History of NexusPackage

Version 10

NexusPackage

A package for creating menus

Created by: Hash9, Last modification: 08 Aug 2006 (22:30 UTC) by Hash9
Nexus is a Package that works closely with the LibertyPackage and makes it is easy to create menus pointing to any content in bitweaver, or any external URL. Nexus works with other tools in bitweaver to help users navigate the site, including the wiki book feature, breadcrumbs, categories, backlinks, and other special modules

Find nexus at: http://yoursitename.com/nexus/menus.php

Nexus will create functional links to all internal and external content; all you have to do is enter the correct content id, structure id or path. External links are rendered with a special class (.external) which makes it easy to control their appearance with a particular CSS style.

Help revise this package Nexus is still under development. If after testing nexus you have some feedback on the usability or the features please don't hesitate to add them to the end of the page or leave a comment.


Three menu types

Nexus supports three types of menus, which can variously appear in the top bar or in modules in the left or right columns.
  • Suckerfish menus: These CSS driven dropdown menus change to keep up with the various themes in use within the site.
  • Formelement menus: This is a menu that resides in a dropdown box and upon selecting a given option, it takes you to that page.
  • TikiWiki menus: Allows you to create collapsible menus reminiscent of tikiwiki style. The main difference is, that you can create a menu as many levels deep as you desire.

Create a horizontal menu in the top bar.

A customized horizontal "menu bar" whose look and feel is controlled by the site's CSS can be created with or without dropdowns. Only the suckerfish style menu can be used horizontally.

Steps to create a custom horizontal menu.
1. Ensure that the theme you are using supports a horizontal menu in the top bar. If you don't see one already (a horizontal menu exists by default in all themes that support one), goto yoursite.com/themes/admin/admin_themes_manager.php and pick a different theme.
2. Pop inot nexus to create a new menu. Goto yoursite.com/nexus/index.php and fill out the name and description, choose suckerfish horizontal, and save.
3. Upon saving, You should be directed to yoursite.com/nexus/menu_items.php?menu_id=1 (or some small number) where you can start adding items to your menu. Use the filter if you like to sort the available content. If you select internal content, all the other required fields will be filled automatically and you can save right away. Saving reloads the page so you can add more content.
4. A list of the content added to the menu is generated at the bottom of the screen, and hopefully, the menu items are indeed appearing in the top horizontal menu, in addition to those already there. Add all the menu items you want (whether they will ultimately be collapsed under one of the other headings or not) because you can sort them after.
5. Sort the menu items at /nexus/menu_sort.php?menu_id=1&tab=organise (bug: there is no immediate link to this page from the last one, nor back again, and if you use your back button, you will probably add a page twice.)
6. The next time you go to /nexus/index.php unfortunately it seems to hit a bug:.
error message:
Smarty error: unable to read resource: "/home/yoursite/public_html/bitweaver/temp/nexus/modules/top_bar_inc.tpl" in /home/yoursite/public_html/bitweaver/util/smarty/libs/Smarty.class.php on line 1095



7. . . . and i'm not sure where you go from there. The menu that appeared before still exists in the database, but is gone from the screen, and there is no way to get it back. ttfn

nexus supports plugins for various different menus. this means that if you would like to use a different style of menu, you can add the approppriate plugin.

Flexible interface

nexus provides you with an easy to use interface to structurise your menus. they can be any number of levels deep, giving you unlimited freedom when it comes to menu creation and content accessibility.

Menu look is determined exclusively through CSS. this means that changing the look of the menu only requires some knowlegde of CSS.

Package ToDo's and feedback.

(this section is likely out of date)

Insert code into various packages

currenlty only the wiki has the required code to insert items into a menu while editing the page.

Icons

would be nice to allow the usage of icons.

Structures

would be good to allow the conversion of a structure to a nexus compatible menu (import is working appart from position assignment of items). might be good to read the structure straight from the db to ensure that the menu is updated automatically.
Note: this is now possible, but the structure menu isn't automatically updated yet. this might not be possible for ReleaseOne due to the way that structures work.

Use NexusPackage as default menu system

nexus caches everything and therefore doesn't require a singe db access after generation. This would allow us to create menus that can be altered by users instead of using the template based menus used at the moment.

Add a package specific parameter

enable the display of a given package only while a user is browsing a particular package. this would allow for large menus that only show relevant pacakge specific links when required.

Allow users to create their own menus

this will require some work and is currently not very high on my priority list.

CoolMenus

would be good to have a plugin that supports coolmenu menus

Greater plugin customisability

it should be possible to allow users to specify more criteria for a given plugin.

Better positioning

we need to implement the positioning of nexus based menus in the top bar as well as in the side columns.
Page History
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30 Jun 2008 (09:29 UTC)
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