[commons-build] Thoughts on Navigation (client side includes).

[Mark R. Diggory]

I've been looking a the usage of javascript in the browser as a 
mechanism of "Client Side Includes". I've been considering the idea that 
this can be used a a powerful mechanism to pull global navigation 
content into the site navigation without having to regenerate all the 
separate project pages everytime something changes on the global 
navigation for the Commons.

For instance

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" 
src="navigation.js"></SCRIPT>

could be added to the commons-site.jsl such that it would be used to 
include the contents of "navigation.js" into the navigation bar on the 
client side.

navigation.js would look something like:

document.write('    <div>'
  + '      <small>'
  + '      <a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/beanutils/";><img 
class="handle" src="./images/none.png" alt=""></img>BeanUtils</a>'
  + '      </small>'
  + '    </div>'
  + '    <div>'
  + '      <small>'
  + '      <a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/betwixt/";><img 
class="handle" src="./images/none.png" alt=""></img>Betwixt</a>'
  + '      </small>'
  + '    </div>'
   ...

  + '    <div>'
  + '      <small>'
  + '      	<a 
href="http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/sandbox/vfs/";><img 
class="handle" src="./images/none.png" alt=""></img>VFS</a>'
  + '      </small>'
  + '    </div>'
  + '    <div>'
  + '      <small>'
  + '           <a 
href="http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/sandbox/workflow/";><img 
class="handle" src="./images/none.png" alt=""></img>Workflow</a>'
  + '      </small>'
  + '    </div>');

This way, any time a change was made to navigation.js, it would show up 
instantly on all the commons projects navigation. as teh navigation.js 
is pull independently and rendered in the browser.

thoughts?
-Mark
--
Mark Diggory
Software Developer
Harvard MIT Data Center
http://www.hmdc.harvard.edu
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