DotAdmin User Guide

The Nav System

A “Nav” (shortened form of “Navigation”) in the dotAdmin system is a collection of links to pages in the CMS. Each Nav is created with a set of rules to govern which pages should be linked to and in what order they should be displayed, and is provided with a template to control the appearance of the links. The system itself then manages the navigational elements of the website automatically as new pages are added to the site.

Note: Nav templates are not covered in this section. Please see the Nav Templates section for more information.

Navs are stored within the Navs zone of the dotAdmin system. This zone provides controls for creating new Navs, and editing and deleting existing ones.

Nav Settings

The Nav Editor Interface

The image above shows a typical view of the Nav Editor. Note that some of the settings shown are only relevant for particular types of Nav and are not always displayed. The list below provides descriptions of all the Nav settings. Information specific to each Nav Type can be found on the Nav Types page in this section.

Nav ID

The Nav ID is used as an unique identifier in the template system. For example: {nav main_menu} would ask the template system to include the Nav with the ID “main_menu”.

Title

A name displayed in the CMS Nav listing in the Navs zone.

Template

Each Nav must have a Nav Template associated with it. The template controls the visual appearance of the Nav in a web page.

Type

The Nav Type setting determines what kind of content will be linked to by the Nav. This setting has the greatest effect on how your Navs actually work. Each option is discussed in more detail on the Nav Types page in this section..

Base Zone

This setting is used only by Zone-based Navs. The Base Zone setting tells the system where to find content to link to in this Nav, for example: If the Base Zone is set to “Home”, the Nav will create links to the pages and/or zones within the Home zone.

Note: If you choose the first setting in the list; “All (User's Current Zone)”, the Nav will display links for whatever zone the visitor is currently viewing. This is useful for creating a generic “index listing” type of Nav, which can be included in multiple zones.

Zone Mode

Only by Zone-based Navs, the Zone Mode and Content Mode settings determine how your Navs react to the visitor's current location.

The Zone Mode setting consists of two options. If “Show All” is selected, the Nav will display a complete listing of all the zones within its Base Zone all the time, regardless of the visitor's current location. If “Folding” is selected, the Nav will only display links to those zones if the visitor is currently within the Nav's Base Zone.

The “Template System” page links are displayed because the visitor is currently viewing that zone.

Content Mode

This setting works in exactly the same way as the Zone Mode setting, but affects the behaviour of links to pages/products, rather than links to zones. There is an added third option for the Content Mode setting, “None”, which instructs the Nav to never display links to pages or products. With this option selected, the Nav will only ever show links to zones.

Sort Order

This setting determines the order of the appearance of links in the Nav. The options are mostly self-explanatory, with the exception of the “Link Weighting” option. Link Weighting allows more control over the arrangement of links in a Nav, for situations where none of the other sorting options are suitable.

With Link Weighting selected, the Nav looks at the Link Weighting setting of each page it is linking to, and sorts them from the highest value to the lowest. The Link Weighting value for each page in the CMS is editable by site authors, allowing complete control over the ordering of links if required.

To find out how to edit Link Weighting values, see the Nav Settings section in the Page Editor documentation.

Max. Number of Links

A numeric value entered into this field tells the system to limit the number of links it creates in this Nav. Any links above the limit which will not be generated are determined by the Sort Order setting.

Note: The default value of 0 represents an infinite number of potential links, rather than no links at all.

Paging

If a Nav is told to limit the number of links it produces, it can also be set to show any extra links on subsequent pages by enabling the Paging setting. This produces a Nav similar in appearance to a typical search results page, with <x> number of links to content on each page, and also offering a collection of links to subsequent pages of <x> number of links.

Paging-style Navs require extra template elements to display the extra links they require. These are explained in the Paging Nav Templates section.