result->result as $entry_data):?>
        <?php $euri = trim($site_pages['uris'][$entry_data['entry_id']], '/'); ?>
        <?php if($euri == $segment_1){$here = 'active';}else{$here = '';} ?>
    <li>
            <a href="http://{site_url}<?=$euri?>class=<?=$here?>"><?=$entry_data['title']?></a>
        <?php if(!$euri == ''): //if the page uri is nothing, do nothing (ex. homepage)?>
        {exp:structure:nav_sub start_from="<?=$euri?>" exclude_status="Niet zichtbaar in navigatie" show_depth="0" show_level_classes="yes" css_id="none" css_class="subnavigation" }
        <?php endif ?>
    </li>
<?php endforeach ?>
</ul>
<?php endif; ?>

Thanks!

@Janson we’re looking into this issue for a bug release within the next week or so. Thanks for the help!

Thanks to Travis and everyone else for keeping Structure free. It seems like every decent addon is coming with a price tag these days and I appreciate that I can extend EE without having to pay for this. If you guys ever need testing or design contributions, feel free to let me know.

Thanks to Travis and everyone else for keeping Structure free. It seems like every decent addon is coming with a price tag these days and I appreciate that I can extend EE without having to pay for this. If you guys ever need testing or design contributions, feel free to let me know.

For such an awesome module I would gladly pay a licence fee. It is central to our ExpressionEngine development so I consider it a must have addon.

Agreed that it would be worth paying for, but I want to encourage the free addons in our community. I feel like a decent EE install is quickly rising past $500 retail and while I totally think developers should profit from their work, the community will innovate slower if the best addons are behind pay walls. Open leads to innovation and Structure will benefit from being integrated into other addons because of its free status.

@zdenkov Yes, that is the intended behavior, because it lets the user know where they are in the hierarchy, so that “parent 3” is the here state. Simply showing no children removes the persistent convention and is pretty confusing for users in my opinion.

RE: @eyevariety’s post:

I’d like to address this out in the open, though I had intended to wait closer to the next release.

We’re currently working on the next major release of Structure and it will be moving to be a paid add-on. I simply can’t afford the time and effort to support it alone on top of the actual development time. This will ensure Structure grows, can be properly supported and contain often requested or important features as needed. I have not determined the exact price point, but it will be near other paid modules of it’s complexity. A release date will be announced when it’s closer.

I definitely see @eyevariety’s point about open and free helping things grow quickly, but it also doesn’t provide the service level and commitment required to make a good product for everyone all of the time. Several add-ons on top of EE’s price is still one hell of a cheap and powerful system.

There will be one more free release that will include a few major bug fixes that have been causing pains from the last release. I don’t want to wait any longer for having those fixed and know everyone could use it sooner rather than later.

If anyone has questions or feedback, I’d love to hear your thoughts, including what you think is a fair price and if that’s a barrier to you using Structure.

The best way to contact me would be to email travis [at] rockthenroll [dot] com

Thanks!

Hey Travis,

Is there a preferred method of getting Structure to play nice with 404 pages?

I just get all my weblog entries listed on one page if the URL is wrong.

@stinhambo You’ll probably need dynamic=”off” and use entry_id to display a particular entry.

Also using the require_entry=”yes” parameter in your {exp:weblog:entries} tag will to do the trick.

Dummy or Placeholder Pages

Hi Guys,

I apologise if this is a blindingly obvious question or has been answered previously. I’ve skimmed through this topic but couldn’t find an answer. I’ll do my best to explain my requirements.

Here is a representation of my front-end navigation and Structure view :

Navigation : Home :: About Us :: Our Approach :: News :: Contact Us

Structure Home About Us - People - Clients Our Approach - Business Savvy - Technology - Benefits News Contact Us

The problem The areas I’m concerned with are marked in bold and red above. The ‘Our Approach’ link in the main navigation needs to link through to the first child in the ‘Our Approach’ section (Business Savvy). Therefore the ‘Our Approach’ page within Structure is really just a dummy page. I’ve had to create it so that the site structure is logical for the client. The main navigation has been hard coded into the template, so I’ve been able to create a direct link to the first child ( /our-approach/business-savvy/ ). However, I’m concerned that I have a page of content that’s doing nothing (empty) and is visible if the user deletes /business-savvy from the url. I’ve tried changing the status of this page to closed but the template is still rendered with no content.

The Question Is there a logical way of handling/managing this type of dummy page? or am I trying to use Structure in an unconventional way? I’ve been thinking about adding a 301 redirect into my .htaccess file for /our-approach to ensure that the /our-approach/business-savvy/ is always delivered. However, I’m not convinced that this is the best way of tackling the problem.

Phew! That was tough for a Friday afternoon. I really hope this makes sense and that one of you wonderful people can help me 😊

Thanks, Gary

Gary,

This is an issue that we’ve come across a few times. We considered simply adding 301 redirects in the .htaccess file but we prefer to try to keep as much as possible manageable through the CMS (updating a .htaccess file is something that can easily be forgotten by another developer 2 months from now.)

Our solution was to add a “Redirect” field to our Structure weblog. At the top of our templates we check to see if there’s a value there, if there is, we embed a simple 301 redirect template and pass it the value of the Redirect field, forego the rest of the template.

The result is that for entries that have a redirect, clicking that top level link would almost immediately redirect you to the 1st page under it (or anywhere else you’d like it to go.)

Travis,

I’m willing to pay for Structure, but i would really like to encourage you guys to use a tiered pricing model (the way EE itself does). Something like, $25 for a noncommercial site, $80 for a commercial site, or whatever. That ensures that those of us who are using EE for personal blogs don’t get left out in the cold! A lot of us don’t have a lot of money to spend on that kind of thing for personal use only.