Page Picker Usage
Applying the Page Picker
The Page Picker allows you to create custom lists of pages by picking them from the sitemap. This is convenient when you are trying to create lists that can not be created with the autonav block or the pagelist block. An extra benefit is that the list does not change as you move pages around in the sitemap or add new ones, something that does happen with the autonav block and the pagelist block.
Examples might be :
- Footer legal navigation : 'sitemap | contact | disclaimer | FAQ'
- A list of pages with short description and read-more link
- A gallery (thumbnails + title and description)
- A static navigation bar, single level
- A vertical navigation list in your sidebar, single level
Page Picker Options explained
Adding a title
Provide an optional title for your Page Picker.
Choose the title format
If you provided a title in the previous field, then you can select the format for your title here. Choose H1 for a big title or one of the other options for a smaller title.
CSS classes
Provide optional css classes to add to the Page Picker so you can easily customize the style for a particular Page Picker.
Link text
This optional text will be used for links to the pages. Example : 'Read More'.
Pagination
Enable pagination by checking this box and enter the number of results per page. This will show a pagination element (next, previous).
Page thumbnails
Check this box to display a thumbnail for each page. Make sure each page actually has the thumbnail attribute set or you will not see any thumbnail appear.
Publishing date
Check this box to have each page's publishing date displayed.
Page descriptions
Check this box to display the description for each page. The description can be set in a page's description attribute. You can truncate the descriptions by entering the maximum number of characters in the field below. Leave this field empty if you don't want to truncate the descriptions.
Picking pages
Click on this button to pick pages from your website's sitemap.
Re-ordering pages
You can use drag and drop to re-order the pages after you picked them. You can also provide an optional title to display instead of the page name.
Templates
The Page Picker ships with a number of different templates for different scenarios. The default template (view.php) supports all the options available in the form. The other templates do not support all the options because this would defeat the purpose of those templates. You would probably not want a title and pagination in your navigation bar for instance. If you do want this, you can simply enable those options in the template, using the default template (view.php) as an example.
Demo website
I set up some demo's over on http://www.pagepicker.code-examples.com/.
Need more options?
I also developed the Page Picker+ block. This block also offers the ability to create a nested list and an RSS feed.