<p>Structures simply add an extra bit of sorting and querying. You can look for entries in a structure the same way you look for entries in a channel. The difference is that you can also have parents and children in a structure with a manually set order.</p>

<p>If you look at the section page for a structure and hover over an entry, you will see a move handle. You can use that to resort your entries in any order you wish. You can also move the entries to become the child of any other entry. Taking three child entries of a top-level nav and moving them to another top-level nav is no problem.</p>

<p>How you organize your content is highly contextual. I don't know what kind of site you're building, so I can't say what's best for you. Most sites I've built thus far have only needed channels save for one. And for that one, I have two structures and two channels. I'm using one channel for news entries, and the other for event entries. I'm using a structure for static pages so I can sort them into a hierarchy (and it gives me breadcrumbs). I'm also using a structure for the main menu because it needs to be set up somewhat different than the static pages (and I need extra fields). This was all chosen based on the needs of my client's site. So just think about your client's needs. Will they be editing it? Is how you have it set up now easy for them to understand how to edit?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-23T17:28:20.283Z
Also worth noting that 2.1 structure sections have performance problems in the CP UI when you have several hundred entries in them.  We're addressing this for 2.2.
Brad Bell
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-25T02:26:48.097Z
Not sure I remember all the reasons, but I pulled apart a recent design and made the menu structure separate from the pages.
narration_sd
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-25T02:27:18.613Z
Not sure I remember all the reasons, but I pulled apart a recent design and made the menu structure separate from the pages.
narration_sd
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-25T02:39:16.823Z
Absolutely hass this comment system, esp when net just dumped me. One reason was to allow client to find entries grouped for different contexts they'd show for under same menu. Plus you might think about desirability of huge hierarchies and consequent menu trees in this day and age. Alternatives? Landing pages and Craft relations for one. And then search: think about why google's way won in our massively informated times...
narration_sd
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-23T12:21:30.580Z
2014-07-23T12:21:30.580Z
Bryan Redeagle
<p>I'm trying to decide how to organize my content on a site with a few levels of hierarchical content. I'm toying with the idea of creating structures for all my top level navigation items, with a few levels of nested content for sub-navs and sub-sub-navs.</p>

<p>My main concern is that if there are 100+ sibling entries deep inside one of my structures, how coupled are the entries to the hierarchy of the structure? Would I be able to later move that section to a completely different main navigation structure?</p>

<p>Or would I be better decoupling the a lot of my content into singles and smaller structures or channels, and sacrifice the relationships between the pages and the neat tree-like representation that gives clients a better overview of their site structure?</p>

<structure><content><singles>
How flexible is tying content to a structure?
# How flexible is tying content to a structure?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-07-23)

I'm trying to decide how to organize my content on a site with a few levels of hierarchical content. I'm toying with the idea of creating structures for all my top level navigation items, with a few levels of nested content for sub-navs and sub-sub-navs.

My main concern is that if there are 100+ sibling entries deep inside one of my structures, how coupled are the entries to the hierarchy of the structure? Would I be able to later move that section to a completely different main navigation structure?

Or would I be better decoupling the a lot of my content into singles and smaller structures or channels, and sacrifice the relationships between the pages and the neat tree-like representation that gives clients a better overview of their site structure?

**Tags:** structure, content, singles


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2014-07-23. Score: 4 | Accepted answer

Structures simply add an extra bit of sorting and querying. You can look for entries in a structure the same way you look for entries in a channel. The difference is that you can also have parents and children in a structure with a manually set order.

If you look at the section page for a structure and hover over an entry, you will see a move handle. You can use that to resort your entries in any order you wish. You can also move the entries to become the child of any other entry. Taking three child entries of a top-level nav and moving them to another top-level nav is no problem.

How you organize your content is highly contextual. I don't know what kind of site you're building, so I can't say what's best for you. Most sites I've built thus far have only needed channels save for one. And for that one, I have two structures and two channels. I'm using one channel for news entries, and the other for event entries. I'm using a structure for static pages so I can sort them into a hierarchy (and it gives me breadcrumbs). I'm also using a structure for the main menu because it needs to be set up somewhat different than the static pages (and I need extra fields). This was all chosen based on the needs of my client's site. So just think about your client's needs. Will they be editing it? Is how you have it set up now easy for them to understand how to edit?

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: Also worth noting that 2.1 structure sections have performance problems in the CP UI when you have several hundred entries in them.  We're addressing this for 2.2.  
> **username_3**: Not sure I remember all the reasons, but I pulled apart a recent design and made the menu structure separate from the pages.  
> **username_3**: Not sure I remember all the reasons, but I pulled apart a recent design and made the menu structure separate from the pages.  
> **username_3**: Absolutely hass this comment system, esp when net just dumped me. One reason was to allow client to find entries grouped for different contexts they'd show for under same menu. Plus you might think about desirability of huge hierarchies and consequent menu trees in this day and age. Alternatives? Landing pages and Craft relations for one. And then search: think about why google's way won in our massively informated times...  

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