Browse Template

The Browse template lets a user explore sections of your site. Unlike a normal menu, multiple levels of the same template are used to build the navigation, directing users to relevant content. Articles using the Browse template don't display any article body content of their own.

Browse Menu Structure

When viewing a top-level Browse template article, it's heading, along with sibling article headings (of whatever template type) make up the items in the leftmost column.

The middle column repeats the heading of the article that's being viewed, then lists all of its child/related articles (of whatever template type). In its article extras you can choose whether article introductory or summary text appears in the column, and for which templates (by default only other Browse templates show their introductory text, all other templates only display their headings). Selecting a non-Browse template article from this list will navigate to that article. Selecting an article using the Browse template reveals the third column of navigation.

The third column displays the heading of the Browse article picked in the middle column, then lists its child/related articles. This level can also work with the Document and List templates to display sub-headings (see below). At this level article introductory or summary text is not displayed.

Article headings can be overridden with alternate link text as normal.

Page Content

Article body text and related content added to the Browse template do not appear anywhere on the page. When a user views an article using the Browse template, the site automatically checks for parent articles (using the Browse template) and child articles (using any template) and constructs the surrounding navigation and breadcrumb.

Building the Navigation

The Browse navigation can be built using either child articles or related articles. You can change this via the template's article extras.

Child Articles

In this example the article "Births, deaths, marriages and care" is being viewed. It uses the Browse template. It has two child articles also using the Browse template, which display their titles and introductory text. The leftmost column just displays article titles.

In the screenshot below the "Marriage, civil partnership and divorce" article is being viewed. It uses the Browse template. It displays its two child articles, which can use any template. At this final level most articles are presented as a simple list of titles.

Within iCM, the article structure looks like this.

Related Articles

You can build the navigation using related articles rather than child articles. Change the Browse template's article extras to "Related articles" then relate the content you would like to appear in the navigation.

The behaviour of related articles is the same as that of child articles. It's not possible to display related and child articles in the same navigation (if you need to build a navigation using both you could use the "Related articles" option then relate child articles to their own parent).

Ordering

By default articles appear in the order they are in iCM. Using the article extras of the Browse template, you can override the ordering, displaying the articles alphabetically by article heading. This causes the text "A to Z" to appear in the navigation.

Combined with the Document or List Templates

In this example the second level of navigation, the "How benefits work" article, is being viewed. Its child article, "What you can get" uses the Document template.

The Document template has a "browse view". This causes its title to appear as a sub-heading in the navigation. Its child articles, using the Document Section template, appear as links. See the Document and Document Section articles for more information about how these templates work.

An article using the List template behaves in a similar way. The title of the list article appears as a sub-heading, the articles in the list as links. The number of items in the list uses the "Display first N listable items" setting of the List template.

More than Three levels

The Browse template is designed to show a maximum of three columns of navigation. If you create an article using the template and place it at the third level of the article structure, when a user views that article the navigation will reload, with the selected article in the leftmost column. This process will repeat every three articles.

Article Extras