Extracting the sitemap for use in navigation

[MusicCentre]

Hey guys,

I was wondering whether anyone knew of a way to get the list from the sitemap into other pages. Basically what I want to do is get the pages to build with the sitemap as the navigation with it being formatted by javascript so I dont have to rebuild the list manually with every change and so the navigation doesn't need too much script work going on which has caused problems for me before.

*edit: just to be a little clearer I need just the sitemap list to layout in list form in any template page, I have the rest worked out from there! *

Regards,

Leonard

[jont]

Not sure if this is possible in v7 (v8 has a very handy layout to do this very thing).. there is the YahooScript which uses the section script which you may be able modify for your specific needs.

[NormanRouxel]

I don't think in V7 you can do anything other than use the JavaScript Act_section_tree_names.js and Act_section_tree_URLs.js structures.

If you really want an HTML list on every page then this is a compelling reason to upgrade to V8 where this sort of thing is easy to do.

[gabrielcrowe]

concept:

1 - create a blank primary template and insert only the markup required to display the nested ul/li tree that is the sitemap, for your sitemap.html

2 - use php, create a file called sitemap.php to load the sitemap.html, and use the php functions to trim the file using xml/regex style functions.

3 - include this php file in your pages using ssi by modifying your htaccess.

4 - profit

[acompton]

I agree with Gabe. I was thinking of doing this in php (not had time) for customers that have requested an alphabetic list of products (so they can look up their favourites). I was going to drive it off an xml file of products, links and prices that I already produce.

[NormanRouxel]

If you have the PHP skills, then this would work fine.

You could use existing sitemap.html file.

Edit Act_SiteMap.html to add some markers above and below NETQUOTEVAR:SITEMAP.

Your PHP would open sitemap.html, extract the text between the markers and echo it back out.

[gabrielcrowe]

thats a better idea norm.

<!-- sniphere -->
NETQUOTEVAR:SITEMAP
<!-- sniphere -->

would do it.

you'd have to walk the tree in xml for php and only go so deep. discard the rest and make a css show of it.

[NormanRouxel]

It could be as simple as

<span id="startsitemap">
NETQUOTEVAR:SITEMAP
</span id="endsitemap">

and the PHP could be as simple as (untested)

<?php
$entiresitemap = file_get_contents('sitemap.html');
$startpos = strpos($entiresitemap, '<span id="startsitemap">'); // start marker
$endpos = strpos($entiresitemap, '</span id="endsitemap">');
$entiresitemap = strstr($entiresitemap, $startpos, ($endpos - $startpos));
echo $entiresitemap . '</span>';
?>

[MusicCentre]

Sorry, been out of action since I posted originally so I apologise for not being able to thank you guys sooner for the help. Got a few ideas to play around with now which is great and its given me a few more ideas for the workings of the navigation too that I hadn't thought about before.

Once again, thanks for the great advice. You guys are legends!

Regards,

Leonard

[gabrielcrowe]

hear that norm.

we're legends.

w00t!