Actinic - Time to look at the nav bar documentation?

[george]

Just how many threads are posted about this...


*shakes head*

[gabrielcrowe]

i wholeheartedly agree.

i spend many hours fiddling with the nav, to be quite honest actinic's navigation building technologies are sadly lacklustre.

actinic V9 needs to have a very customisable navigation. it took me AGES to build a navigation that behaves properly, and more dynamically. There are some critical things that are missing, when it comes to navigation building.

the first one i can think of is a section's contextual knowledge of the top level parent that it resides in. and a selector to show that the section in the tree resides in the path to the current section. The CMS ModX has a beautiful navigation system, known as the 'wayfinder' Actinic towers, look it up!

TopLevelParentName
TopLevelParentFilename
TopLevelParentID

then, we'd have much better structures at our disposal.

[TraceyHand]

ya know..I read that several times, Gabe, and still barely understood it

on the plus side..I did successfully add a button to the Jesters Navbar last night...even had a celebratory beer (or few) when it worked
LOL

agreed about the need for documentation though (not that I looked but I've seen enough posts about it lately)

[cdicken]

Hi chaps

The trouble is, there's loads of different styles of navigation button, and then loads of different methods that the button could be added to a page. It's difficult to know exactly what to document, as we will never please everyone.

In the v9 docs, I've added a basic guide to adding a hyperlink and then inserting a variable into that hyperlink. If you let me know the methods you have used for navigation buttons (CSS/Images/Text/links to brochure pages/links to section pages etc.) perhaps I can expand that into some sort of generic guide that will help most people.

[gabrielcrowe]

navigation isnt the buttons on your site.

for me, navigation is a tree structure, representing the structure of your shop, and the style of the buttons should be in simple lists, definition lists, or at the very least, nested divs.

for example, the one i suggested was wayfinder. this is a navigation construct from the modx team, a reeally good cms.

this wayfinder lets you:

~ render a nested ul/li list with styles showing:
- where the currently selected item is
- subsections in use expanded

~ start from any arbirary section id and render downwards from there.
~ recurse/render any amount of depth down the tree.
~ render any amount of parents up the tree as a starting point.
~ render elements that are/arent active instead of hiding them sith css.

no serious seo person would use the gif buttons that actinic gives you. they are utterly useless. and as for the current lists (thats the sitemap to us laypeople) its not as configurable as the wayfinder.

now, i can tell you that i'v written a duplicate of the wayfinder, in every detail, and it works in actinic, so i know its possible. Its VERY good for seo to create navigations in this manner. it uses actinics own database, and TBH, for technical reasons, it cant be used, becasue actinic 'database in use' bugs cause snapshots to fail after its deployed.

my menu model uses recusion to build a tree.

actinic NEEDS this type of menu system, the navigation in actinic has always been very very poor. the tools you give us are insifficient for some types of store.

for example:
- render a list of parent sections?

your thoughts chris?

[cdicken]

If you let me know the methods you have used for navigation buttons perhaps I can expand that into some sort of generic guide that will help most people.

Any thoughts?

[george]

Non technical reply.

Users need to be able to rearrange the links (buttons, text, whatever) in whatever order they wish.

Also need to be able to have default navbars (with all brochure pages added), or basic nav bar (shop, sitemap, cart, search etc) but with selected brochure pages added only (tick a box somewhere?).

The ease of altering the style of these would be nice as well, (colours, font, size, etc) either not `hidden` in a css file, or at least a `to alter the text link colour do this` type explanation.

Not helpful really, but maybe what should be looking at to be included as standard kit? Sounds simple put like that, but people do want a wysiwyg method if possible.

[gabrielcrowe]

Any thoughts?

*blinks*

[cdicken]

Thanks for the input. I'll add some tips to the documentation to help with different styles of navigation (navigation bars, section navigation etc.)

[3Bs]

I agree with no-technical

I'm very new to Actinic and am finding it hard going.
My biggest headache has been the navigation.
I still hate the fact that I have two sets of navigation links - one for the brochure pages and one for the online catalogue - no other package works this way, and it took a couple of weeks to get rid of all the nasty nav buttons and change them for text links - which should have been the easiest thing to do.
I'm using Actinic because my client requested it, but I'm not sure I'd ever recommend it to another client - it may be that I'm just not proficient in using it, but with so many other packages that are more intuiative out there, unless it suddenly all slips into place I will probably look elsewhere. Mind you, client said if this one is OK he'll want a few more!
Anyway I'm waffling.
Basically, I sometimes think that those who created this system are too close to it. Sometimes you need to stand back and take another look, and see it through non-technical eyes.
I'd like to thank such a great forum to be able to get the answers to the questions I've had. If it wasn't for you guys, I'd have turned down the job.

3Bs

'Nothing suceeds like a budgie with no teeth'

[RuralWeb]

I still hate the fact that I have two sets of navigation links - one for the brochure pages and one for the online catalogue

What version are you using as there is only one in V8

[RuralWeb]

I'd like to thank such a great forum to be able to get the answers to the questions I've had. If it wasn't for you guys, I'd have turned down the job

Bloody hell - this is a first - a designer thanking the forum. Where is Polly

[RuralWeb]

The navigation is a complete mess IMO - I cannot see why it needs to be so complicated

[gabrielcrowe]

rofls from now on, any designer that demands help and gives nothing back, will be known as 'pulling a polly'.

[3Bs]

What version are you using as there is only one in V8

I'm using V8, but if you look at the screenshot attached, the top nav bar is showing brochure links, the nav bar image from the online catalogue shows different links (I'd like the brochure links to appear in the catalogue nav bar)

Yes indeedy, a designer praising the forum! Credit where credit is due, mind you, I could do with the answers to the questions in my post...
'Displaying more than just items and value in shopping cart summary'
Just thought I'd mention that in case it got overlooked.

3Bs