The <navlinks> Tag

A common site structure strategy is to provide Back, Forward and Up links between pages. This is especially frequent in papers or manuals, and (as you can see above) is used in this documentation. WebMake supports this using the <navlinks> tag.

To use this, first define a sitemap. This tells WebMake how to order the page hierarchy, and which pages to include.

Next, define 3 templates, one for previous, one for next and one for up links. These should contain references to ${url} (note: not $(url)), which will be replaced with the URL for the next, previous, or parent content item, whichever is applicable for the direction in question.

Also, references to ${name} will be expanded to the name of the content item in that direction, allowing you to retrieve metadata for that content like so: $[${name}.title] .

You can also add templates to be used when there is no previous, next or up content item; for example, the "top" page of a site has no up content item. These are strictly optional though.

Then add a <navlinks> tag to the WebMake file as follows.

	<navlinks name=mynavlinks map=sitemapname
		up=uptemplatename
		next=nexttemplatename
		prev=prevtemplatename
		noup=nouptemplatename
		nonext=nonexttemplatename
		noprev=noprevtemplatename>
	content text
	</navlinks>

The content text acts just like a normal content item, but references to ${nexttext}, ${prevtext} or ${uptext} will be replaced with the appropriate template; e.g. ${uptext} will be replaced by either ${uptemplatename} or ${nouptemplatename} depending on if this is the top page or not.

You can then add references to $[mynavlinks] in other content items, and the navigation links will be inserted.

Note: navlinks content items must be included as a deferred reference!

These are the attributes accepted by the <navlinks> tag.

name

the name of the navigation-links content item. Required.

map

the name of the sitemap used to determine page ordering. Required.

up

the name of the template used to draw Up links. Required.

next

the name of the template used to draw Next links. Required.

prev

the name of the template used to draw Prev links. Required.

noup

the name of the template used when there is no Up link, ie. for the page at the top level of the site. Optional -- the default is an empty string.

nonext

the name of the template used when there is no Next link, ie. the last page in the site. Optional -- the default is an empty string.

noprev

the name of the template used when there is no Prev link, ie. for the first page in the site. Optional -- the default is an empty string.

This will generate an extremely simple set of <a href> links, no frills. The sitemap it uses isn't detailed here; see the sitemap documentation for details on how to make a site map.

	<template name=up><a href=${url}>Up</a></template>

	<template name=next><a href=${url}>Next</a></template>

	<template name=prev><a href=${url}>Prev</a></template>

	<navlinks name=name map=sitemapname up=up next=next prev=prev>
	  ${prevtext} | ${uptext} | ${nexttext}
	</navlinks>