Dave, > I am about to begin the early stages of a new site management > system which > will supersede our current CMS. One of the major problems we > have found is > that the product is very hard to port to different sites > because of the > menu systems that each site uses is slightly different and > our old system > generates menus, submenus and pages dynamically based upon > the content > which requires me to re-write the navigation code base for > each project. > > How do most CMSs handle the menu/navigation of dynamically > generated content?
Having had a quick look at a few of your sites, I'd say that they are pretty much what most of us would do. In what way are they unmanageable? As far as I can see, they are very manageable, assuming that you store each page (and therefore menu) in a database properly, I don't see any problem. The difficult part of all of that is getting the database right (as with most things really). The only thing I would say is if you can store your "main" navigation in a common format (for example XML) than you would be able to create an settings file or something like that for each site, meaning that you wouldn't have to mess around with the navigation code... Each site will need some customisation and settings files are very helpful with that. > Any suggestions or helpful pointers would be most appreciated. > > If you want to see an example of a site running our system > then take a look > at www.abingdon.org.uk. > The main categories at the top are the only fixed navigation. > All the > other menus are generated based on the content in the db. > > Is there a better way to do this? Yes there is (see above), BUT is it really worth doing? Unless you are going to package the product up is it worth investing the time and energy into something much more complex? I dunno if I'm answering the question properly, but that's just my two pence. Paul -- ** Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/dev%40lists.cfdeveloper.co.uk/ To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For human help, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
