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Adding SmartTarget navigation seems straightforward using the Show SmartTarget Navigation Template Building Block with the following layout template snippet:

<tcdl:region id="Sidebar" type="SmartTarget"> 

</tcdl:region>

I understand we also have attributes for the TBB:

  • Page Region
  • Show Categories
  • Show number of items
  • Header markup
  • Footer markup

Could I somehow influence the header and footer markup using Tridion fields or items in the template package? Or would it make sense to localize the template for BluePrinting that markup?

In addition to this it looks like we have to set up "live attributes" in the System Manager. Are these the configured fields that show up in SmartTarget navigation?

Do they become (Tridion) dynamic links? I'm trying to understand the pieces we need for SmartTarget Navigation.

Edit: Noticed this post by Jonathan Williams giving some functional background on ST Navigation, Search, and Promotions.

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Whatever you put in the "Header markup" and "Footer markup" parameters will be output verbatim within the header and footer for the navigation. So you could output a dynamic Component Presentation if you wanted to.

Unfortunately, there is not yet a way to set TBB parameters dynamically so you can't get it from a metadata field or something without creating your own TBB or post-processing the results.

What you see as navigation links are the Navigation Facets added in Fredhopper; think of them as filters on the results that can be combined. For a field to be added as a Facet, it needs to be a live attribute first. All of this is done within the Fredhopper Business Manager.

The links are not Tridion related as such. They contain the new Fredhopper query that should be executed to get the right result. This query is parsed automatically by the SmartTarget tags/controls.

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  • Good idea on the DCP. I guess other types of "includes" would work (client- or Web Application-side). I'll give the setup a try, thanks!
    – Alvin Reyes
    Mar 6, 2015 at 17:00
  • I think I found the Business Manager facets. But I'm not sure on the basics of FH/ST navigation. What happens as a visitor clicks on the navigation items in the Sidebar region (these typically show as links, right)? Do we need another region that returns matching "results" or do the results replace what's in that Sidebar region example?
    – Alvin Reyes
    Jun 30, 2015 at 17:43
  • When you click on a link in the navigation, it loads the same page but with parameters for all of the facets that are required to show the desired data. This is then parsed by the controls and applied to the query, replacing what was there before the user clicked on the link. Yes, that is sorcery; we aim to please.
    – Peter Kjaer
    Jul 2, 2015 at 8:26

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