Navigation XML - A complete site hierarchy available to query at the front-end
The Navigation XML files provide the backbone of a Contensis site navigational structure
A sample Navigation XML file.
In order to prevent the requirement to re-publish a page every time a minor menu change occurs - such as a new page being created or deleted - Contensis has a series of XML files deployed to the front-end webserver by FTP.
The XML files contain the site hierarchy and structure. This enables us to render menus based upon these structures and prevent a situation whereby a change to a menu name in one section causes a complete re-publish of the entire section.
This solution gives us the benefit of both flat file publishing, for scalability and no reliance on any database access, whilst not having to re-publish all content for a simple menu change.
We have complete API available for accessing this XML file at runtime, if you want to use it for other purposes. This API provides a managed code access to the data; it also loads the XML silently in a separate thread, to ensure that whilst a new file is being loaded there are no stalls on the website or any other code using it.