I want to use EZ Pages that will serve as news articles

[sportbiker]

Is there ANY way to add PHP code into an EZ page? Here's why...

1) I want to have EZ Pages that will serve as news articles.

2) I want to have an html or php page that serves as a left-side menu to access articles. (see photo).

3) THE IMPORTANT PART: I want that left side news article archive menu to be a single page that's brought in via a php include so that I can make (1) menu and bring it into all my news article EZ pages. Why does my method matter? Because if I have 50 news articles, I don't want to update the menu on 50 EZ pages manually. I want to be able to write one EZ page article, add it to the menu page, and then that updated menu page appears on all EZ pages automatically where that menu is called.

4) Like anyone else, I'd like to have some control over styling, so hopefully any solution won't be too limiting.

I'm seeing that you can't use PHP code in an easy page, so what other method or approach to this that I could use to achieve this?

[gjh42]

There is a thread about using PHP in ez-pages, but it comes with a strong warning that it creates security vulnerabilities.

Do you want this menu to include all of the ez-pages that are related to "news"? If so, you just need to enable the TOC (table of contents) feature for the ez-pages involved, giving them all the same chapter number and desired sort orders. Select one of them to be the "public face" and enable that to show in one of the standard ez-page menus as a link into "News Articles".

You will get a list of all ez-pages in the chapter, on every page. This can be styled with CSS as desired. If you want greater control over the styling, you can use EZ-Page Improved TOC from Plugins.

[gjh42]

Does your usual page layout have a sidebar? Would you want to put the news menu in a sidebar that only appears on ez-pages? EZ-Pages Improved Menus can add the subtitles to each link in the menu, and highlight the current page link. (This is a standard type sidebox. With minor PHP tests in appropriate files, it can display in only the circumstances you want.)

[sportbiker]

I'm not willing to compromise security, so any modification that does is not an option.

In regards to the other questions, I only want this menu to reflect the EZ pages I designate — specifically news articles.

It sounds like I need to explore the TOC option, but I'm dubious. When using this feature, will it allow me to link directly to any news article or will it always start on a "landing page"? I ask because we use direct links in social media and other places and I want to take traffic directly to a specific news page as needed rather than a default landing page. That's the beauty of EZ Pages because they're page specific links.

Yes, when outside of the news section, the website does have left and right sidebars (R U G G E D R A D I O S .com), but if it matters, we won't be using a sidebar for news articles. The only case in which I would use a a sidebar is if it was the only sidebar that appeared when on a news article page.

I don't think EZ-Pages Improved Menus can do the job because I would need it (and only it) to appear when on a news article. I'm only guessing, but I suspect it's a great sidebar, but it also means the other sideboxes/sidebars will have to appear with it which defeats the "cleaner" presentation I was hoping for.

[DrByte]

What about something like the News And Articles Manager plugin?

[sportbiker]

Ultimately, I think the news article feature will perform best if the archive list can sit left of the articles themselves and provide an easily accessible "one click" method for bouncing around the articles. The list will be in front of the consumer and almost beg them to coast through the different links. Once they're out of sight, they're out of mind.

The mod suggested by DrByte seems to take you through clicks and "layers" (for lack of a better word) to get to an article.

I've cheated the news articles I have now to get me through for a few days, but man, oh man, I wish I could find another way. Here's a sample where the menu was hand coded into each EZ page. Not the ideal solution, but you can see it in action and see what I'm striving for:

http://www.ruggedradios.com/index.ph...age=page&id=91

Off topic, somewhat — I have learned so much about ecommerce in the sense of how customers respond to a website. We've used Zen Cart for a couple years now and we've tweaked and played with the site so much to get it where it's the best in our industry. We've had incredible growth and we continue to strive for every little detail.

I believe the hard work and details make a difference and that's kind of why I'm clinging to my approach a bit.

[gjh42]

I only want this menu to reflect the EZ pages I designate — specifically news articles.

It sounds like I need to explore the TOC option, but I'm dubious. When using this feature, will it allow me to link directly to any news article or will it always start on a "landing page"?

The TOC will only involve ez-pages you have designated to belong to the "news" chapter. Each one will still be directly accessible by giving its URL. You can also have as many of them as you like explicitly linked from other menus on your website... you only *need* one for access, but you can have all of them.

You could also have another ez-page chapter for another topic, with its own TOC.

I don't think EZ-Pages Improved Menus can do the job because I would need it (and only it) to appear when on a news article. I'm only guessing, but I suspect it's a great sidebar, but it also means the other sideboxes/sidebars will have to appear with it which defeats the "cleaner" presentation I was hoping for.

There is a standard method for customizing sideboxes to appear or not on specific kinds of pages. You can turn off the right sidebar in admin for all ez-pages, and add the switch in the left sidebox files so the ones you want appear where you want them.
If you only want news article links in the sidebar (and not other ez-page links), you can set all and only the news articles to appear in the sidebox. If you want another sidebox with other ez-page links for ordinary store pages, that can be done but will require cloning the sidebox and adding some filter tests.

[DrByte]

Here's a radical twist ...

If ALL your ez-pages will be displayed in a similar fashion and you want the left panel to be a navigation between all the pages, you could:
- redesign the tpl_page_default.php template to have both the left column and the right content area
and
- build a quick automatic TOC generator to populate the left column from all available pages, in whatever sort order you like. You could perhaps even use the existing TOC flags/settings to control which entries show in the navigation by repurposing the current TOC logic (and remove it from displaying inline as it does in original code).

That would retain all your current links and styling, require no addons, and not change your admin tools. All you'd need to change is to remove the extra left-column HTML from your existing ezpages content since your template would be outputting that part for you.

[sportbiker]

I just want to chime back in and say thank you for the tips and direction! We're experimenting with the different approaches now. I'll post back here what we've done and how we've achieved it when complete in case others find it helpful.