TamWiki

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Navigation in webs can be a tricky thing. There are a few norms, which of course are violated every day of the week on any given web site. However, there are a few things that bear mentioning.

Page Titles

Every page should have a meaningful title. The <title></title> tag in the header is the most useful place to put this. Sometimes, the title is calculated or derived from some other place; with luck, this will be done before the browser sees it (see Server Side Page Generation).

The page title appears in the title bar of the window. Another really nice place to have it is right at the top of the displayed page. But, I hear you complaining "but I don't *want* to have to retype it!" -- fear not. The way around this is with a bit of JavaScript, which can be included in your Page Template:

 	<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">
		document.writeln(document.title)
	</script>

Pretty nifty, eh? And if you include it inside the H1 tag, it looks like a great page title.

(See more on Page Titling)

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Site Navigation

Most often navigation within pages is handled using links (especially within the WikiWeb). However, some common navigational aids are useful. Major functions or areas of the site are frequently put along the left-hand side or along the top of the page. Sometimes this is done with frames, other times with tables (see Frames Vs Tables?). For this site, the navigation is at the top and the bottom of the page. (in the Wiki web in particular, much of the functionality is at the bottom of the page.) In any case, having a way of moving through the site by major chunk is useful for many people.

Every page should allow the user to go to the front or home page of the site; this is so people who may have come to your page via a link from another site won't be confused about how to get around your site once they are there.

(See more on Site Navigation)

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Page Navigation

Within the page, there may be internal links to various parts of the page. For long pages, having a Table Of Contents? at the top is nice. If you do have a very long page, breaking it up into screenfuls is nice (although contrary to some, I don't think it is necessary to break it up into separate page. (See Page Breaking Up Is Hard To Do). As each screenful goes by, however, it is also nice to give the reader a pause with a divider or a simple graphic, as well as a link to go back up to the top of the page or table of contents.

Doing this is really straightforward.

Simply done:

 <a name="pagetop"></a>

at the top of the page, and:

 <a href="#pagetop">Go to top of page</a>

(See more on Page Navigation)