Collapse or Expand Nested Subpages in Site Map
It would be very helpful if the site map page was somewhat more like many file explorer views found on typical operating systems. In particular, having a leading folder-like icon for entries with subentries which allowed you to close (collapse) or open (expand) the section of the site map to suppress or show ancestor pages.
For example:
- FrontPage
- EditingOnMoinMaster
- MoinMasterBranches
+ FeatureRequests
- HelpContents
...In the above example, all the pages below FeatureRequests are suppressed and a plus sign (or suitable icon) indicates that you should click on the icon to view the subpages. Conversely, a minus sign (or suitable icon) provides a target to click on to suppress subpages.
VisualSiteMap offers this feature. Ok, not exactly - but partly
Also, there is no such thing as a hierarchycal structure... see PagesHierarchy, FacetedClassificationInMoin and HierarchicalWiki.
If this is strictly so, then how does the SiteMap page work? Obviously, it is not a strict acyclical tree, but the vast majority of wiki content is hierarchical because that is how human beings tend to organize information.
- That is discussable, at best. But let's agree that most of desktop computer users are used to that kind of organization.
We have a custom CGI script add-on to our wiki which does what I'm suggesting for a subset of the wiki and people gravitate to it immediately (we defined a page as the 'top' for generating a table of contents). I submit that the wiki purest mentality that "because a wiki isn't strictly acyclical" we should basically ignore the utility of such organization tools is bogus.
I am not at all suggesting that. Please look at FacetedClassificationInMoin to see what are we planning in this regard.
Why not have the best of both worlds? All the hierarchical view shows is a layered set of relative page links--not an absolute structure of the entire wiki universe for that site.
Agree. Again, look at FacetedClassificationInMoin. -- EduardoMercovich 2005-05-20 19:30:34
Yes, FacetedClassificationInMoin would be very helpful and solve numerous problems that hierarchies do not address. I look forward to being able to use it
. Actually, what we are using -- with a CGI add on -- is designed to address the need to easily have a comprehensive overview of information when it happens to be hierarchical in nature. And we actually are using greater granularity than just page links. In fact, the page links are "invisible" in our hierarchy which is based entirely on headings. The pages just provide the linking mechanism for relating the headings. So we are generating a "Table of Contents" of sorts which includes all pages with a specified category tag and renders the headings as a hierarchy, complete with links to each heading on the appropriate page. Using some conventions, we also collect attributes from the headings which can be filtered on and off in the table. This would probably all be possible with facets (the facets being attributes) and breaking down the information into smaller pieces so that page names serve where we now use headings. Anyway, thanks for exposing me to these new ideas. -- TonyGarland 2005-05-20 20:31:05