Site Sections or new sites

[hj]

Am I right in assuming that you cannot start new 'sections' of a site, as such?.....and that everything, however you hack it about, is a branch or pseudo-branch off index.php?

For example...say my site has all its normal 10 pages, home, about, contact and all that stuff - but I now want a completely different section, with it's own distinct menu structure, called Mining History. This would probably be in a sub-folder of the site, and therefore with its own index file, at least in a normal static site structure. Can this be done with the same installation of CMSMS?

Or is the only true way to start a completely new section (or for instance a sub-domain) to duplicate an instance of CMSMS with a second MySQL database.....??

hj

[calguy1000]

You can create as many simple subsites as you want. 

http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/index.php/topic,1687.0.html

[hj]

Thanks, calguy! I had done a forum search but nothing really relevant showed up, must have used the wrong search words.

Still looks like everything actually stays top level (i.e. main site folder) but you can have the effect of having sub-folders, yes? But if you truly wanted sub folders (in reality, actually on your server) you'd have to duplicate instance of the script?

However, looks promising. I will now go and grapple with the templates and php bits...because it looks like I'll need to hack around in that to hide the main navigation menu from the sub-site.

cheers
hj

[hj]

By the way, what does the PHPLayers module do?...and why or when should you use it?

I see that you mention it there and assume that it is required, maybe to hide the main pages menu?...??

hj

[calguy1000]

PHPLayers was an old module that generated menus.  It's been replaced by the menu manager.

In your minisites page template, instead of using PHPlayers, you'd use something like {menu start_page=$page_alias} to accomplish the same thing.

[hj]

I must admit I have no idea what menu manager does. I've looked at it but it's as clear as mud to me.

It has tabs for database templates and file templates - don't know what the difference is? It also doesn't appear to 'generate' anything, there's just stuff there, presumably menu templates?

How does one actually generate menu templates?

hj

[calguy1000]

Well, the menu manager module generates modules from your page hierarchy. 
The menu manager templates tell it 'how' those menus should be created.

The simplest way to use menu manager is by just putting {menu} into your page template or page content.  This generate a menu using the standard menu manager template, and your entire page hierarchy.  It will exclude pages that are marked as 'not shown in menu' or 'inactive' pages.

You can define different menu manager templates (which are stored in the database) to create menus that look differently, use different styles and classes, or have some sort of advanced logic.

You can call the {menu} tag with numerous different attributes, including telling it which menumanager template to use.  You can also tell menu manager where in the page hierarchy to start, the number of levels to display, and a bunch of other stuff.

There's the quick description of the menu manager.

[hj]

OK, thanks for the explanation.

Why are some templates held in database, and why some in file form?

The default site template appears to use a simple_navigation.tpl which is not in the database....

hj

[calguy1000]

The file templates are ones that are shipped with the module, and can never be messed up (there is no interface for it).

Database templates are menu manager templates that you have either started from scratch, or copied from one of the standard file templates, and modified.

The idea is that you can't mess up the file templates, but you can have as many menu manager templates in the database as you want.

[hj]

Righty ho, understood

The only thing which seems odd, then, is the little arrow at the end of the file templates items...which seems to say 'import to database'...?? thought that might be better placed under the database templates tab..... Oh well

cheers
hj

[calguy1000]

Yeah, the interface on the menu manager module needs a bit of a 'tweak'.

[hj]

Hi,

I had some moderate success in following the mini-site creation instructions

Well, I seem to have a mini-site. I've made an menu-link item in the main pages to go to the mini site. And I've coded the mini-site template for the menu to show only items in the mini-site, i.e {menu template='simple_navigation.tpl' collapse='1' start_page='conformance-china'}  (the start page conformance-china is the first page of my mini site, a top level page which is hidden in the main pages menu)

Basically this works except for three things:

1. the menu only starts at the first child page of the mini-site top level page. i.e. if the top level page (the mini-site 'home page') is 10, the menu only shows links for 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 etc. and not for 10 itself - despite the menu tag being told to "start at page 10"!!

2. for some reason the menu prefixes the page name with the page number, i.e. it actually displays...10.1 Technical Page, 10.2 Marketing Page, 10.3 Finance Page.  Don't know where or why these numbers are showing.

3. I haven't a clue how to style the menu!!!! such is the amount of separation of styling in the default templates and stylesheets, I still don't know where to find my menu styling!!!  I guess it's going to be a very long weekend......

hj

[hj]

OK, I've worked out why it's not showing the main page of the mini-site in the mini-site menu...... it's because I've just created, as per the instructions, a top level page with 'display in menu' option unchecked! Stands to reason!

So I think what I need to do is create a 'link' (not a page) which might be listed 10.8 or something,  so that it's possible to link to the mini-site home page from the second tier menu.

Yes? I think I've got that right.......?

Still not sure why the numbers are prefixing the page/menu titles, though....

hj

[calguy1000]

Yes, you have it right, create a link from the topsite, to the top page of your minisite.

Next, regarding the numbers, attach the accessibility stylesheet to your template, and those silly numbers will go away.

[hj]

Insert Quote
Yes, you have it right, create a link from the topsite, to the top page of your minisite.

No, no....I've got that already.  What I mean is, when you arrive on the minisite home page, the minisite home page itself is not listed as a link; only the minisite child pages are listed as links. Even though the menu start_page has been set to be the minisite home page.

So I was assuming that if I created a 'link' in the child section to the minisite home page, and ordered it appropriately, then that would work?

hj