Using a parsys as the page header

[joel_triemstra]

Are there any recommendations for or against using a parsys as the page's header, and allowing an author to drag on a logo, menu, etc, versus coding those into the JSPs associated with the page's template? I'd probably set the path of that header parsys to some common locations, so changes affect all pages.

The use case is that I have a client who wants to push their agencies to build websites in CQ and use some common set of templates and components, but I expect a lot of variability in what they want in styling and the header. So I plan to allow agencies to create CSS files for their sites to style components, and if I allow a variety of components in the header, agencies can style to position them as needed.

[justin_at_adobe]

Hi Joel,

An iparsys would probably be a better fit for this use case.

Justin

[Scott_Brodersen]

You might also consider limiting who can change the content of the parsys:

http://dev.day.com/docs/en/cq/current/developing/boilerplates.html

scott

[Ojjis · Accepted solution]

Hi Joel, here are some thoughts.

Well as Justin proposed above you could use the iparsys with the option that the underlying pages would inherit the menu and you would not need to store the info about that one on some special location.

Thinking in a very module-based way, this would be quite nice. You don't limit yourself to a set header design and you could have each agency compose their own very special looking header. And you could then later on develop different header element that those agencies can drag into the header (as you know you can limit what is allowed to go into where).

Thinking from a maintenance/support point of view this could become quite exhausting since you then have an infinite number of pages to troubleshoot etc. Inconsistency-wise there's also nothing that stops the agencies from messing things up if they disable the inheritance somewhere or add more things to underlying pages and their headers, which would lead to a messy site and a strange experience. Maybe this is nothing to be to worried about though :) 

Eventually this all depends on the amount of control one needs to have over the sites and the structure of those. If you really feel like you would need perfect control over things then maybe you would be interested in just letting people add styles to the headers and maybe change the logo (image/position) etc and then keep the header in the different templates you set up.

Hope you'll find something that suits you !

/Johan