RedActor Site Structure
The RedActor electronic document management system permits a nested, recursive structure of pages as best fits the organizational requirements of a particular topic. Various sections of the site can be organized as best fits that section, independently of other areas. The hierarchical structure of pages is not limited by a static structure.
The most basic element of a RedActor site is the template. This is a skeletal page that carries fixed content that does not vary, such as masthead graphics and page footer information. Page content is extracted from a database and dynamically substituted into templates to create actual content pages that are displayed.
The rest of this section describes logical constructs, not predefined fixed documents. Each type of page is created dynamically from a combination of fixed templates and different sources of dynamic content.
The top level of document that is actually displayed is called a web page. These are the starting point for a downward branching hierarchical structure. Web pages can be recursive downward; that is, web pages can be assigned under other web pages, to whatever depth is required. While designed to be recursive, web pages are designed to contain standalone blocks of text.
When a point is reached in the hierarchical descent that it is desired to associate multiple pages of text into a single web page, the article structure is used. Articles, like web pages, are dynamically created by the combination of a template with dynamic content. However, they are organized differently.
Articles are organized within categories. One or more categories are assigned to a web page.
The display style of categories and articles assigned to a particular web page is determined by dynamic scripting contained within the web page. This allows the presentation and organization of each section to be as unique as desired.
The key concept to distinguish web pages from articles is how they are organized.
Web pages standalone pages of text; while they can be assigned to other web pages as parent pages, they are not aggregated in any way.
Articles are aggregated into categories; one or more categories in turn are assigned to a parent web page. This structure permits multi-leaf branching from a web page into different categories and articles.
To facilitate an even deeper hierarchical structure, articles can be assigned to other parent articles. This permits a structured page tree to descend as deep as needed to fit the subject being presented.
As can be seen, RedActor presents almost limitless flexibility in hierarchically structuring a document tree. While this can cause confusion if not tightly managed, the flexibility of RedActor's page structure gives unique opportunity to organize your material optimally for reading.
