Navigating the Model 

Purpose

Your model defines a hierarchy of components, which may be modules (used to organize model elements), pages, iViews, and iView views and data functions. You can view the entire model hierarchy in the Explore task panel.

 

Process Flow

To open this task panel, choose Search ® Model Explorer. A tree representing the hierarchy of elements already defined in the model is displayed in the task panel.

Model Explorer Browse Tree

 

When you first create a new model, only one node appears in the tree, representing the entire model. As you add elements to your model, nodes are added to the tree accordingly.

 

Result

While the Model Browser provides an overview of the entire model, the workspace displays only one part of the model at a time. You can navigate the model by expanding portions of the tree, and selecting nodes for display. The Options menu at the top right of the Explore task panel gives you the following options for organizing your model hierarchy:

·        Sort by Type or Sort by Name

·        Show detailed tree: Displays all model components, including all the UI components in the iView (as in the previous figure). When this option is not selected, only main model components – modules, pages and iViews – are shown in the tree.

·        Display Hierarchy Lines: Adds vertical lines to the tree structure for clarifying the hierarchy of components.

·        Single-click to Open (rather than using a double-click to open each component)

Note that not all model elements can be displayed in the Layout and Preview workspaces. Therefore, Model Browser navigation is best performed in the Design workspace, which displays the model components – pages and iViews – or the iView components.

For more information about navigational tools, see:

·        Creating Portal Content

·        Searching through the Model

 

Example

If the model contains two pages, and each page contains three iViews, when you select (double-click) the model node in the Model Explorer, the workspace displays two page icons, as in the following example.

 

 

If you navigate to the next level down and select one of the pages, the Design tab displays three iView icons, as in the following example:

 

 

If you navigate to the next level down and select an iView or one of the elements contained in the iView, the Design tab displays the iView diagram, as in the following example:

 

You may also navigate by double-clicking icons displayed in the Design workspace. For example, you can double-click a page icon to open the page, and you can double-click an iView icon to open the iView.

The navigation path that appears above the workspace indicates the location in the hierarchy of the component displayed in the workspace. You can click the different segments of the path to navigate to the component each segment represents. You can also click the double-arrows that separate the segments. Note that as you navigate through the model, your location is shown in the model browse tree.

Additional navigation tools are found in the Search menu (in the main menu), including the Back, Forward, and Parent commands.