Apologies if this has been discussed before but I couldn’t find an exact match when I searched. I am a relative newbie to Freeway, still finding out that the more I learn the more I know nothing. I have coded in the past, but my handcoding skills are really out of date and I want to do this project quickly with the minimum of coding if it is possible(!) I’m hoping the experienced hands on the forum could offer some wisdom on how best to approach the task in hand.
I have about 300 text chunks that need displaying. (Possibly in multiple languages, but hey one thing at a time). Handcrafting 300 static screens and menu links is possible but neither elegant nor a good use of my time on this planet.
I want a series (probably about 3) of dropdown menus that drill down to produce a list of items that meet the criteria and allows the user to select the item they want and then display the text item in full.
The project screams database to me but I’ve got no idea how to go about doing this in Freeway. I’ve seen an action for SQL but as I’m running Express I haven’t had any chance to look at it. Is there any (sensible) way of doing the above in Express? If not what would be the wisest course?
I love the CSS menu action and it would be one way to go. Certainly it’s at my level of coding(!)
I guess this still leaves me with hundreds of static pages which will be a headache to maintain. Is there any way to keep it on one page (or just a few pages) and dynamically change the text in a box?
The text can be stored anywhere it needs to be. Would it be possible or easier to pull text internally or from a spreadsheet instead of a database for example?
Hi Dave
Just so I am clear… you want 3 drop-downs that reveal a hundred links in each drop down or sub drop down is that correct?
If so and you want to construct just one page in freeway with the rest of the pages/text chunks being dynamically generated.
Then just for the sake of your sanity… I would go down the route of a database system that can generate those pages for you.
If you do go that route then there are a few alternatives you could pick from. Some systems have actions already built for freeway (although I don’t know how many can be used in Express) and some require you pasting code into the document/page.
Thanks for your input. Have you had any experience with the alternative system for plugging into a database. Are there any you would recommend? I’m happy to upgrade to Pro if it’s going to save me time, money and my sanity. Just would like more detail on the options.
If I was in your shoes then I would upgrade to pro because not only does it allow for all the actions that are available to be added to it, but also it gives the flexibility of using layers (divs) which express does not, (it uses just tables), it has the ability to create proper css styles and it also allows you add code (add hand coded content) within the page which again can be very useful.
Once you had that then your choices are a whole lot more interesting…
so from the available prebuilt action choices and in no particular order you could choose:
Expression Engine
Joomla
WebYep
MiniCMS
I think thats it for prebuilt actions.
then you could use another system like: Perch , but these would need to be integrated by hand.
The suitability of each system is dependent on its capability. Which ever one you choose it must be able to dynamically create pages from a dynamic menu and in-turn those created dynamic pages need to have dynamic content.