Creating an alternate design tag

You use an alternate design tag to display a different component based on whether the item being returned by a menu or navigator is on the current path or not.

This is the format of an alternate design tag:

[alternatedesign highlight=" " normal=" " type=" " start=" " end=" " ]

To create an alternate design tag:

  1. Click Insert a Tag from a navigator or menu design field. The Tag Helper dialog opens.
  2. Select Alternate Design as the tag type.
  3. Select a component to use when displaying items not on the current path in a navigator or menu design. This would typically be a text or HTML component containing the code used to display a navigator or menu result, such as a placeholder tag. This is added to the tag as the normal=" " parameter.
    Note: If you select type="parent" or type="any" in step 5, the highlighted design is used by all the site areas in the current item path.
  4. Select a component to use when displaying items on the current path in a navigator or menu design. This would typically be a text or HTML component containing the code used to display a navigator or menu result, such as a placeholder tag. This is added to the tag as the highlight=" " parameter.
  5. Select whether to apply the alternate design tag to the current content item, the parent site area, or any item being returned by a navigator. This is added to the tag as the type=" " parameter.
    Note:
    • When adding an alternate design to a menu design, only select type="current" or type="any" because site areas cannot be displayed in menus.
    • When adding an alternate design to a navigator design, you should only use type="current" if the navigator has been configured to display content items.
  6. Click OK to add the tag to your navigator design.
Once you have added the tag to your design, you can also add the following parameters to the tag:
Table 1. Additional tag parameters
Tag parameters Details
normal=" " To use the library specified in the URL of the current page, use normal="./name"
Note: If you specify normal="./name", the library name does not appear in your presentation template or element design. The actual path is not resolved until the item is rendered.
highlight=" " To use the library specified in the URL of the current page, use highlight="./name"
Note: If you specify highlight="./name", the library name does not appear in your presentation template or element design. The actual path is not resolved until the item is rendered.
start=" "

end=" "

 The Start and End attributes are used to wrap the data returned by a tag within other tags, such as HTML. These attributes are not mandatory.
Displaying different code for content items and site areas:
To display different code when returning content items or site areas in a menu or navigator you need to use two alternate design tags. One for your content items and one for your site areas. For example:
[AlternateDesign highlight="./currentsiteareacomponent" normal="./othersiteareacomponent" type="sitearea"]
[AlternateDesign highlight="./currentcontentcomponent" normal="./othercontentcomponent" type="content"]
Parent topic: Creating web content tags