[opencms-dev] Best way to include Navigation

[Michael Goodwin]

The site i'm working is statically exported and served by IIS (boo). The
navigation is based on the directory structure.

Just to summarise, the ways to include the navigation are:

1. using a cms include
problem a:   This works, but there is no way (that i know of) to make the
navigation element dependant on the directory structure - as its precise
dependancy is detirmined at run time, so it isn't necessarily republished
to reflect changes to the site.
-perhaps some function/tag similar to include on a file, but only there to
imply a dependancy on a file/ a folder

problem b:  When it is changed all files which include the navigation need
to be republished/exported (which is slow) and files are larger than
necessary


2. using an IIS server-side include
eliminates problem b
still problem a
and
problem c: As ASP code is inside comments when previewing the page, through
/opencms/opencms/ instead of /export/  the navigation isn't there

As a possible work around, is it possible to make a jsp page aware of
whether it is being run as a once only export or not (in which case you
could choose either a cms or an asp include)


3. Using a client side include. Not as simple as you would think...
would solve all mentioned problems
and would allow client side caching to speed up the site no end (the menu
is perhaps 2/3 of all textual data for most pages)

problem d: I can't do this satisfactorily
frames are crap
iframes also (is it possible to have them appear seamless? - no
box/scrollbar)
can't get xhtml external entities to work

Any thoughts or good strataegies appreciated

Mike.