Sections
A section is a named group of objects. Sections are used for three things: limiting permissions (anonymous visitors may read the section Standard), choosing templates (articles in the section Members get another layout) and choosing which tab of the administration interface is active. A section is independent of the content tree: its objects can be anywhere, and one folder can hold objects of several sections.
What a section is
| Field | Example | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| ID | 1 | What objects, policy limitations, role assignments and Match[section] rules store. It never changes. |
| Name | Standard | What people read in lists and forms. |
| Identifier | standard | What templates and settings name: Match[section_identifier]=standard, fetch( 'section', 'object', hash( 'identifier', 'standard' ) ). |
| Navigation part | Content structure | Which administration tab is active while an object of the section is viewed or edited. |
Each object is in exactly one section, the same at all its locations.
The sections of a new installation
| ID | Name | Identifier | Holds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Standard | standard | The site, from node 2 down |
| 2 | Users | users | User accounts and groups |
| 3 | Media | media | The media library |
| 4 | Setup | setup | Setup objects |
| 5 | Design | design | Design objects |
The Anonymous role allows reading content in the section Standard only. That single limitation keeps user accounts, the media library and anything you put into a new section away from visitors who are not signed in.
Which section content is in
- New content takes the section of its parent.
- Moving a subtree gives the new parent's section to the objects in it that still had the old parent's section; objects with a section of their own keep it. Adding a further location changes nothing.
- Assigning a subtree: Setup > Sections, Assign content on the section, then choose a node: the node's object and the objects below it get the section (large subtrees can be assigned as a background job).
- One object: its Details tab in the administration.
Sections in permissions and templates
A policy can be limited to sections (content/read in the section Members), and a whole role can be assigned with a section limitation. See Access control. In override.ini a template can be chosen by section:
[members_article_full] Source=node/view/full.tpl MatchFile=full/members_article.tpl Subdir=templates Match[class_identifier]=article Match[section_identifier]=members_area
A typical use: create a section Members, assign the members' area to it, and give the role of the members group content/read limited to that section. Visitors who are not signed in no longer see it, and its pages can have their own layout.
Setup > Sections lists every section with its identifier, navigation part and how much content it holds.
The section list, creating, editing, assigning and removing sections, navigation parts and many examples are in the Sections guide.
Contributors
- Balazs Halasy
- Geir Arne Waaler
- André Bueno Commenter
- Graham Brookins Updated Maintainer
Comments (1 historical)
Written by readers of the earlier documentation sites, kept as they were.
Different visual outputs for objects of a same Node/Section
André Bueno ·
I haven't been able to solve a problem I am facing: I have built an index page that shows the titles of all the "children" (articles published within a given Node/Section), but I would like my index page to have one visual look and the children (the articles themselves) to have another look. Unfortunately, exponential seems to link the looks of the index page to that of the final news pages should look -- if I change the index, it influences the children, and vice-versa.
I see no reason why all the pages within a node/section should look the same. I am studying two alternatives: creating a node/section which contains all the index pages and other node/sections for the news articles, but I am not sure whether I can make an index page linked to one node/section go fetch the children of another node/section.
Why is this problem important for me? Because my index page appears in a layout that has three columns (a left one, with a navigation menu; a center one, with the content, and a right one, with another navigation menu), whereas the final news pages have only two columns (the left menu and the content area, which expands further to the area where the right menu column was in order to open more space for the article to appear, since in some cases it comes accompanied with photos).
How do I get around this problem? Will exponential force me to have a single layout for both areas? Thanks a lot.