Dynamic Menu Setup

[gwolgamott]

Currently I'm in the midst of setting up this so its more of a work in progress. But when it's finished and down the road it will need to be more efficient. Just wondering about comments on the design I used to create the links of menu navigation system.

 

First off structure is as so: Intranet with a group of folders and a dynamic object oriented php page. So nested folders with one holding main page structure used throughout and another hold menu, styles, etc.... then the main function of the site was to host a list of documents for 14 dept within an organization. They bulked on wanting to use database system (Yeah I know... and argued until I was blue in the face, so really made my own backwards one with this structure). So they have nested folders with the main being index/ then that have the home page folder events... and the bulk being in the index/Manufactoring Document/  folder each with sub folders that some contain other child folders and so on and so forth.... and the documents inside those would change daily weekly...

 

Task: create a system that takes this folder list and basically makes the menu navigation updated dynamically via what folders existed and what was within these folders. With the only hard coded was a stopper file called struct that had dual purpose first said this is last subfolder and created a nested drop down menu to this it's siblings, parent, and grandparent folder....  second that contained what you wanted to show for this point on... where it was like the home page  and just displayed the struct file that displayed welcome messages / calendar.... or like a dept that the struct file would be used to just display a list of forms  and other paper work in a node style display.

 

Using several functions / and various OO techniques have managed to make this work to some extent so far.... I know some of this sound obscene but work with you have and told to do at times.

 

FILE SYSTEM SAMPLE

---------------

 

root/

page_struct/

styles/

menu/

index/

        within index:

        Home/

        Events/

        Manufacturing Documents/

                                  within MD:                   

                                  Paint/

                                  Assembly/

-------------------------------------------

 

What the menu would be like:

 

Home | Events | Manufacturing Documents

 

With Manufactoring being a php/javascript drop down menu with various dept and sub depts as links.