Relationships

• Menu
• Page
• Section
• Section
• Page
• Section

Data Structure (Options)

1. Separate Elements
• Each element types’ items are stored in a separate array
• Menus, Pages, Sections
• Array items contain properties for item
• Including relationship data (parent name, etc.)
• Relationship data not 2-way
• Only child contains reference to parent
• Easier to manage/change relationship of item (don’t need to know existing relationship to make change)
• Eliminates duplicate data issues
• Examples
• Menu
• Title
• Name
• Position (In main navigation)
• Page
• Title
• Name
• Parent (Menu)
• Position (in menu sublist)
• Section
• Title
• Name
• Parent (Page)
• Position (in page)
• + Simple to change item relationships
• + Simple to target specific element
• - Building items requires iteration through entire child array to find all child elements
2. Single variable for all data
• Multidimensional array to store all menu data (Menus, Pages, Sections)
• Example

  $menu['test'] = array (
  	'pages'		=> array (
  		'page1'		=> array (
  			'sections'	=> array (
  				'section1'	=> array ([properties]),
  				'section2'	=> array ([properties]),
  				'section3'	=> array ([properties])
  			)
  		)
  	)
  )

• - Very deep array (lots of complexity for simple data)
• + Organized
• + Array defined by array structure
• + Simple to retrieve sections of a page
• - Must know current section parent to modify (e.g. change parent, etc.)
• ? Better to iterate over all items in each request or iterate all items to find section for modification?
• Will definitely need to know relationships for every request
• + Not likely to happen very often in single request
• - Potential for multiple sections with same name (should be unique)
• ? Issue?
• + Single array instead of multiple
• - Cannot target specific child items (sections) without knowing relationship
• Simpler to target using name
3. Map-based
• Separate arrays for each element type and using map to define relationships between items
• Example

  $sections = array (
  	'section_1'	=> array (
  		'parent'	=> 'test_page'
  	)
  );
  $map['sections']['section_1'] = 'test_page';
  $map['pages']['test_page']['sections'][] = 'section_1';

• - Multiple locations of relationship data
• Need to adjust both when changing relationship
• Remove old relationship from map before updating relationship
• + Easy to build menus from top-down (Menu > Page > Section)
4. Separate + References
• Separate arrays for different element types and use references for 2-way relationships
• + Uses existing objects to contain relationships
• No need for mapping data
• ? References necessary?
• Could just use item name (will be using anyway)
• A One less step to fetch child properties
• Methodology
• Add relationship

  $section['parent'] = {parent_name};
  $page['sections'][{section_name}] =& $section

• Remove relationship

  unset($page['sections'][{section_name}]);
  $section['parent'] = NULL

• Build
• Iterate through sections (bottom > top)
• Use WP functions to add sections/pages/menus
• Fetch parent data to register setting
• Iterate through remaining pages/menus and add them

Element Properties

Menu

• Name
• Title
• Position/Priority

Page

• Name
• Title
• Navigation Title
• Menu (parent)
• Callback
• Options
• Position/Priority

Section

• Name
• Title
• Page (parent)
• Callback
• Options
• Position/Priority

Building (Options)

1. Top to Bottom
• Start with Menus and work down to Sections