Symphony.

I thought the section link implementation could use some love at first, but after using Symphony 2 and section links I must say that we've grown to like one another.

I'm working on a store for a non-profit's programs. Each program has several variations consisting of dates and times. Section links have allowed me to organize the programs logically and in a way that is meaningful both in the backend and frontend.

For example: I have a section titled programs and a section title classes that has a section link to programs. This allows me to create classes of the same program that have different dates, times, prices etc.

Brilliant. Where's your love?

I just discovered the other night that a section-linked section can have more than one parent. Brilliant.

I told you the implementation was correct Lewis, just took some stepping outside of the ideas that Symphony 1.7 molded you into :)

The penny just dropped. I gotta say, I love this feature. This is just what I needed to pull off the DesignAdmin project. Now I can link items like:

Clients : Projects : Milestones : Tasks

and

Clients : Tickets : Tasks

and

Entities : Entity Types

where Entities can be

• Company
• Clients
• Vendors
• Employees
• Contractors
• Members

The Entities section can have the following fields:

• Company Name (text input, required)
• Code (text input)
• Description (textarea)
• Website (text input, validation=URI)
• Email (text input, validation=email)
• Primary Contact (text input)
• Cell (text input)
• Phone (text input)
• Fax (text input)
• Address (text input)
• City (text input)
• Province/State (text input)
• Postal/Zip Code (text input)
• Country (text input)
• Type (section link: Entity Types)

The Entity Types section has the following fields:

• Type (text input)
• Description (text input)

The only problem I might see is if, for example, a contractor becomes an employee. There is currently no mechanism to assign an entry to a different type, or to assign several types to an entry. An employee could potentially also be a client or vendor at the same time. It would then be necessary to add identical entries to each type that applied if there were no mechanism to link to multiple types.

I could see the same possibility for images that might be reused from one entry to another. Rather than rename the file and upload again, it might be better to be able to link to an already existing image. But these are minor edge cases, really.

At the moment, I am trying out the possibility of building a financial management application that fits into the DesignAdmin application.

I can create a section called Accounts with the following fields:

• Name (text input)
• Number (text input)
• Description (text input)
• Account Type (section link: Account Types)

These can be populated with the following entries:

• Bank
• Accounts Receivable
• Current Asset
• Fixed Asset
• Asset
• Accounts Payable
• Credit Card
• Current Liability
• Long Term Liability
• Equity
• Income
• Cost of Goods Sold
• Expense

The Account Types section would have these basic fields:

• Type (text input)
• Description (text input)

Now, I just need to link in the Transactions and Transaction Types and I'll have the foundation for a basic financial application.

Considering the flexibility gains here, I think the section link is a phenomenal feature!