Is there a simple up-to date Structure tutorial?

Question

I've been trying to get my head around Structure (3.3.8) for EE2 for almost 6 hours and I keep on going around in circles. I must have missed a basic concept.

I've read the documentation, read the Structure support site and it either refers me back to documentation that is not particularly clear, or to a tutorial / guide for a much older version of Structure.

I am trying to achieve in the Structure CP list something that resembles the following :

Company Information -
             --- About
             --- Legal
             --- etc ...

Product Group A -
             Product 1
             Product 2
             Product 3 etc

Product Group B -
             Product 4
             Product 5
             Product 6 etc

I have set up a channel for 'Company Information' which comprises of entries for 'about', 'legal' etc, I have also set up channels for Product Group A and Product Group B which have their own specific product entries.

Something is obviously not connecting in my mind as to how Structure is supposed to work.

Can anyone shed some light on this without referring back to the official Structure documentation.

Answer 1

Your channels should not match your nav, they should match your page types. So you really only need, in what you've laid out:

1. Channel: Pages
2. Channel: Products

Pages has the fields that comprise a Page. Products has the fields that comprise a Product.

Go to Channel Settings on your Structure screen. You'll see those two channels. Set each as Type: Page. Then set a template that has the code that renders them appropriately.

That template just needs {exp:channel:entries channel='pages'} or {exp:channel:entries channel='products'}. Dynamic="on" by default, and Structure passes in the entry reference.

That's it. Now on the Structure screen, when you click Add Page at any level in the tree, you can choose Pages or Products to insert a page into the navigation hierarchy.

There's obviously much more you can do. Just remember, a page = channel entry married to template at a specified URL.

Answer 2

I created this screencast a while ago https://vimeo.com/26023392