Adding navigation items

To add navigation items, you use the Navigation Items Library component of the IBM TRIRIGA Application Platform. Navigation items identify the targets that users can navigate to. Navigation items are the building blocks of navigation collections.

Before you begin

The navigation items that you plan to use must be in the Navigation Items Library that is included in the Navigation Builder tool.

About this task

You can create navigation items by adding a navigation item or by copying and editing an existing navigation item. To prevent the new navigation items from being overwritten during upgrade, follow the naming conventions in the Chapter 1: Naming conventions section of Application Building for the IBM TRIRIGA Application Platform.
To prevent rendering issues, avoid special characters such as /, \, &, #, and %, in the names of custom navigation items. For example, instead of the ampersand "&", use the word "and" in the navigation item name.
Note: For navigation items that are of Report target type, the name of the report will be used in the page title, and not the navigation item label. The navigation item label will be displayed in the navigation menu and the applicable breadcrumb.
Note: Platform CSS Configuration

The Platform CSS Configuration menu item exposes the custom style sheet that can be configured to incorporate themes in the new navigation according to your branding requirements. You must have the access to triPlatformMeta > triWebViewFileMeta form or be in the Admin group to see the Tools > Administration menu.

Procedure

  1. Select Tools > Builder Tools > Navigation Builder, and click Add.
  2. At the bottom of the Navigation Builder page, click the Navigation Items Library section bar.
  3. Click Add.
  4. In the Navigation Item Editor window, specify the name and label.
  5. Click Save and then click OK.
  6. Specify the following information for the navigation item:
    Option Description
    Help Text The text that is displayed when a user hovers the mouse over the navigation item.
    Visible in Sitemap only The navigation item is not visible in the menu. The navigation item is visible in the user’s sitemap and when it is incorporated into a portal section. If the navigation item is also specified as a dynamic label, only the static portion of the label is displayed in the sitemap.
    Dynamic Label The label text is displayed to the user until the dynamic label values are displayed.
  7. Depending on the sections that open in the Navigation Item Editor, you can specify the following information:

  • In the Icon Details section, you can specify an icon that is displayed next to the navigation item's label. For the icon to display, the navigation item must be part of a Portal section whose Type is set to 'Quick Links' and whose 'Large View - Includes Icons' radio button is selected in the Portal Builder. The icon name is assigned by IBM TRIRIGA after you upload the icon image to the userfiles\images folder of the IBM TRIRIGA installation directory.
    Note: Starting in IBM TRIRIGA Application Platform 3.5.0, images are no longer stored in the \userfiles\images or \userfiles\Company-1 directories on the application server. A startup process moves the current images into the database (USERFILES table), moving the existing files into a backup directory on the application server. This allows multiple application servers access to images from the same source.
  • In the Target Details section, specify the navigation target type and the target title. Depending on the target type that you select, the following fields might be shown:
    Field Description
    Application The UX application for the target.
    Business Object The business object for the query that is associated with the selected hierarchy.
    Default Query Columns The fields to display in the form for the query results.
    Default Report The report that is used as the query in scoreboard panes.
    External URL The complete URL path to the target.
    Note: The ability to link URLs directly to a folder is removed. Use Document Manager directly to upload documents.
    Form The form that displays the results of a query.
    Modify Hierarchy The hierarchy can be changed from the navigation item.
    Module The module to use to populate the target form.
    Record Add The module, business object, and report for the optional workflow to run before the form is shown.
    Report The report for the query that is associated with the selected hierarchy.
    Special Views The special views that are defined for the selected hierarchy.
    Where Used Navigation collections that reference the navigation item.

  1. Click Save & Close.