The Folders & Views view is provided with an action button to create new folders. If this action is used, the agent GetFolders is automatically run as soon as the new folder is created.

If a new folder is created by another means, if a folder is deleted, or if its design is modified, it will be necessary to trigger GetFolders manually. An action button is provided in the view for that purpose.

The rest of the design
The remainder of the design consists of the individual content folders, a form to hold the Web content of the database, and a view in which to manipulate those documents.

The design of the content folders influences how their list of documents will be presented at the bottom of the navigation Web page. In the example database, all content folders are based on the same design. Traditionally with this form of navigation the list of documents is limited to the document titles displayed in alphabetical order. Hence, the design of the content folders has just one column, which displays the titles of its documents. There's no reason, however, why you have to limit the display to just the document title. You may want to add columns for author, dates, or other relevant information.

An important consideration is what you name the content folders. The users will infer the structure of the folder hierarchy from the names you supply. The names you use should be intuitive to the people who browse your Web site. Names should be short to conserve screen space, but they should be long enough to be unambiguous.

Acknowledgements
The idea for this article came from a discussion between Chad Bennett of Sasaki Associates in Watertown, MA and myself. I am indebted to Chad for planting the seeds of the article.

Glenn S. Orenstein, President of Glenn Orenstein Consulting, Inc., is a Principal Certified Notes Professional designer. Visit his Web site at http://www.gorenstein.com or send him email at glenn@gorenstein.com.