Maintaining the Sitehome menu links

 This article is suitable for a Library Administrator

Ref: PEV201012101129
Last Edited: September 28th, 2011
 
Triaster has recently introduced a new four-scene Sitehome Flash homepage which is configurable by the end-user via a configuration file. The file is called flash-menu.xml and resides in the the Static HTML folder of the Triaster server. The file uses hierarchical menu and item tags to control where the item is displayed.
 
The aim of this article is to show how to edit the flash-menu.xml file by showing the relationship between the 2nd scene of the the Sitehome and the corresponding XML in the configuration file.
 
Please note:
  • We strongly recommend the use of an XML editor when editing xml files.
  • The XML tag <item> is interchangable with the XML tag <menu>.
  • Newer XML files might have additional attributes not shown below.  The most possible attributes that you might encounter are:
    • name - The name of the menu item.  This will be the text of the button when shown in the flash menu.
    • url - This is the URL that the button will link to.
    • ref - This will be in the format "X_Y" where X is the level of the menu item and Y is the position.  Items can be forced into different positions by changing the Y value.
    • target - This allows you to specify the target frame for the link to open in.  For information on possible values for this field can be found on W3Schools. (This may not work in a <menu> or <item> tag, it may only work in the <link> tag.
  • There may also be a section of the XML file dedicated to custom links, if this is the case then it will be in a <links> section (not to be confused with the <links> parent tag from an earlier version of the flash-menu.xml).
 
Below is an extract of the config file
On the Triaster Showcase site <menu name="links"> relates the the first page or level in the tree.
 
 
After selecting the Process Library link on the homepage above, the following menu is displayed.
 
Selecting the Finance option (shown as <menu name="Finance"> in the XML file) will take you to the next scene (shown below).
 
To change the label from Finance to something else, simply replace the text between the quotation marks <menu name="Finance">.
 
NOTE: The configuration file is case and space sensitive. Also, avoid using symbols in names (such as <, >, and & to list just a few).
 
 
Selecting the Accounts payable line (shown as <menu name="Accounts Payable"> in the XML file takes you down to the next scene.
 
 
Clicking on the Pay Supplier item will take the user to a map or any URL.
 
The corresponding XML entry is slightly different; here it is called <item name="Pay Supplier" url="../html/finance/pay%20supplier.html" />. Notice that there is a URL entry here that relates to a map. To add or change an entry, the easiest way is to navigate to the map in the library and copy the URL from the \HTML part of the URL. Note: Do not use the full URL if linking to a map.
 
You can also link to documents or other resources in the same way.
 
The </menu> tag is used to close each menu section.
 
For more tips on editing your flash-menu.xml take a look in the March/April 2012 Connector newsletter.
 

Need further help? Contact the Triaster Support team by e-mailing support@triaster.co.uk or by calling us on + 44 (0)870 402 1234.
 
Do you have any feedback or suggestions that you would like to share with Triaster? We would love to hear from you! Please e-mail feedback@triaster.co.uk