Creating links on the Viewpoint menu bar

Customizing Viewpoint > Customizing navigation components > Creating links on the Viewpoint menu bar

3.2.1 Creating links on the Viewpoint menu bar

You can specify the links that appear in the navigation menu bar by using the <nav-menu> element. The <nav-menu> element has the same attributes and values as the <top-link> element (see Adding/editing top links) and also supports images the same way <top-link> does.

To create a drop-down link on the menu bar

Open the core.xml file located in the Viewpoint home directory.
Scroll to the <nav-menu> element.
Insert the <menu> child element. Set the label attribute to the category name to appear in the navigation bar.

For example, if you wanted to add a new drop-down menu option named "Reporting":

<nav-menu>
  ...
    <menu label="Reporting"</menu>
</nav-menu>

If you want to display an icon with the label, use the <image> child element of <menu>. Specify the image path from the $CATALINA_HOME directory. For example:

<nav-menu>
  ...
    <menu label="Reporting">
        <image>images/reporting_icon.png</image>
    </menu>
</nav-menu>

If you want to display only the image for the link, remove the label attribute of <menu>. For example:

<nav-menu>
  ...
    <menu>
        <image>images/reporting_icon.png</image>
    </menu>
</nav-menu>

Configure the link(s) to reside within the category by inserting a <link> element inside of <menu>.

href – The href component works just like an HTML link. This can be a URL to an external source, or it can link to Viewpoint-specific functionality (for a list of Viewpoint page hrefs, see Viewpoint page URLs).
target – The target describes where the link should be opened. The possible values are:

Value	Description
thisWindow	Exits the Viewpoint Web application and displays the new page in the same window as the link.
newWindow	Opens the link in a new window.
subFrame	Displays the link's contents in the Viewpoint application panel.

label – The label attribute is the display name of the menu or item.

For example, if you wanted a link named "Reports" to take users to the Viewpoint Reports page, do the following:

<nav-menu>
  ...
    <menu label="Reporting">
        <link href="reporting" target="thisWindow" label="Reports">
        </link>
    </menu>
</nav-menu>

If you want to give the link an icon, insert an <image> element within <link>. Specify the image path from the $CATALINA_HOME directory. For example:

<nav-menu>
  ...
    <menu label="Reporting">
        <link href="reporting" target="thisWindow" label="Reports">
            <image>images/reporting_icon.png</image>
        </link>
    </menu>
</nav-menu>

Restrict who may use the link by setting permissions (for more information, see Filtering navigation with permissions). For example:

<nav-menu>
  ...
    <menu label="Reporting">
        <link href="reporting" target="thisWindow" label="Reports">
            <image>images/reporting_icon.png</image>
            <permission name="report.read" />
        </link>
    </menu>
</nav-menu>