Detailed Navigation as an External Service in the iPanel 

Use

You can define detailed navigation so that it appears directly in the iPanel as an External Service and is not as a Java iView on a page.

Prerequisites

If you were working with the default model for detailed navigation (Java iView on a page) and want to move the detailed navigation to the iPanel, you no longer need the special Java iView for detailed navigation on the page you built. You therefore have to remove the Java iView from all the pages you use in your roles and worksets.

To remove the iView, go to the Page Editor. Change the pages by marking the Java iView for detailed navigation as "invisible". The iView disappears in the page layout.

If you do not change to detailed navigation in the iPanel as described above, you will experience an unwanted effect: double detailed navigation (one in the content area on a page and one in the iPanel).

Activities

  1. In the Role Editor, create an External Service based on the Master iView PortalNavigation.Clientsidedetailnav. You can find out how to create an External Service based on a Master iView in the Administration Guide under Roles ® Role Maintenance ® Definition and Provision of Role Contents ® Creation of External Services ® Creating External Services Based on a Master iView.

    2. Note that the technical name of the External Service must be clientsidedetailnav.

  2. In file multiplexer.dat under folder Enterprise Portal\DataFile change the value DTN=0 to DTN=1. This value defines that the detailed navigation should move to the iPanel.
  3. In file pnfcommon.properties change the value #FixedDetailNavigation=true to FixedDetailNavigation=true.

You can find this file for JRUN under <irj>\WEB-INF\plugins\portal\resources\PortalNavigation\properties\pnfcommon.properties and for SAP J2EE Engine 6.20 under <irj>\root\WEB-INF\plugins\portal\resources\PortalNavigation\properties\pnfcommon.properties.

Once this setting has been made, top-level navigation calls the detailed navigation from the iPanel and not from a page.

  1. Restart the Web Server (IIS) and JRUN or J2EE Engine.
  2. You can now work with the detailed navigation in the iPanel. When you expand the iPanel, you see the detailed navigation in the iPanel as an additional radio button at the bottom.

If you start an External Service from this detailed navigation, the Back to function does not appear as usual in order to return to detailed navigation. This function is no longer necessary if detailed navigation is running in the iPanel. It is not displaced by the External Service.

If you want to have detailed navigation as a Java iView on a page again, change the values in files multiplexer.dat and pnfcommon.properties back to the default values. Then restart the Web Server (IIS) and JRUN or J2EE Engine. Adjust the roles and pages by re-assigning the Java iView for detailed navigation to the pages used in the roles.

Result

You also need a page that is called as the default page when the user chooses an entry in the second level of top-level navigation. If this page does not exist, an error message appears in the content area of the portal instead of a page with contents. You therefore must define a page and define this to be your default page for the portal. Note that this page does not need a Java iView for detailed navigation.

Note that under Netscape the detailed navigation does not appear in the iPanel.