Dynamically list blocks
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Hi all...had a question:
I desire to build a website for my company where people can log in, and get information returned to them, based on what they ask for. HEre is what I envision:
Someone asks for all information on: Red, Cars, and Convertibles
...and only the pages and/or blocks that have those tags show up. If someone selects different options then something different shows up.
I am thinking something like a selectable tag cloud that is submitted and returns (ideally) blocks that match those tags.
I know there is a "global areas" add-on that can pull blocks from anywhere in the C5 instance, but that is more hard-coded...I am looking for something more responsive....has anyone seen anything like this?
Thanks!
I desire to build a website for my company where people can log in, and get information returned to them, based on what they ask for. HEre is what I envision:
Someone asks for all information on: Red, Cars, and Convertibles
...and only the pages and/or blocks that have those tags show up. If someone selects different options then something different shows up.
I am thinking something like a selectable tag cloud that is submitted and returns (ideally) blocks that match those tags.
I know there is a "global areas" add-on that can pull blocks from anywhere in the C5 instance, but that is more hard-coded...I am looking for something more responsive....has anyone seen anything like this?
Thanks!
I understand what you're trying to do. I'm going to echo John's sentiments too because you're going to want to lean on Concrete5's pages + page filtering.
If you think of pages as being more than just something a user can navigate to and look at, you'll get a lot more from it.
Pages can be data-rich; subject to whatever custom attributes and content you apply to them. You can then use the page-list (or whatever page-querying suits you best) to filter by directory, tag or attribute.
In this mechanic you could have a sitemap fleshed out with "data object" pages, which you can then call in as related/contextual content into the given page.
If you think of pages as being more than just something a user can navigate to and look at, you'll get a lot more from it.
Pages can be data-rich; subject to whatever custom attributes and content you apply to them. You can then use the page-list (or whatever page-querying suits you best) to filter by directory, tag or attribute.
In this mechanic you could have a sitemap fleshed out with "data object" pages, which you can then call in as related/contextual content into the given page.
Thanks, both of you for the good advice! I will go down the custom attributes/page list route.
That way, you can use some of the (many) intelligent page listers combined with output like Page List Teasers and you are not limited to a specific type of block.
So have a look through all the Page List variations in the marketplace and you will most likely find a solution, or something that can be adapted into a solution with a bit of custom code.
You may find HereNT's recent page list manager addon (it keeps changing name) useful for managing such pages.
If you want to get more complex, look at how eCommerce uses products and product sets, filtering by any product attribute. So maybe each snippet of information could be managed as a product.
You asked by PM about Magic Data. Magic Data works at a lower level than the above. Once you have your small-page-like architecture, you may find it useful to embed Magic Data tokens to pull in information from elsewhere. You could also look at creating application specific Magic Data symbols so you can use info from it at other places.
On my roadmap for Magic Data are attributes that return evaluation of Magic Data symbols within the attribute, so could be used within a Page List or Nav selection already based on attributes for a highly customised selection.
Another idea on my roadmap is building Magic Data into a page list, so the lister itself contains Magic Data symbols that are evaluated for each page in turn to determine selection.