Hey all:

I'd asked this question inside another thread last week, and guess it got lost in the wash. I've been doing skins now for the last couple of months, and thought I was really comfortable with them. Then I read this thread last week that discussed the [LINKS] tag. Ain't nothing in the docs I can find out about it. So my question is, how do I adapt the tag so that it contains the list of links I want to show on the skin page?

Any help would be much appreciated...

Ok. I re-read the docs for like the 10th time...it seems that one missies little nuggets, since there aren't examples for every one of the options. So I now know that the [LINKS] tag displays the child links for a tab, and one parent node. That's it, that's all the docs say. Since solpartmenu is a google black hole, I feel it's important for any skinner that wants to create a skin that google can traverse for their clients, to know the exact description and an example or two of what the tag does specifcally.

Do 'child links' also mean any links that are on the modules? Or 'child *TABS*'? It's little miswritings like these that make the docs confusing when with one different word they could be exact. I'm not complaining mind you, just pointing out that the need for better docs, or someone talented pursuing a book deal that points out these issues is critically important to the future of DNN.

Another question that is unanswered, is what is the tag header that goes on the top of an .ascx file? There's not one DNN skin I've seen that uses [LINKS], so I and many others, have no diea what to plase there. That's not in the skinning doc either.

Anyone on the core team or anyone that has worked with the links tab...any information would be welcome!

Well, you did ask this question and it was answered. But to quote from the Skinning document
***********
[LINKS] < dnn:Links runat="server" id="dnnLinks"> Displays a flat menu of links related to the current tab level and parent node. This is useful for search engine spiders and robots
***********

So add the LINKS object to a skin and you will get this flat menu with a 'href' link instead of the LinkClick one. If you go to the skinning competition on dotnetnuke.com you will see many examples of this.

Regards

Heres an example of using skin.xml to configure your [LINKS] token on installation...

<Object>


		<Token>[LINKS]</Token>


		<Settings>


			<Setting>


				<Name>Separator</Name>


				<Value><![CDATA[&nbsp;&nbsp;<img src=links.jpg>&nbsp;&nbsp;]]></Value>


			</Setting>


			<Setting>


				<Name>Alignment</Name>


				<Value>Horizontal</Value>


			</Setting>


			<Setting>


				<Name>Level</Name>


				<Value>Root</Value>


			</Setting>


			<Setting>


				<Name>CssClass</Name>


				<Value>SelectedTab</Value>


			</Setting>


		</Settings>


</Object>

Experiment with...

	


			<Setting>


				<Name>Level</Name>


				<Value>Root</Value>


			</Setting>

			<Setting>


				<Name>Level</Name>


				<Value>Child</Value>


			</Setting>

			<Setting>


				<Name>Level</Name>


				<Value>Same</Value>


			</Setting>

Im not too sure on what the difference is between Child level and Same...Im yet to experiment that far myself..

With

			<Setting>


				<Name>Separator</Name>


				<Value><![CDATA[&nbsp;&nbsp;<img src=links.jpg>&nbsp;&nbsp;]]></Value>


			</Setting>

You can use any html (img or text deco) to seperate each link as long as the html is <![CDATA[In here somewhere]]>


Hope thats of some help.

Forgot the second part of the question;
Child links generally refer to the child tabs of a parent tab as you say. So some people like to (for instance) have a top menu of parent tabs and a side menu of the child tabs of each parent tab.

Regards

...so ofcourse... you can use [LINKS:1], [LINKS:2], etc in the same skin with different configuratons. Good example is PHPDupe skin included in the package.

But seems you do not want to make html skins? you prefer to do ascx directly (unanswered Q about header for Links)... I cannot find any of my skins now (I moved to sidemenu) but why don't you make a HTML one with XML parameters and see the results yourself. Or don't make your own.. just use PHPDuke. DNN is still a lot about playing arround :)

Hey thanks guys:

Hmm. I'd tried to look at the DNN skins, and do a search, but of *course* I was using the core indexing service via the 'Search' with XP Pro, and we all know how *buggy* that piece of crap is. I'll do another search with my old copy of UltraEdit, and see what I kin find...

Thanks again.