[15]Page Tree

[infield]

PAGE TREE
Add a page tree to the back end.

Having moved from Typo3 to Joomla the single item we miss the most is the page tree. It provides a quick intuitive view of site content structure.

Requested features:

• - Tree structure of pages with expandable nodes
  - Roll over page shows detailed module info. Modules, permissions etc.
  • - page Content (articles, sections and categories)
    - page Component
    - page Modules
    - page Template
  - Hot link to content
  - Ability to move/add/delete/archive content

I'm sure this would be a real challenge to implement but I believe it would take a lot of confusion out basic site maintenance.

References:

Typo3 page tree
http://typo3.org/typo3temp/pics/65f06ff535.png

Similar commercial module
http://www.elearningforce.biz/administr ... ption.html

Thanks,
-marc

[lightinthedark]

I'm guessing you'd use Mootree for that kind of thing, and that's already included with the regular Joomla package. The ability to move things around on the tree would take some work, but the display part of it is already 1/2 there.

[Stian]

marc,

isn't this functionality provided in the Menu Manager? Is just another way of displaying the functionality that is already there you are after?

Stian

[lightinthedark]

A quick look at the links he posted and the differences between the menu manager and a tree view seem clear. The menu manager will let you click through, click through, click through to go through all your menus, categories, sections and articles, and you can eventually see the layout of your site. The tree view shows (up to) the full hierarchy of the menus, sections, etc in a much more readily understood way.

It looks like this is, indeed, a request for another way to display the functionality that's already there.
However, when considered in conjunction with the many hierarchy / organisation related papers (listed in this paper, a more convenient way of viewing what may become a tree of categories and subdivisions becomes somewhat more important.

[dan1dyoung]

Hi,

I agree with the tree, i also have used it in Typo and also a commercial prgram called Episerver. It is great, it makes the layout of the site logical and viewable on one page straigt in front of you. On the others when i last used them it reloaded the whole page which is a pain but it believe Typo has now used AJAX for it so it should be cool.

You can then right-click on the part of the tree where you want the page creating (Meaning no need for sections and categories as they are logical), then you have options to add the page to the menu (Again handy for creating a structure but not always showing all of it in the front menu), plus if adding to the menu then the order, plus the language (Like we have in the content options now), plus a direct link (So if you add /special, then visitors can visit this page by going to http://www.yoursite.com/special), e.t.c. These are some of the handy things i have found in Typo & Episerver.

Thanks

Dan

[infield]

Hi,
I apologize for my lame description. Let me try and do better.

The menu manager is a tree, but it shows a limited representation of the content that will actually be in the page. Perhaps what I am asking for would better described as a page manager.

A page manager should summarize content for each page in the site and be one click from editing it:
- page Content (articles, sections and categories)
- page Component
- page Modules
- page Template

Additionally Content and common components should have some Page Manager representation.

The menu manger is overloaded. It is used for more than managing menus, it is used to create and manage instances of components. It does an good job at menu arrangement, but it doesn't do much in the way of representing actual content. For instance it is difficult to know what modules are on a page or what content a component presenting.

The menu manager is fine, but there is a need for a higher level intuitive interface that can represent a page.

Thanks,
-marc

[Stian]

Thank you for your clarification, Marc. I do not agree with lightinthedark that your screenshoots provided enough information. Anyway ;-), I agree with you that one can get lost at times, and that Joomla! needs some improvements on these areas. But, with the current setup, with sections, categories, menus and so forth I'm not sure a tree menu is the way to go. As lightinthedark points out there are several threads concerning categorization of content going on, and I think those issues need to be settled before one can land on the good way of visually representing it. But, a tree view could be it!

Stian

[infield]

Hi Stian,

What's missing is the birds eye view from the content manager's perspective. Yes it's definitely a display/workflow issue. In my experience Joomla is thought of as a good solution for simple sites. I think this is why.

The Joomla core administration does not offer a unified experience and as a site grows in size and functionality it becomes messy. At times It acts like a collection of unrelated extensions this becomes more pronounced as third-party extensions are added. There are going to be plenty of changes under the hood as Joomla moves toward 2.0. I just don't see much on usability.

A tree is not necessarily the answer. User experience issues are hard to express. I just threw tree out there because I have seen it used successfully.

A bit of a rant sorry.

