I've talked about this in different forms over the last several years, but with my latest project that has gotten quite large, this has really reared its head for me again.

I really think that the NA module should be come an admin function for adding/editing/deleting articles, sort of a central repository.  Then the LA module is the module you throw around the site to display your articles, filter, use templates, etc.

I know it functions imlarly to that now, but the BIG issue for me has been the display of the article in the NA module, meaning I click on LA in the Financial Articles area of my site and it takes me to the NA module that is in another part (thus skinned differently, URL of a different area, page security issues, etc.).

My way to make this as least of an impact has been to create a view page with a page for each NA underneath it.  View is not the menu so it is not visible, but then I am sent to this neutral area to display articles.  One of the reasons this has happened is the site is a half public half private site and I feature some articles on the public home page that are also on the private area.  I had to move NA from the private area as all public people were having to login to view the articles.  I am taking advantage of the secure option to keep the articles from being totally public, but it is a bit contrary to the way I think it would be.

If NA is a admin function, then I would expect LA to display the article on the same page as the LA module is placed.  Using launch links it would display in the admin skin or without it would refresh within the same pane as the module.

I know this would be a big change, but I would really think this would add a major usefullness to the module.

Dax

I hope that this will not be implemented, otherwise it will completely break all my actual concept, where I us LA to send users to the page where the NA module is placed... So we do not have the same interest... Let's see what other people think.

DV FX

I think of LA as the Aggregate View/Navigation Module.
(This could be beefed up with some ability to bind to menus/Panelbars.)

I think of NA as the admin module.

What we are missing is the stand alone article View module.
This would have much of the NA template capabilities, but more control of the viewing.
This would include a critical Default view, and other features described here:

http://www.ventrian.com/Support/ProductForums/tabid/118/forumid/4/postid/35382/view/topic/Default.aspx

I definitely understand the difference of opinion.  To me this matches the basic implementation of about every other atricle system I've seen.  Most clients that I have that use NA for article management across different sections of the site never understand why the module has to go to one place to view instead of viewing in the topics section.

I would think that your issue could definitely be accounted for in the new structure, by putting an LA module where you had NA before (don't imagine you have dozens of NA moduels installed, so assuming this is feasable).  Then, for the sake of past consistency, the LA module could have an option of view article in other LA module where you select the LA article on the page you want.  That would, at this level of analysis, probably be invisible to the users and your user experience.

My assumption is that all presentation functionality would be moved/copied to LA so you wouldn't lose anything in the presentation.  Does that make sense?

Dax

Hi Dax,
I agrees with you, so I've developped this part by myself in a few hours. I've made a system where NA module is the admin module, and LA module is used to display a list of article and eventually the article detail, and a standalone module called ArticleDetail only used to display the detail of an article a given category. So, to resume :
- NA deserves admins tasks,
- LA deserves lists tasks and the category asociated to the module send the visitor to the tab where the
- ArticleDetails module is. This gives the opportunity to choose a template and a skin for the articles contained in a category.

This should be a part of NA's core.
Cheers,

S.F.

That sounds close to what I described.  Perhaps not exactly.
Do you have an example of this that can be looked at?

Sometimes viewing the thing in action is far more helpful than long discussions.
Are you willing to share the source with Scott if he finds it workable?

So ArticleDetail would be the content of a specific article only.  That would help those that have been pusing to use NA for content management.  A page's content would be an ArticleDetail module.  Very cool.

Dax

This is a key question.  What needs to happen is the Default article to display would be selected via admin menu.  I would think of this as the "Home View".  I would even make that an auto generated link for menu purposes

Without this feature you don't have a base view.

Not very well explained on my part.

I am thinking of a Token called [home] or [default] or something like that that can be placed in a template for the view module and for the Latest module.  What this would do is reset the view module to its default article detail view.

Allowing NA to still behave as it does today is fine.  Its a great solution for backwards compatibility.  But the main focus of this is to allow all NA functions to be in LA so I can have articles in an area of the site display in the area of the site.  In the same skin, simialr, url, etc.  Is that what you are thinking Scott?  I think I had mentioned earlier having the option in the LA modules of pointing to the main module (as you do now) to display items in the NA module like normal.

If you do that and the upgrade process uses the setting a person has before then there is no difference for existing users.  But when they add a new LA module there is a None option (or this module option) in addition to the normal listing of all NA modules on the site.  That solves both ways and should be invisible to the user.

Also, as for Categories, Authors, etc.  I would still think you make LA act like NA and it would display where the LA module is.  Probably add features to make them only show authors and categories as they are filtered in the LA module (but NOT forcing them to be filtered).

Hope I'm clear on all this.

Dax

I haven't followed most of the thread, but a View module would be great! That was probably the topic of my first ever thread here :)

At the time there seemed to be no answer for it, but I've since noted that one or two other modules I have make use of separate list and details modules - DNNMasters comes to mind. Being able to put details into different site sections with different contextual information, whilst still having a central article manager with a single database of articles, is the ideal situation.

You can already filter by category with the LA module.  The goal of the View module is to allow the LA to act more like a general CMS module.  You could place it on a page and it would act as a single or multipage content module.  Working with and extending the sites page structure.

If the default view is a list of articles then this is still an articles centric module.

The key is for there to be the ability to default to an article detail view.
The point is a page with content.

Nav is important but separate from the view module.