repo_zf1/documentation/manual/en/module_specs/Zend_Navigation-Introduction.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<sect1 id="zend.navigation.introduction">
    <title>Introduction</title>

    <para>
        <classname>Zend_Navigation</classname> is a component for managing
        trees of pointers to web pages.
        Simply put: It can be used for creating menus, breadcrumbs, links, and
        sitemaps, or serve as a model for other navigation related purposes.
    </para>

    <sect2 id="zend.navigation.introduction.concepts">
        <title>Pages and Containers</title>

        <para>
            There are two main concepts in <classname>Zend_Navigation</classname>:
        </para>

        <sect3 id="zend.navigation.introduction.pages">
            <title>Pages</title>

            <para>
                A page (<classname>Zend_Navigation_Page</classname>) in
                <classname>Zend_Navigation</classname> –
                in its most basic form – is an object that holds a pointer
                to a web page. In addition to the pointer itself, the page
                object contains a number of other properties that are
                typically relevant for navigation, such as <property>label</property>,
                <property>title</property>, etc.
            </para>

            <para>
                Read more about pages in the
                <link linkend="zend.navigation.pages">pages</link>
                section.
            </para>
        </sect3>

        <sect3 id="zend.navigation.introduction.containers">
            <title>Containers</title>

            <para>
                A navigation container
                (<classname>Zend_Navigation_Container</classname>) is a
                container class for pages. It has methods for
                adding, retrieving, deleting and iterating pages.
                It implements the <ulink url="http://php.net/spl">SPL</ulink>
                interfaces <classname>RecursiveIterator</classname> and
                <classname>Countable</classname>, and can thus be iterated
                with SPL iterators such as
                <classname>RecursiveIteratorIterator</classname>.
            </para>

            <para>
                Read more about containers in the
                <link linkend="zend.navigation.containers">containers</link>
                section.
            </para>

            <note>
                <para>
                    <classname>Zend_Navigation_Page</classname> extends
                    <classname>Zend_Navigation_Container</classname>, which
                    means that a page can have sub pages.
                </para>
            </note>
        </sect3>
    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="zend.navigation.introduction.separation">
        <title>Separation of data (model) and rendering (view)</title>

        <para>
            Classes in the <classname>Zend_Navigation</classname>
            namespace do not deal with rendering of navigational elements.
            Rendering is done with navigational view helpers. However,
            pages contain information that is used by view helpers
            when rendering, such as; <property>label</property>, <acronym>CSS</acronym> class,
            <property>title</property>, <property>lastmod</property> and
            <property>priority</property> properties for sitemaps, etc.
        </para>

        <para>
            Read more about rendering navigational elements in
            the manual section on
            <link linkend="zend.view.helpers.initial.navigation">navigation
            helpers</link>.
        </para>
    </sect2>
</sect1>