How to use the subnavigation element

Here at Preation, we often get requests from our Eden clients to do two things:

1. How can we easily show navigation links directly on a page without having the user dig through the navigation?
2. How can we create these links without displaying them directly in the navigation?

Both of these items can be addressed by using the subnavigation element.  This element is located under the "General" tab while editing a page.  Its primary purpose is to display any parent navigation tab's subnavigation.  Let's say you have 4 pages located underneath a top level navigation and you want to dispaly the links to each of these 4 pages directly on the "About Us" page.

First, go to the "Pages" module to view the page tree and edit the About Us page.  This is what the page tree currently looks like.  All of the pages have the bold border meaning they are currently displayed in the navigation.

When you edit the "About Us" page, the first thing you need to do is drag and drop the subnavigation element into a zone on the page.  The subnavigation element is located under the "General" elements tab.

After you drag and drop the element on the page, you will be prompted to select the "start page" from a drop down of all of the pages on your site.  Click the drop down box and choose the "About Us" page then click save.

The resulting subnavigation will appear with the 4 links that are the pages located below the About Us (start) page.

Now let's say you'd like to display this subnavigation on the "Contact Page" but you do not want to display it in the main navigation.  To accomplish that you will need to add a "Place Holder Page" in the page tree and make sure it is hidden from the nav (no bold border around the page in the tree).  You'll then place each of the pages underneath About Us to the Place Holder page by dropping them directly on top of the place holder page.  Make sure you keep all of pages you move "displayed in the navigation".  The resulting page tree should look something like this:

You'll then edit the Contact Page, add the subnavigation element to the page, and select the Place Holder Page as your start page.

The subnavigation for the Place Holder Page will be displayed on the page but not in the navigation.

By using the subnavigation element, you can easily provide your visitors with links to any subnavigation on your site without having to display too many items to the actual navigation!