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CSS and Javascript Style your Sitemaps tree menu

Created 13 years ago   Views 36253   downloads 8485    Author n/a
CSS and Javascript Style your Sitemaps tree menu
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Sitemap Syler is a little CSS/JavaScript piece of code that can be easily applied to your sitemap list. It then takes care of it's presentation. All you have to do is include couple lines of code. It doesn't require any JavaScript knowledge but some CSS knowledge would come in handy if you want to modify the appearance of your sitemap.

How does it work?

In order to have SEO friendly sitemap, entire site structure should be rendered in html code. So, no fetching subcategories with AJAX or anything like that. The best way to render links and display hierarchy is using nested lists. Sitemap Styler uses unordered lists. The root list has an id = "sitemap". Simple JavaScript function goes through list's item nodes and check for child elements. If item contains nested list, script attaches a span element that serves as a toggle button for expanding and collapsing child lists.
Here's a sample of what html code should look like:

<ul id="sitemap">
<li><a href="#">First link</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#">First link</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#">First link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Second link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Third link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Fourth link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Fifth link</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>

 

 

In our examples the list goes down to level 3, but it can go on forever. It is just a matter of styling.

How to apply it to your own site?

Easy. You have to download and extract one of the examples. Put the folder named "sitemapstyler" into the root of your site. On sitemap page (page that already contains your sitemap, rendered as unordered list) place this code inside the head tag.

<link href="sitemapstyler/sitemapstyler.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="sitemapstyler/sitemapstyler.js"></script>

 

 

Don't forget to put id="sitemap" to your top unordered list element.