Basic Principles of Navigation (SAP Library

Basic Principles of Navigation

The role hierarchy defines top-level and detailed navigation within the portal. This documentation assumes default delivery when describing the detailed navigation (detailed navigation as a Java iView on a page).

The following role objects are important for navigation:

Folders

Folders on the first level of a role define the entry points for the user in top-level navigation. You can find out how to define the entry points in Defining Top-Level Navigation and Entry Points.

The portal user can move forward and backward in the navigation structure using folders. Folders make navigation in the portal possible at all.

Pages

Pages in a role are containers for contents (iViews). There are pages that contain the detailed navigation iView. These special pages make it possible for the portal user to access the detailed navigation. Read also Definition of Detailed Navigation.

External Services

External Services (such as SAP transactions) exist as entries in a folder and can be called by the user in top-level or detailed navigation. External Services can be started in two ways. Either they are started in a separate window. Or they fill up the entire content area and thus displace detailed navigation. External Services themselves do not contain detailed navigation. If you loaded an External Service into the content area and want to navigate back to a folder with detailed navigation, you can use a navigation help.

The following graphic shows a role whose hierarchy consists of five levels.

This graphic shows the following:

Entries F1 and F2 are on the first level of the role. They are defined as entry points in the role. These two entries appear on the first level of top-level navigation for the portal users.
Entries F11, F12 and F13 are on the second level of the role. If the portal user selects F1, these three entries appear on the second level of top-level navigation.
All levels below that (3 to 5) appear in the detailed navigation.
F113, F1114 and F11115 are folders. These are the entries that are used by users to move in the hierarchy of a role in the portal.

P13 and P15 are pages. In this example it is important that each role folder that appears as an entry on the second level of the initial navigation in the portal contains a page with detailed navigation. If this is not the case, no detailed navigation is displayed in the portal. Page P13 plays a central role in our example. If the portal user is in folder F11, page P13, which it contains, is started in the content area. This page contains detailed navigation for the portal. Page P13 normally consists of a number of different iViews. The relevant iView for the detailed navigation also appears in the content area. In this case detailed navigation displays folder F113 (with its subnodes F1114), service S3 and the page itself. The page is highlighted since it is active at the moment, that is, its contents can be viewed in the content area.

Users can move in their role hierarchies using folders F1114 and F114. However, the navigation hierarchy would not be visible in the portal without page P13 with the detailed navigation.

Page P15 does not necessarily need detailed navigation. If you like, you can also define detailed navigation for this page.

If you do not want to define a page for each role folder that appears as an entry in the second level of the top-level navigation in the portal, you must create a default navigation page. This page will be used if a folder does not contain its own page. Read also Defining the Default Page for Detailed Navigation.

Service S3 can only be accessed with the detailed navigation for page P13. If the user clicks on S3, the service in the content area is started. At the same time the service displaces the page with the detailed navigation from the content area. To return to the folder with detailed navigation (F11), use the navigation help that is provided. You can also start the service in a second window, depending on whether the service is started as inplace or external. This is defined when you maintain the properties of an External Service.