Moving from a hierachical mindset

reywob - June 10, 2009 - 12:16

I'm trying Drupal after 6 years of using other CMS solutions and 2 intense years of working with MODx, as none of my previous systems were suitable for the current project. I'm server admin for 3 large Drupal sites so I'm not entirely green... but Drupal is really confusing me!

Here is a sitemap for the site I'm building

At first I thought Drupal would be a perfect fit. While the site's mostly simple and a small brochureware site, it has a large resources directory, an internal staff area, and staff can manage their own ministry and personal pages on the site.

However, I'm really struggling with the lack of a tree structure. Drupal seems so 'flat', so structureless. My usual approach is to create a site map, assign URL structures to each section, and then replicate the site map in the CMS. After that I'd hang functionality where it's needed.

The problem with the tools I usually use is they're so page-focused that resource directories, member areas and page editing are outside their comfort zone (because they don't fit the tree/hierarchy model), hence the need for Drupal or a similar tool.

Questions

How would you build this in Drupal?
How do you find clients handle not having the easy-to-use tree structure when it comes to adding new pages?

Many thanks!

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Not a problem

yelvington - June 10, 2009 - 12:19

Get to know the taxonomy system, the menu system, and http://drupal.org/project/taxonomy_menu

Hi yelvington, Thanks for the

reywob - June 11, 2009 - 09:45

Hi yelvington,

Thanks for the recommendation - I had already played with taxonomy_menu, and the issue I encountered was:

When a user wants to add a new page (i.e. a new term that doesn't exist in the taxonomy), this doesn't seem possible. Neither do the URLs reflect the position in the hierarchy.

I hope I've missed something, if so it'd be great to know what!

pathauto

martin@drupal.org.uk - June 10, 2009 - 12:48

You could get the pathauto module to assign url's based on the hierachy created with the taxonomy module. So a nodes would have paths like example.com/resources/articles/subcat1/nodetitle.

Thanks Martin, I have this

reywob - June 15, 2009 - 09:20

Thanks Martin, I have this module in place, but it still doesn't help with an editor deciding where to add a new page in the site. Because as I understand it a new page would need to be a new term in the taxonomy to then allow sub-pages of the new page to be created, and the URLs to reflect this structure.

Try Outline Designer

xMarc - June 19, 2009 - 17:01

reywob, I've been looking for an intuitive, visual interface that even an editor can use and have found it in the Outline Designer module. There's a good mp4 presentation, and a demo available.

How to build it?You could

Bobby1290 - June 10, 2009 - 14:22

How to build it?

You could use taxonomy, or use a book structure that resembles a tree structure the closest (http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/book). And of course you could use a combination of both.

Clients HAVE an easy-to-use tree structure to add pages (book), but it is even easier to add pages to taxonomies or statically to the menu (i.e. "about" page).

You just need to get acquainted with drupal.
See also http://drupal.org/handbook/site-recipes, and for that matter the handbook as a whole.

Good Luck.

BobbyMods

Menu block?

linclark - June 16, 2009 - 19:30

We work primarily with hierarchically structured sites. We also have created some sites with restricted areas.

I've found that using the Primary Links tree with Menu Block and Menu Breadcrumb is great for providing the page structure and then using Content Access to restrict access to a section is good.