History of NexusPackage
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!Current issues
Nexus is still in it's very early developement stages and thus has rather few features. if you give nexus a testrun and can think of features you would like to see (i'm sure there are several) please don't hesitate to add them to the end of the page or leave a comment.
!Features
!!Nexus and Liberty
Nexus works closely with libertyPackage and makes it is easy to create menus to any content found therein. of course it's possible to create links to anywhere else as well. in fact, nexus allows you to specify what type of link it is and will create functional links accordingly. all you have to do is enter the correct content id, structure id or path within bitweaver. external links are automatically recognised and a special class (.external) is automatically applied which makes it easy to highlight these with a particular style.
!!Plugins
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.
!!!Suckerfish menus
CSS dropdown menus are functional including the javascript stuff to get it working for MSIE.
!!!Formelement menus
This will generate a menu that resides in a dropdown box and upon selecting a given option, it takes you to that page.
!!!TikiWiki menus
This plugin allows you to create menus reminiscent of the well known tikiwiki menus. The main difference to it's ''big brother'' is, that you can create a menu as many levels deep as you desire.
!!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 design
Menu look is determined exclusively through CSS. this means that changing the look of the menu only requires some knowlegde of CSS.
!ToDo
!!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 [http://www.dhtmlcentral.com/coolmenus/examples/withoutframes/|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.
!Current issues
Nexus is still in it's very early developement stages and thus has rather few features. if you give nexus a testrun and can think of features you would like to see (i'm sure there are several) please don't hesitate to add them to the end of the page or leave a comment.
!Features
!!Nexus and Liberty
Nexus works closely with libertyPackage and makes it is easy to create menus to any content found therein. of course it's possible to create links to anywhere else as well. in fact, nexus allows you to specify what type of link it is and will create functional links accordingly. all you have to do is enter the correct content id, structure id or path within bitweaver. external links are automatically recognised and a special class (.external) is automatically applied which makes it easy to highlight these with a particular style.
!!Plugins
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.
!!!Suckerfish menus
CSS dropdown menus are functional including the javascript stuff to get it working for MSIE.
!!!Formelement menus
This will generate a menu that resides in a dropdown box and upon selecting a given option, it takes you to that page.
!!!TikiWiki menus
This plugin allows you to create menus reminiscent of the well known tikiwiki menus. The main difference to it's ''big brother'' is, that you can create a menu as many levels deep as you desire.
!!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 design
Menu look is determined exclusively through CSS. this means that changing the look of the menu only requires some knowlegde of CSS.
!ToDo
!!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 [http://www.dhtmlcentral.com/coolmenus/examples/withoutframes/|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.