buttons call single page & activate unique popup layer

[cursor]

Thanks John.

This is wrong approach from the start. Nevertheless you can do it.

I'm always anxious to here what you have to say. I would appreciate some perspective. Thanks.

[covoxer]

I'm always anxious to here what you have to say. I would appreciate some perspective. Thanks.

Generally speaking, it's better to keep page design dependent elements within the page. In case you want to change something, you don't need to look for all the pages that may relay on this. So, in this case it better to chose one of the following variants:
1. Place all the popups in the same page where buttons are.
2. Place buttons on the page with popups.
3. Split popups into separate pages.
There may be a lot of solutions depending on the content which I'm not aware of.
It's not the rule of course, more like a good practice of the hierarchical data organization. It may ease your life slightly.

[cursor]

It was the idea of simplification that stimulated this thread -- specifically, I would like to reduce the number of actual pages that I address. But, as you indicate, I may be opening a can of worms.

Consider:

• A main navbar with 8 menu options.
• Each sports a dropdown menu of from 3 to 8 target topics.
• That translates into about 40 pages (8-main.menu x 5-sub.menu).

Effective navigation through a vertical stacking of 40 pages (and eventually substantially more) seems awkard. (There is no site/page manager within Web Designer that offers a logical, hierachical structure.) I'm considering ways to reduce that number of pages, keeping the website manageable.

Alternative 1:

• A main navbar with 8 menu options.
• Each sports a dropdown menu of from 3 to 8 target topics. Each links to a unique, single page.
• Each page includes a number of popup (100% overlapping) layers, corresponding to the 3 to 8 target topics (noted in the list above).
• That translates into just 8 pages. And, it logically groups similar target topics onto the same page.

What will grow is the number of popup layers on each of those eight sheets. I can see some potential drawbacks, certainly.

Just kinda thinking aloud here. If any of you have constructive thoughts, I'm all ears.

Thanks.

[covoxer]

Well, it's all the designers choice, but what you are saying about grouping pages as a layers in one page is even worse than I thought.

For example, you'll force users to load content of 3 pages even if they want to see only one of them. Also you are getting into maintenance chaos with all those inerlinks making your site very hardly editable and expandable in future.

If the number of pages is your only concern, and you getting to about 40 pages, the best solutions is to split your project into a number of .web files. I pretty sure that you can logically divide 40 pages project into 4 or maybe even 8 (by menu items) parts. Create every part as a sepsrate web design with 3-10 pages.

Believe me, this will be much easier to maintain. Besides, you'll gain possibility to update only one part if one page was altered instead of uploading entire 40 pages site as currently.

[cursor]

Thanks for your quality input, John. I've not done any website design before. I certainly want to avoid a maintenance nightmare.

I know that there is a thread already created where splitting a .web file was discussed. I'll be sure to review it.

[cursor]

I just successfully split a small, sample webite into multiple .web files. The detailed how-to can be reviewed here, within the How do I link between .web files? thread.

[covoxer]

Yes, I've seen your post and web site.
Seems to work well.

[cursor]

Actually, it doesn't and I'm curious as to why not. I will, however, continue this within that thread.

[Markku]

I had a nightmare using this tweak until I moved its placeholder below the 'Locking popups' tweaks placeholder.
Before this discovery layers were shown on top of each other and I turned the whole project upside down in order to find the reason.

So make sure you place the mother script (Locking popups) on top of the page so that it gets read first and then below that put every other tweak that is dependent on it.

[garyshapley]

I just posted the same question and found this thread. COXOVER, I have used your code and it gets me to the page but not the layer. Please tell this new user what the "Locking popups tweak" is and how to do it. Thank you!