** Overview
Essentially these are variables in the application scope that provide a programmatic link to a specific objectID. This is useful because you don't want to hardcode links into the presentation layer or custom code if you can help it. This mechanism is designed to allow you to use a variable that can be modified easily and doesn't require a coding change should the navigation object you want to point to change.
** Example of use When you install a farcry_app several default "nav aliases" are created.
For example, the home page node has the alias "home". This results in the creation of an application variable, "application.navid.home". As each application invariably generates a unique UUID for its home page it's useful for farcr_core code to be able to reliably point to a variable instead.
For example, the _search.cfm include Object's parent nav node has an alias of search. This means we can refer to application.navid.search in our presentation layer to link to the search page. If we need to change the object location for whatever reason we just reassign the nav alias to the appropriate nav node.
** How to create nav aliases
Edit the navigation object in question, select advanced options and fill in the "nav alias" property. This will ultimately be the key in a structure so make sure that it is suitably named, ie. starts with alpha and contains no spaces or special characters. If you want to give the same nav node multiple aliases, simple put in a comma separated list of names.
** Quick links
For convenience sake we have a "Quick Links" list at the top of the site overview tree. If you select a link it automatically zooms in on the relevant nav node, making larger trees more manageable. Currently, the list of links is simply determined by looping through the "application.navid" collection and picking up all the defined nav nodes. So if you want to add a link just add another alias.
The "root" alias should only be visible to the "Site Administrators" role.
** Miscellaneous
The unique icons in the site overview tree are determined by specific nav aliases. Also some specific functions rely on the presence of certain aliases -- for instance "Sending to Trash".
The default nav aliases on installation include: root, home, imageroot, fileroot, rubbish, search and hidden. At this time only root, home and rubbish are essential -- do not change these.
Does that help clarify things? Send through any queries to the list, and I'll wrap this up into a technote and publish on the site.
-- geoff http://www.daemon.com.au/
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