Outline Components

heitml outline components produce Web site menus (the menu you see at the left side of this page, for example). You may have already noticed that the menu uses an arrow to point to the current Web page. It also expands to reveal sub-pages belonging to that section, and contracts again when you move to another part of the site. But the outline system operates on a deeper level:

A Web site outline is structured in the form of a tree, organized into sections, nested sub-sections (if necessary) and pages. You specify this structure in one central place, but not in the actual pages. This makes it easy to change the structure. All you need do is change the outline file. The links on all pages, as well as the menus, adjust themselves accordingly.

Initially the outline works automatically, without user interaction: If you choose the outlayout page layout component, it automatically shows the menu on the left and the new page wizard automatically adds entries to the menu.

Editing the Outline

You can edit the outline of a Web site by selecting Open Outline in the File menu of RADpage. This will show the outline of your Web site. Each section of the Web site is represented by an olSection component. This component requires that a page name is assigned to every page. You can change the menu entry and make it point to another page simply by changing the page name. You can also re-structure the Web site by re-arranging the order of the outline components.

The New Page Wizard automatically creates an entry in the outline for each new page, provided a page name is entered. The entry is placed immediately after the most recently displayed page.

Component:olSectionDetails
Defines a section or page in the outline file. This component may only be used inside the outline file.

Property	Kind	Description
Name	String(20)	Name as to be displayed in the menu
Path	String	Absolute URL of the page, without a server name
Nosel	Checkbox	Disable menu entry.
Fragment	String(20)	Target Fragment
Target	String(20)	Target Window

Each section of the Web site usually encompasses other menu entries which itself can be sections or single menu entries. In this way, you can build a hierarchical outline structure. The single menu entries are the leaves of this hierarchy, each represented by an olEntry component. This component is configured in the same way as an olSection component.

Component:olEntryDetails
Single page entry in woutline.

Property	Kind	Description
Name	String(20)	Name as to be displayed in the menu
Path	String(40)	Absolute URL of the page, without a server name
Nosel	Checkbox	Disable menu entry
Fragment	String(20)	Target Fragment
Target	String(20)	Target Window

Link Components

heitml includes several components to create links based on the outline you defined in the menu. These links also adjust automatically when the outline changes. olLink creates a link to a page. Like olSection or olEntry, it uses the page name to point to the target page.

olLinkName is similar to olLink, but it has no content and uses the menu name instead. These two links can point directly to any page (or a target anchor within a page) on your Web site. Conceptually, they are similar in function to the traditional HTML source anchor (<a href=...>), though the syntax is a little different.

heitml uses two other kinds of links called sectional and transitive links to help you navigate the menu outline in a logical manner.

Transitive links olATnext and olATprev, create links to the next or previous section, as defined by the outline. olAup links the enclosing section.

Sectional links olAnext and olAprev point to the next or previous pages within a section.

In other words, transitive links jump from one section to another, while sectional links go back and forth among the pages belonging to the current sub-section.

Component:olLinkDetails
Link to another page within the outline, by giving the page name (as in the menu) rather than the file name. This is useful, since you can now change the file name freely without introducing broken links.

Property	Kind	Description
Name	String(20)	Name of the page to link to. The name must be written as it appears in the menu.
Fragment	String(10)	Section name (The # part of the URL without the #).
Target	String(10)	Target parameter for the link.
Urlpar	String(20)	Parameters appended to the URL. (The ? part of the URL excluding the #).

Component:olLinkNameDetails
Link to another page within the outline, using the page name (as in the menu) rather than the file name. This is useful, since you can now change the file name freely without introducing broken links.

The link text automatically is the name of the linked page.

Property	Kind	Description
Name	String(20)	Name of the page to link to. The name must be written, as appears in the menu.
Fragment	String(10)	Section name (The # part of the URL without the #).
Target	String(10)	Target parameter for the link.
Urlpar	String(20)	Parameters appended to the URL. (The ? part of the URL excluding the #).

Component:olAprevDetails
Go to the previous page within the current section.

Component:olAnextDetails
Go to the next page in the current section.

Component:olAupDetails
Go to the enclosing section.

Component:olATprevDetails
Go to the previous page.

Component:olATnextDetails
Go to the next page.

Menu Generating Components

At first you will probably use an existing page layout to display the menu, but if you want to create your own page layout, or display a menu somewhere on a page, you should use the heitml menu components.

The olStructure component displays a complete table of contents (i.e. all sections, sub-sections and pages). olSubMenu on the other hand just prints a one-level list of sub-sections belonging to a certain section (by default the current section). Inside both components you can use various components to display the name of section, the hierarchical number of a section, or link to a section.

olSelect is a bit more specialized. It creates a quick select box that can be used to quickly navigate to a certain page.

Component:olStructureDetails
Create a structured table of content for a certain section.

Property	Kind	Description
Root	String(20)	Section name where to start.
Nest	Integer
Showroot	Checkbox	Include root in structure.

Component:olSubMenuDetails
Create a plain table of content of a certain section.

Property	Kind	Description
Root	String(20)	Name of starting Point

Component:olSelectDetails
Quick navigation using a select box. Must be used inside a form.

Property	Kind	Description
Root	String(20)	Page Name where to start, empty for all.
Match	String(20)	Match string, only display items containing the string.
Nest	Integer
Showroot	Checkbox	Include root in structure.