Expression Engine Channels, Categories and Entries - All with differeny custom fields

I have a site with these sections in the top nav:

1. About Us
2. News
3. Staff
4. Become a Member

Within each top nav item, is X amount of sub sections. eg:

About Us

• Who We Are
• Industry Stats
• Annual Report

Then, within each one of those has X amount of sub pages:

About Us

• Who We Are
• • Overview
• • Our History
• • Our Objectives

The root level top nav items (About Us) will always require the same custom fields. The middle and bottom level pages will generally have the same content, and but will be much different to that of the root level, and so requires a different set of custom fields.

I have set the structure up so that the root items are the channels, the middle are categories, and the lower levels are just 'entries'.

My problem now, is that using a 'channel field group' on the root channel obviously filters through all categories and entries associated. So when I go to edit or publish a category landing or entry page - i am stuck by b开发者_如何学Ceing shown the custom field group for the root landing page.

I would like it so that the end user (my client) doesnt have to see a lot of custom fields when they edit or publish a page that isnt at root channel level.

How to I set this site up, so that I can pick and choose different field groups on different pages that are within the same channel?

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While you can use custom Publish Page Layouts per channel and per member group, as far I'm aware you can't present 'pages' or entries with varying Publish Layouts.

If you're using different templates for levels in your navigation, Blueprints, may be what you're looking for.

Blueprints lets you take control of your Publish Layouts [...] It is designed let you create Publish Layouts based on templates.

The taxonomy in how way you've architected your navigation and 'pages' is interesting, but not one as a client I would like to maintain or understand. For example, something as simple adding a new top-level section or page of the site should be easy, but with your methodology would require setting up an entirely new channel!

Some ExpressionEngine add-ons that may be better suited for your site and still allow you to achieve the customization you desire would be Structure, NavEE or Taxonomy — of course theres always the the native Pages Module as well.