Book Image

Building Websites with Microsoft Content Management Server

Book Image

Building Websites with Microsoft Content Management Server

Overview of this book

Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 is a dynamic web publishing system with which you can build websites quickly and cost-efficiently. MCMS provides the administration, authoring, and data management functionality, and you provide the website interface, logic, and workflow. Once your website is up and running, your content contributors can add and edit content on their own, without the need to work with developers or the IT department. First time developers of Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 face a relatively steep learning curve. Not only are they expected to be conversant in the Microsoft .NET Framework, they are also required to be familiar with the concepts of MCMS 2002. Many beginners to MCMS start out by looking at the example site that ships with the product; tweaking it, dissecting it and turning it inside out using the obscure code comments as markers. However, when it comes to starting their own website from scratch, many are baffled ? where do they begin? This book exists to answer that question; teaching the essential concepts of MCMS 2002 in a clear, straightforward and practical manner. Containing answers to some of the most asked questions in developer newsgroups, this book is a treasure trove of tricks and tips for solving the problems faced by MCMS developers. This is a unique resource focused exclusively on the needs of developers using MCMS. It doesn?t waste time and pages on user or administrator level information that is well covered in other documentation. It?s a distillation of practical experience that developers need to get results, fast. The authors carefully structured example project complements and extends the knowledge gained from an initial look at the examples that ship with MCMS.
Table of Contents (28 chapters)
Building Websites with Microsoft Content Management Server
Credits
About the Authors
Introduction

Common Navigation Controls


We will tackle four common forms of navigation for the Tropical Green site. Your website may have a similar navigation scheme. Even if it's not entirely the same, you should be able to customize the solutions here to fit your needs. Navigation is usually highly customized for the site it is intended for; a one-size-fits-all solution simply does not exist. The techniques discussed here can be easily re-used to build the navigation controls you require.

  • The top menu bar will be used as our starting point. With it, we'll cover the basic aspects of walking through the channel structure using the PAPI as well as picking out menu items that belong to the top from the list of available channels.

  • The left or right menu bar is similar to the top menu bar but with the items arranged vertically. It is common for menu bars to have some form of client-side scripting, like JavaScript scripts, for a richer user experience. We will demonstrate how a client-side script can enhance...