Hi,

I'd appreciate some advice about a site I am building. I thought I had the right approach but I'm beginning to doubt it.

The site needs to show content arranged in blocks within 3 columns across the page. In any column there may be one or more blocks. My approach was to create a page type called a tlColumnHolder as a container for columns. A tlColumnHolder contains three columns (the class name for these is ContentBlockHolder). Each ContentBlockHolder contains one or more ContentBlockPages (the real content). The attached png file shows a screenshot as it currently stands. The code in the tlColumnHolder.ss file is shown below.

I'm now running into problems with things like site maps and individual page display, and I have a feeling that I have overcomplicated the structure. I actually started with just ContentBlockHolder and ContentBlockPage, but couldn't work out how to group all of the ContentBlockPage objects for a given column together.

I expect I can hack my way through this in its current form, but I can't help thinking that I'm missing a simpler way to achieve what I want to do. Can anyone give some constructive criticism of my approach?

Thanks for any advice,

Ian.
--

==== tlColumnHolder ====
<div id="Content" class="typography">      
$Content
<div id="ColumnList">
<% control Children %>
         <div id="$ColumnRef">
            <% control Children %>
               <div class="articleHeader">
                  <p class="$BlockColour">$Title</p>
               </div>
               <div class="cbb">
                  <p>$Content.FirstParagraph <br />
                  <a href="$Link" title="Read more on &quot;{$Title}&quot;">Read more &gt;&gt;</a></p>
                  <p>[Block information: column is <% control Parent %>$ColumnRef<% end_control %>, row is $RowNumber and block colour is $BlockColour]</p>
               </div>
            <% end_control %>
         </div>
<% end_control %>
</div>
</div>
==== tlColumnHolder ====

Hi Ian,

The logic belongs in your PHP file, not your template.

Add the following method to your Page class in Page.php:

Then you can put <% control LeftChildren %> into your template.

If you have more than one column, you could also do it this way.

Then you can put <% control ChildColumn(columnLeft) %> into your template.