On Sun, 9 Jan 2000, Don Schwarz wrote:
> For sites like this in the past, I've rolled my own mod_perl module to
> look for certain requests and massage the HTML slightly to append a
> navigation bar to the edge that's dynamically generated on each request.
> However, this site will be hit a lot harder than those other sites were
> and I'd like something a little more elegant.
I've accomplished this exact task semi-elegantly with HTML::Template. I
have one template 'navbar.tmpl' that gets included into all the other
templates. Inside navbar.tmpl are a few loops, one for each type of
button I need to generate. Of course, a script does have to run on each
request to fill in the appropriate buttons.
I gather you're looking for something a bit higher level, eh? My
experience with HTML::Pager has taught me that higher level tools can be
much less generally usefull than they first appear. I use HTML::Pager on
almost every site I build, but it has been an utter failure in attracting
even a small userbase. I can imagine producing HTML::NavBar with many of
the features you mention, but I can also imagine it fairing just as poorly
beyond my own bench...
Is a navbar more generally useful than a paging list view? Perhaps, but
perhaps not.
-sam
