Thread

OK - I’ve got my site set up in a way that works no problem, but I appear to be using categories in a non-standard way and the search doesn’t work properly. I’m having a bit of brain fade so can’t think of the best way to do this.

If you look at the site here: http://test2.moviestorm.co.uk/ you can see the top-level navigation looks like this:

Take the Tour | Features | Screenshots | System Requirements | Download Moviestorm

and the sub-nav for the tour (for example) looks like this:

Build Your Set | Choose Your Characters | Direct the Action | Film Your Movie | Share Your Creation

Normally this would be pretty simple to do with one template and my search issues wouldn’t exist, however, I want the url structure specifically to look like this (which is what my current solution is achieving - or will do when we move over to the proper servers!):

http://test2.moviestorm.co.uk/tour/2_choose_your_characters/

or

http://test2.moviestorm.co.uk/features/direct_the_action/

and so on. What’s the best way to achieve this? I imagine I could do it with mod_rewrite rules, but maybe there’s a better solution I’m missing? If I do this with multiple weblogs, I’m adding, presumably, another segment of url in there, right - for the template?

use the pages module to choose the urls you want for each entry… then you can just have a single weblog/template for your content.

But wouldn’t I need to hard-code all the navigation?

possibly, but maybe not.  there’s a {page_url} variable that lets you access the custom url you gave the entry.  so depending on your desired nav structure you could just loop through the entries and print out the page_urls to do your links

Hmm, I’ll give it a go.

Presumably pages are searchable, yes?

One thing you can do besides the Pages module (which requires some extra work, and, perhaps more hand coding) is to create another Weblog. I do that now instead of using Pages. Mine is called “Information” and it holds all the content usually reserved for static pages.

Yes - I did that in the end. In fact, I created 4 additional weblogs.

It was slightly counter-intuitive to do it that way, since in my head, there was one “section” that contained all the basic information, another that contained all the support pages and so on, but since I wanted the url structure to work the way I did, that basic section really did need 4 distinct templates. Each section has multiple posts in it in any event, so I simply did away with categories altogether.

Worked out fine in the end - just needed to change what was in my head. 😊

... just needed to change what was in my head.

That’s one of the major problems with EE. There are many ways to nearly anything, especially when it comes to organizing a site’s structure.

When I first started with EE I’d go hog wild and create many template groups, multiple embedded templates layers in each page, and venture into a lot of other time consuming madness. As I moved from coding layouts and content in HTML to heavy CSS it required a modification to the whole organization and workflow process. Today there’s hardly any XHTML, mostly CSS, and I’ll bounce between a couple of weblogs and a few categories, to using weblogs as categories, depending on the site’s needs. The freedom EE provides is great but takes some accommodating, especially if you’re expecting a built-in, pre-defined structure.

I’ve been using EE since the beginning, and pmachine before that, but never on anything as complex as I’m working on now. I wireframed the site using Protoshare which has it’s own ideas of of templates, so I think that sort of messed with my mindset a bit. I completely disregarded the fact that weblogs were a backend construction and weren’t reflected in the url!

The whole MSM complicates things as well, and in retrospect, I sort of wish I hadn’t gone that way, since I might have been better off doing it the “old” way. I don’t even use the membership feature since we have our own existing user database. So we already had to do SSO with our media-sharing site (Cliphouse) and forums (IP Board). All of which have their own ideas of templating (smarty and whatever it is that Invision uses). And then, of course, there was the mod_rewriting, which when working on temporary servers with their own virtual directory structures has completely messed with my head.

It’s no real surprise my brain has faded!

I think I’m there now, though. Hopefully. 😊

Hi,

having a near-identical problem. I’m making a 60+ page corporate site and am just wondering what exactly is the best way to enter my content to make it searchable. Is the best way to create multiple weblogs? - or like you mentioned grumps a single weblog called “information” - but how do you pull out each entry specific to each page?

Any help would be great,

thanks

It’s no real surprise my brain has faded!

I get that every afternoon about 2:00. It’s a good thing there’s chocolate milk and nap time.

It’s also possible to set up multiple domain names/sites on a single EE installation without MSM if you don’t need all the back end membership features and other functions.

Sorry. Posts were crossing through the ether night.

...or like you mentioned grumps a single weblog called “information” - but how do you pull out each entry specific to each page?

It’ll depend on how you set it up, of course, but the easiest way for me was to segregate the so-called “static” pages into a separate weblog (a separate Category also works), then create the “static” entries for that weblog. You’ll still need to use {embeds} for things like header, main content, footer, etc., but you can now use the same elements as you would for the rest of the web site (aids continuity).

This Site has a rather straightforward approach. Notice the left column navigation. The Information category can be set up as a separate Category or Weblog. In the Information category/weblog are entries such as About, FAQs, Terms, Copyright Info, Author Bios, or anything else that is normally a static page. Below the Information link are the individual links to each entry.

Lots of flexibility with weblogs, template groups, templates, categories.

Thanks grumps,

i was leaning towards the approach of having seperate weblog’s but for 60+ static pages, thought it was just too many. Was hoping to somehow categorise them but still trying to understand the weblog / category relationship. I think i’m just going to have to try different methods and see which one fits the site best overall.

i was leaning towards the approach of having seperate weblog’s but for 60+ static pages, thought it was just too many… I think i’m just going to have to try different methods and see which one fits the site best overall.

The pragmatic approach is seldom overrated. 60 static pages is too many for Pages, probably too many for multiple weblogs, but not for a single weblog, or even a single category (easily isolated from other categories using EE’s tags).

Hi grumps,

just for a quick example say i have the structure:

Homepage

- About Us Page
  - Company Overview
  - History
  - Clients

- Services Page
  - Health
  - Transport
  - Telecoms

Contact Page
Careers Page

How could i organise this using categories and populate each seperate page with weblogs?

I don’t see the need for categories if i can just use a seperate weblog for each page?..