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2.8 Navigation Area and Quick LaunchLocate this document in the navigation structure

Use

Navigation Panel and Navigation Tabs

You can hide the navigation panel and the navigation tabs from the shell to give maximum space to the application and content. In the View menu, deselect Navigation Panel or Navigation Tabs .

Example of NWBC with and without navigation panel and navigation tabs

You can open the navigation tab menu by choosing the Arrow icon in the upper right part of the shell.

You can hide navigation tabs by choosing the Pin icon, which appears when you hover with the mouse cursor over the work center entry. The navigation tab disappears and the entry is grayed out in the work center menu.

You can change the order of the navigation tabs as follows:

  • By clicking the upper corner of a navigation tab and dragging and dropping the navigation tab

  • By dragging and dropping the Arrow icon

You can scroll to reach navigation tabs that are not visible by choosing an arrow in the Arrow icon.

You can change the icon of a navigation tab by right-clicking the navigation tab and choosing Change Icon .

Quick Launch

The quick navigation is optional and can be used either as an enhancement or as a replacement of the normal navigation (for power users). By choosing Start of the navigation path View Next navigation step Quick Launch End of the navigation path, you can search and navigate quickly within NWBC.

Power users can search for entries within the navigation tree using a type-ahead input field. Type in a query string in the quick launch and all matches in all roles are displayed. You can now start a search in all categories that have been configured or, in case of a transaction in an ABAP system, start the transaction in the ABAP system directly. Alternatively, you can navigate to the work center listed below.

Note

You can launch a transaction by using the quick launch only if NWBC is connected with an ABAP system. For more information, see 3.4.1 Configuring Connections .

Note

In the quick launch, the search for transactions is case-sensitive . If you are not sure whether the transaction you are looking for begins with an upper case letter or not, you can skip the first letter and begin your search with the second letter. Usually, this leads to the results you require. For example, when searching for User Maintenance ( SU01), search for ser Maintenance instead, and the result is SU01 or User Maintenance . In this context, the search in the normal navigation tree is not case-sensitive, but camel case is supported.

The quick launch is sorted in the following order:

  • In the first section, you can navigate directly to a URL by choosing Navigate to Web Address , if you have typed in a URL in the format www.xyz.com :

    URL example

    In the next section, you can start a search in your predefined search providers. Then all transactions are displayed. You can start every transaction in the ABAP system directly.

  • The second section shows the recently opened and favorite entries. The matches are displayed in alphabetical order. By clicking the matching item, you can open the corresponding application.

  • A breadcrumb-like navigation is also available. This shows the path to the actual content area and enables relative navigation at any level (click > icon to select another sibling).

Quick launch example in PLM with query string por

Special Features

The following special features in the quick launch can help to improve productivity:

  • You can use the same /n or /o sequence from SAP GUI to launch a SAP GUI transaction, for example, /oME21 .

  • You can open a Web page directly from the quick launch by typing in the address, for example, www.sap.com or http://www.sap.com .

  • Within the quick launch, a normal click starts the selected application in the main window, whereas SHIFT + click opens a new window.

  • You can use mnemonic search with your predefined search providers.

    For more information, see 3.4.2 Configuring Search Providers .

    Note

    You can only use mnemonic search with the quick launch function.

    You can configure the mnemonic search function only in the front end.

    To use the mnemonic search, in the Launch: field, enter a letter which is configured as mnenomic for a selected search engine, followed by the search string. The search is then carried out directly in the search engine configured for this letter. For example, [a] is configured as mnenomic for search on the SAP homepage (as in the example in 3.4.2 Configuring Search Providers ). When you enter a in the quick launch followed by the search string, the search is carried out on the SAP homepage.

    Note

    Using mnemonic search, you can also start the desktop search function. Per default, [d] is configured as mnenomic for desktop search.