Pros and cons of the two approaches

Several pros and cons of the Hierarchical approach may now be apparent:

Pros:

• The structure (and therefore the location of narratives) should fall relatively easily into a logical pattern.

  This makes locating and managing content fairly straightforward.

• A visual representation of the related narratives is possible on the Hierarchy tab.

  This makes locating and managing content fairly straightforward!

Cons

• It is not possible to locate a narrative in more than one position in a hierarchy.

  Why this might be an issue will become apparent when we look at preparing Narratives content for the web. Narratives on the web are displayed based on relationships established in the Narratives module. If it is desirable for a narrative to be presented in more than one grouping of narratives, the Hierarchical approach may be too limiting.

  As we've seen there are ways to work around this however.

• The sort order of objects as they display on the Hierarchy tab (and therefore on the web) is not flexible. In our illustration we see that each level in the hierarchy is arranged alphabetically:

  

Several pros and cons of the approach By Association may now be apparent:

Pros:

• Narratives can appear anywhere and any number of times in a broad hierarchy of narratives.
• It is possible to control the order of narratives as they display in the Narratives module and on a web page.

Cons:

• It is not possible to represent the relationships by association visually as we can with Hierarchical approach. If we look at the Hierarchy tab for the Science Fiction Movies narrative, we find that none of the associations are displayed:

  

  As the number of associated narratives grows and individual narratives are associated here and there throughout the web of associations, it may become difficult to maintain perspective about the placement of narratives. If it is possible to stick to a logical hierarchy in which narratives at one logical level always point to the level above, this is less of an issue, but when narratives start relating elsewhere across a hierarchy it could become difficult to keep track of the relationships.