Create a list of pages in Orchard

Question

Lets say for example, I have a list of products that each have it's own page... in what way can I create a single page that will list each product as it's contents as a list (with hyperlinks)? Not really sure how to do this directly in Orchard - or will I need to create a custom page / widget? Thanks for any help... new to Orchard and not sure how to tackle this.

Answer 1

You have a couple options. I believe the Orchard gallery at orchardproject.net has a module called Simple Commerce that may solve your problem. (it's simple so it might not)

(In the following section, I've tried to boldface the terminology words that are 1) are crucial to understanding how to use Orchard and 2) helpful in finding your way around the dashboard)

Another option may be first creating a Content Type--probably one named Product with some Fields describing an individual product. Price, SKU and description come to mind, but you'll be better able to describe your own products. Each Content Type in Orchard can be associated with any combination of Parts. You may have to research which ones you actually want for an individual product, but I'd recommend:

1. Body (this could replace the Description I suggested above) You could include any amount of HTML/script in this section to make your individual product pages look fancy!
2. Common (this has to be added when Containable is used)
3. Containable (this will allow the items to be listed)
4. Route (so you can link to a specific product) This gives each product its own slug (URL)
5. Tags (to allow products to be categorized)

Now, you need to create a new List from the dashboard so you can display the products together (and inherit other features like pagination, etc). Be sure to select the Product Content Type in the Contains drop down list.

Then, you can start creating your Content (your Products) one by one. In the dashboard, click the new Product item and describe each new piece of Content.

Finally, you can link directly to this new List using the Products List's *slug*. You could (and might want to) add the Products List to your main navigation menu. Clicking the Products List and checking the "Show on main menu" box will automagically add a navigation button directly to this page. You could, of course, link to this List from anywhere using the slug (also found on the list's edit page)

This page, from the Orchard documentation pages describes more things you can do with a list of content like modifying the layout of the list, placing content fields in different places and even converting your products to widgets which you could use to display some promotional product offering in a special spot on your site.

I highly recommend reading through at least the documentation provided on the Orchard site to get a good grasp of what this CMS can do out of the box and what you would need to write custom code to accomplish (which you could do in this case, but Orchard can handle it out of the box)

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Two ways to do this: http://orchardproject.net/docs/Creating-lists.ashx and http://orchardproject.net/gallery/List/Modules/Orchard.Module.Contrib.Taxonomies