Auto-populate site tree items for SilverStripe site

Question

I am still learning SilverStripe, and right now, I have a list of 50-60 pages I have to create for a site. It was suggested that I find a way to auto-populate the SilverStripe site tree with some code in order to save time (as opposed to manually creating each page one at a time). I have never tried something like this before (with or without a CMS). I know what the parent and child page names are, and I suppose I would need to create a loop to build out the child pages for each parent.

Is this something that is possible in SilverStripe? Would a for loop be the best approach or is there a more efficient way? If I can make creating these pages easier, it would be great for me for this project and future ones, so any advice would be appreciated!

Answer 1

My understanding of this question is that you want to pre-populate the pages and their content programmatically rather than manually entering them in the CMS. There are a few projects that might help you.

1. Populate module ( https://github.com/dnadesign/silverstripe-populate )
2. SilverSmith ( https://github.com/unclecheese/SilverSmith )

Or you could simply override DataObject::requireDefaultRecords and build the pages out there. I would often use that method for functional or one-off type pages (eg ShoppingCart).

Answer 2

There is also a Site Tree Importer from SilverStrip Labs . It's hosted on Github

Answer 3

Yes, it's possible.

<ul>
<% loop $Menu(your id here) %>
    <li>
        <a href="$Link" class="$LinkingMode">$MenuTitle.XML</a>
        <% if $Children %>
        <ul>
        <% loop $Children %>
            <li>
                <a href="$Link" class="$LinkingMode">$MenuTitle.XML</a>
                <% if $Children %>
                <ul>
                <% loop $Children %>
                    <li>
                        <a href="$Link" class="$LinkingMode">$MenuTitle.XML</a>
                    </li>
                <% end_loop %>
                </ul>
                <% end_if %>
            </li>
        <% end_loop %>
        </ul>
        <% end_if %>
    </li>
<% end_loop %>
</ul>

Keep in mind that the code may differ a little and that this is for SilverStripe v3+