I. Introduction
There are three ways to automatically insert multiple links into your tree menus . The Build tree menu has a “Insert Folder” command, and the Advanced Options of a page include “Insert links to all files in a folder at run time” option. This option has an option to insert the links to these files using ASP server side scripting.
All three of these allow you to automatically insert links to all files in a folder on your hard disk, and all three allow you to select which files to link to. The difference is when the links are inserted: at build time, at run time, or by the server using ASP server side scripting.
II. Build tree menu “Insert multiple nodes” command
The “Insert Folder” of the Build tree menu actually inserts all the nodes into your project. They will appear in the tree which you see in the Build tree screen in eMenuTree. You can then modify these nodes as you please.
III. “Insert links to all files in a folder at run time” option (non-ASP)
A page node with the advanced option “Insert links to all files in a folder at run time” is a place-holder for the links to the files in the folder you selected. The links are not inserted into the build-tree screen, they are directly inserted into your tree menu when you run the program. The advantages of this are (a) projects will load and save more quickly, and (b) when you modify the files on you hard disk, all you need to do is re-run the program. The updated project will have links to the modified files.
IV. “Insert links to all files in a folder at run time” option (using ASP)
This is the most powerful of the three options. You choose this option by selecting “Use ASP.NET”. When your run the program, eMenutree will write an ASP.NET control (ascx file) and a simple ASP.NET page (aspx file) that contains this control. When you view the ASP.NET page in a browser, this will write your menu to disk. It will also show the new menu in the page. The advantage of this is that when you add new files to the server, you just view this ASP.NET file again, and the menu will be updated.
Finally, you can also choose the option “Use ASP.NET, no menu to disk”. With this option, the ASP.NET control will simply show the menu. If you put this control in an ASP.NET page, this control will build the menutree every time someone loads the page.
What is the relationship between the ASP control and eMenuTree’s javascript tree menus ? They are exactly the same in the browser. The ASP control sends to the browser the standard eMenuTree javascript tree menu code. The browser receives the same code as it would if you had inserted the links at run time rather than using ASP server side scripting. As always, when a user clicks on a folder in any major browser, it is this javascript that opens and closes folders. (The point: unlike some other ASP tree menu programs, the user does not need to return to the server to open and close folders.)
Please note the following:
1. You must be using a server that supports ASP.NET. (The server must be using Mircosoft software, but as with all tree menu pages the user *doesn’t* need to be using a Microsoft browser or Microsoft operating system.)
2. The relative path from your project folder to the folder whose files you want to link to must be the same on the server as it is on your computer. The project folder itself can have a different name on the server along with its parent folders, but any subfolders which are named in the relative path must exist on the server. That is, if the relative path from the project folder to the folder whose files you want to insert is “..\examples”, then there must be an “examples” subfolder to the parent folder of the project folder on the server.
3. To preview the tree menu(s) on your computer, you must have a server on your computer that runs ASPX (the free Microsoft Visual Web Developer includes such a server).
V. Selecting files when inserting multiple nodes
In all three methods of inserting multiple files, you select the folder, the files to include and exclude, whether to include files in sub-folders, whether to include the sub-folder structure. Note:
1. The folder must be in your web root folder.
2. In the files to include and exclude boxes, include one entry per line. The entries are *not* case sensitive.
3. The files to include option is meant to be the extensions to include, but the real rule is simply that the file name must end in one of the strings listed in the text box.
4. The meaning of the other options is obvious.
VI. Addendum
When you select a folder to insert, the program does not insert the folder itself, it inserts the subfolders and files in that folder into your tree. If you want to insert the folder as well, do this manually by first using the insert folder command, give this new folder the name you want, and then put one page link in this folder and use the “Advanced options” to insert subfolders and files in the place of this page link..