Menu/Site Content Integration

[techiem2]

Ok. I sort of hit on this topic in the General forum and found that there isn't anything existing to do what I want, so it looks like I'll be learning to write a plugin.

Here's the basics:
You load the site and get s9y and all it's default stuff.
In the left SideBar (or right if you so choose) you get a nice multi-level site menu (like I'm using on my site now but it's not currently integrated into s9y as you can see).
http://techiem2.no-ip.com:444
When you click a link in the menu, it loads the requested page into the s9y content area (kinda like how the static-page plugin works).

Now, this is also where it's very different from the existing options (phpbox, static page).
None of this is built into the plugin.
I.E. the menu is /menu/menu.php and has it's own css file for layout and a small js file to make it work right for IE users.
This makes the menu easy to modify.
Just edit the php file to add/remove entries and whatnot.
Also, the pages are just pages on the site somewhere.

So basically, the plugin loads the menu into the sidebar, and then when a local link is clicked that link is loaded into the s9y content area.

I assume this can be done from what was indicated to me in the other thread.

I'm currently looking over the plugins that seem applicable and trying to understand them.


Any help would be appreciated greatly as I don't know much about the plugin API and all.

I have actually done a test page embedding the menu into the sidebar by using phpbox and a php include statement to call the menu.
This works sortof.
The problem with this is that when you click a link to another site page you exit the blog and then have no navigation system.
That's why the menu and blog content integration need to be hooked together.

TechieM2

[garvinhicking]

First off, may I point you to http://www.s9y.org/43.html - this one also contains a lot of documentation.

Additionally, http://www.s9y.org/44.html can help you with the Smarty templating issues. You surely should look at our Smarty features, as you could then write a Smarty resource Plugin for your menu, and just embed it into the template. Basically, you wouldn't even need to touch our Plugin API for your menu include. See the Smarty Documentation, look at out include/functions_smarty.inc.php file.

For looking into integration for Smarty, the additional plugins 'serendipity_event_smartymarkup' and 'serendipity_event_Contactform' may also help.

Regards,
Garvin