Keeping Track Of User Navigation For Titles

Suppose you have a site structure that looks like this:

|--Countries.asp
|      |
|--Region.asp
|      |
|--Cities.asp
|      |
|--Population.asp

You start at the Countries page with a list of Countries.
If you click on UK, the site would take you to the Region
page and display the following at the top:

UK

This would give some context to the list of regions the
user was looking at.  If the user then clicks Midlands to
view Cities in the Midlands.  The Cities page would
display:

UK > Midlands

To give a context to the list of cities.  Then if the user
clicked Birmingham to view population data I'd want the
following at the top of the population page:

UK > Midlands > Birmingham

I've been trying to do this by creating a session variable
in the countries page, and just adding to it as I go
along.  However I've just discovered a major flaw with
this approach.  If I click the back button and then
refresh, I end up with something like this:

UK > Midlands > Birmingham > Midlands

Which is obviously wrong.  To compound matters the user
could go from Countries directly to population, so it'd
need to read:

USA > Population

Or they could goto population from region, ie:

USA > East Coast > Population

In this situation, how could track the movements of the
user to correctly display navigation information?

TIA

Colin

use a separate session variable for each level in your hierarchy.


--
Mark Schupp
Head of Development
Integrity eLearning
www.ielearning.com


"Colin Steadman" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:161a01c4a626$f86ba9f0$a601280a@phx.gbl...
> Suppose you have a site structure that looks like this:
>
>   |--Countries.asp
>   |      |
>   |--Region.asp
>   |      |
>   |--Cities.asp
>   |      |
>   |--Population.asp
>
> You start at the Countries page with a list of Countries.
> If you click on UK, the site would take you to the Region
> page and display the following at the top:
>
> UK
>
> This would give some context to the list of regions the
> user was looking at.  If the user then clicks Midlands to
> view Cities in the Midlands.  The Cities page would
> display:
>
> UK > Midlands
>
> To give a context to the list of cities.  Then if the user
> clicked Birmingham to view population data I'd want the
> following at the top of the population page:
>
> UK > Midlands > Birmingham
>
> I've been trying to do this by creating a session variable
> in the countries page, and just adding to it as I go
> along.  However I've just discovered a major flaw with
> this approach.  If I click the back button and then
> refresh, I end up with something like this:
>
> UK > Midlands > Birmingham > Midlands
>
> Which is obviously wrong.  To compound matters the user
> could go from Countries directly to population, so it'd
> need to read:
>
> USA > Population
>
> Or they could goto population from region, ie:
>
> USA > East Coast > Population
>
> In this situation, how could track the movements of the
> user to correctly display navigation information?
>
> TIA
>
> Colin

setup a hierarchy, store it wherever (db, xml, text, etc).
Then on each page have an ID that coresponds to a level in this hierarchy
(1,2,3,(n))
When you build the display of each page, look up this page's value and write
the hierarchy to that point.


--
Curt Christianson
Owner/Lead Developer, DF-Software
Site: http://www.Darkfalz.com
Blog: http://blog.Darkfalz.com


"Colin Steadman" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:161a01c4a626$f86ba9f0$a601280a@phx.gbl...
> Suppose you have a site structure that looks like this:
>
>  |--Countries.asp
>  |      |
>  |--Region.asp
>  |      |
>  |--Cities.asp
>  |      |
>  |--Population.asp
>
> You start at the Countries page with a list of Countries.
> If you click on UK, the site would take you to the Region
> page and display the following at the top:
>
> UK
>
> This would give some context to the list of regions the
> user was looking at.  If the user then clicks Midlands to
> view Cities in the Midlands.  The Cities page would
> display:
>
> UK > Midlands
>
> To give a context to the list of cities.  Then if the user
> clicked Birmingham to view population data I'd want the
> following at the top of the population page:
>
> UK > Midlands > Birmingham
>
> I've been trying to do this by creating a session variable
> in the countries page, and just adding to it as I go
> along.  However I've just discovered a major flaw with
> this approach.  If I click the back button and then
> refresh, I end up with something like this:
>
> UK > Midlands > Birmingham > Midlands
>
> Which is obviously wrong.  To compound matters the user
> could go from Countries directly to population, so it'd
> need to read:
>
> USA > Population
>
> Or they could goto population from region, ie:
>
> USA > East Coast > Population
>
> In this situation, how could track the movements of the
> user to correctly display navigation information?
>
> TIA
>
> Colin