Large scale website design

JakeFlynn · March 9th, 04:11 PM

Here was my original question...

Currently there is one main .cfm that has dozens of cfincludes

> surrounded by cfifs that do logic based on a passed in page variable. e.g.
>
> someone clicks a link:
> [url]www.foo.com/bar.cfm?page=takemehere[/url]
>
> in this case the bar.cfm is the main cfm page filled with statements that
> look
> similar to this:
>
> <CFIF page is eq takemehere>
> <CFINCLUDE takemehere.cfm>
> </CFIF>
>
> Intuitively this setup seemed rather clunky to me, as I have worked with
> it
> more and more I have gotten comfortable with it and would like some
> outside
> feedback on how something like this should be properly done. Thanks in
> advance.
> -Jake

Response...

I agree with a couple of the other posters -- Use a database! Our main.cfm is
one page long ... but services over 300 pages ...

<cfinclude template = "#the_template#">

Databases are your friend.

My question now is how do you use a database to accomplish this? What does the
table look like that stores the information (what fields does it have ect.) And
how do you implement it?

cf_menace · March 9th, 06:45 PM

The easiest way to use a single page to load content based on a URL variable is
like this:

<cfinclude template="header.cfm">

<table width="600" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4">
<tr>
<td width="200" valign="top">
<cfinclude template="navigation.cfm">
</td>
<td width="400" valign="top">
<cfif FileExists(ExpandPath('content/' & url.page)>
<cfinclude template="content/#url.page#.cfm">
<cfelse>
<cfinclude template="content/404.cfm">
</cfif>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

<cfinclude template="footer.cfm">

cf_menace · March 9th, 06:52 PM

A more advanced way would be to pull page data from a database based on a url
ID variable:

TABLE: SITE_MAP
------------------------------
SITE_MAP_ID | SITE_MAP_TEMPLATE | SITE_MAP_TITLE
--------------------------------------------------------
1 | content/welcome.cfm | Welcome to my site
2 | content/forms/contact.cfm | Contact Us
3 | content/catalog.cfm | Product Catalog

You'd pass something like index.cfm?pageID=2, where index.cfm now looks like
this:

<cfquery name="getSitePage">
SELECT SITE_MAP_TEMPLATE, SITE_MAP_TITLE
FROM SITE_MAP
WHERE SITE_MAP_ID = #url.pageID#
</cfquery>

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

<html>
<head>
<title>#getSitePage.SITE_MAP_TITLE#</title>
</head>

<body>

<cfinclude template="header.cfm">

<table width="600" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4">
<tr>
<td width="200" valign="top">
<cfinclude template="navigation.cfm">
</td>
<td width="400" valign="top">
<cfif FileExists(ExpandPath(getSitePage.SITE_MAP_TEMPLAT E)>
<cfinclude template="#getSitePage.SITE_MAP_TEMPLATE#">
<cfelse>
<cfinclude template="content/404.cfm">
</cfif>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

<cfinclude template="footer.cfm">

</body>
</html>

JakeFlynn · March 9th, 06:56 PM

Ok, good to hear I am currently refactoring my site to do just that. One
problem that I am running into this is that some of the pages have special
conditions for example:

<CFIF page is "foo">
<CFSET thisvar = that>
<CFSET Session.thatvar = this>
<CFINCLUDE template="foo.cfm">
<CFIF page is "bar">
<CFSET Session.adifferentvar = that>
<CFSET anothervar = this>
<CFINCLUDE template="bar.cfm">

and so on and so forth. So if i do a single:

<CFINCLUDE template="#page#.cfm">

I am going to have to wrap it in about 20 if statments. That just seems ugly
to me and almost negates the whole process. I know that it is hard to tell with
out looking at the exact code (trust me you don't want to) but, is there
another place that may be more appropriate to set these session vars and what
not? Is there a design pattern workaround or am I just factoring a ty
design that is going to take me alot longer than I thought?

JakeFlynn · March 9th, 07:06 PM

cf_menace,
Thank you very much for your replies they are excellent! My question for you
is where do you normally setup your session variables also. How would you
handle the case where your first page is a log in page so you do not want to
include the naviagtion bars with that page?

cf_menace · March 9th, 10:12 PM

Jake, depedning on how large your site is, you might want to look into FuseBox
or Mach-II. Those are frameworks that provide more advanced functionality of
the kind you're describing. I'm currently using a Struts-like XML configuration
file to control page content, user access, security levels and a few other
things.

Without all that, right now you could just put a <cfif session.loggedin> check
at the top of each of your content pages. If they're not logged in, kick them
to the login form.

HTH

JakeFlynn · March 10th, 02:47 AM

cf_menace,
Thank you again. Do you have any good information on Struts and implementing
it? This sounds like something that I would like to eventually implement. I
know I am pushing my luck but I do appreciate your help.
-Jake

JakeFlynn · March 10th, 03:25 AM

To elaborate I am looking for a good way to control user access and security levels. This Strut (Framework?) is something that I would like to research? have I made the right assumptions?

JakeFlynn · March 10th, 06:32 PM

I think i found what I am looking for with struts in case anyone was interested here is the link:

[url]http://struts.apache.org/[/url]

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