-marc

[cosmicfantasia]

Yes, yes, yes. At the moment it is far from the best solution to tell a client or write a manual telling a client where to update all of their content. Normal people find it confusing to update some from the article manager, some from the modules manager and then some from the components menu. Although that is still where all the content would be, a tree view would allow normal people to be able to find and update their content easily.

This tree view should be able to be displayed on the front page of the admin screens and be customisable to include articles, modules and components within the tree.

[carsten888]

You might want to try Pages-and-Items. Its a admin-component for content-managent using a page tree for each menu. totally configurable. Its free.
http://www.joomlapi.com/pages-and-items/



When I started with Joomla I didn't know what hit me with sections and categories, comming from development of sites with a cms that used pages and a page tree. I tried typo3, but did not want to learn typoscript. The I integrated my own cms (with page-tree) into Joomla and made it a compinent.

[infield]

Wow! Looks terrific, I will check it out.

I agree with you typo script. It's very powerful, but it is its own world.

Thanks for the link.

[cosmicfantasia]

Does look good and need to check it out properly. But by the looks of it you can only modify module positions, not be able to add module within a page and edit them from the tree view. Having a tree view to edit all the elements, which is logical for people is my main push for a tree view. End user normal people just don't understand the difference between articles and modules and nor should they have to.

[carsten888]

Does look good and need to check it out properly. But by the looks of it you can only modify module positions, not be able to add module within a page and edit them from the tree view. Having a tree view to edit all the elements, which is logical for people is my main push for a tree view. End user normal people just don't understand the difference between articles and modules and nor should they have to.

I totally agree with you. That is why I build the Pages-and-Items framework in the first place. It can handle different itemtypes (so far:HTML, image-gallery, PHP and module-position), but anything can easily be made into an itemtype, so both structure of the site (pages= menuitems+categories) and content (items) are all manageable from 1 component. The actual content is not in the tree itself, but like in Windows Explorer, you have the folders on the left and the content on the right. In Pages -and-Items the pages are on the left and the page-properties and content is on the right.

[cosmicfantasia]

Thanks heaps. Looking forward to giving it a real go...

[roughneck]

You might want to try Pages-and-Items. Its a admin-component for content-managent using a page tree for each menu. totally configurable. Its free.
http://www.joomlapi.com/pages-and-items/



When I started with Joomla I didn't know what hit me with sections and categories, comming from development of sites with a cms that used pages and a page tree. I tried typo3, but did not want to learn typoscript. The I integrated my own cms (with page-tree) into Joomla and made it a compinent.

I have just finished working with an organisation where I used a commercial CMS. This CMS used a tree menu/structure, which was really intuitive and easy for our content authors to use. I'm with a different organisation now and I need to use an open source solution. Your component in combo with Joomla! looks like just what I’m after. I look forward to giving it a go!

Thanks

Craig

[cosmicfantasia]

Problem is its still in a component. Any new CMS is coming out with a treeview as soon as you come into the admin of the site. It just makes sense. I love Joomla, but again and again it always come back from end user clients that they don't get how to administer.

If there was a tree view as soon as you came into the admin, it had each of the pages and what modules hand off these pages it would be so easy for people to understand.

I know web dev companies that have moved to cms's like http://silverstripe.org/ because they make is so easy for users to develop content. As they say end users are editing content without any assistance or manual.

Have a look @ the demo >> http://demo.silverstripe.com/

It just makes so much sense and Joomla has all the bits to do it, just needs a tree view to display it.

[carsten888]

If there was a tree view as soon as you came into the admin

If you use Pages-and-Items together with Admin-User-Access you can.

[joomfriend]

Problem is its still in a component. Any new CMS is coming out with a treeview as soon as you come into the admin of the site. It just makes sense. I love Joomla, but again and again it always come back from end user clients that they don't get how to administer.

If there was a tree view as soon as you came into the admin, it had each of the pages and what modules hand off these pages it would be so easy for people to understand.

I know web dev companies that have moved to cms's like http://silverstripe.org/ because they make is so easy for users to develop content. As they say end users are editing content without any assistance or manual.

Have a look @ the demo >> http://demo.silverstripe.com/

It just makes so much sense and Joomla has all the bits to do it, just needs a tree view to display it.

I agree with you cosmicfantasia.
However, this feature has been or will be implemented in Joomla 1.6
You will have a sort of summary or treeview (overview) of your articles as soon as you come into the admin.