SeedCodeComplete2

Navigation Bar

How can I set the contents of the navigation bar?

The navigation bar was introduced in version 3.0 of SeedCode Complete.

Visit the Navigation tab of the Settings layout and you'll see an interface where you can select which layouts show up in the nav bar. Click on a layout to select it; click again to de-select it.

Navigation items take their name and their sort order a from FileMaker's list of layouts, so if you want to change the name or order of some item, change the layout / layout order in the FileMaker then click "refresh list" in the lower left of the Navigation tab.

My changes to the navigation bar don't persist past the current session

If your solution is hosted, then the global settings are only persisting for that one session. You have two options...

1. Take the files off the server, make your settings changes to the navigation, then rehost the files. This will give your users the fastest possible experience.

2. Edit the script "Upon Opening" in SeedCode Complete and enable the perform script calling "Load Selected Layouts Into Nav Bar". This way we'll just do this every time then file starts up... but that is marginally slower.

How can I modify the navigation bar?

The actual navigation buttons are each repetitions of the field Interface::NavigationBarGlob.

So extending this to include more buttons is as simple as...

a) adding a new repetition of the field Interface::NavigationBarGlob to your layout, and

b) editing the script parameter sent in the field's button to be the same as the repetition number of that field.

click image for a larger version

Note that this is simplest if you copy an existing navigation bar button and paste it back in; this way the item retains it's conditional formatting and is already calling the correct script. SeedCode has 25 repetitions of this Interface::NavigationBarGlob so you can have that many menu items if you'd like; if you need more, define additional repetitions and the replace the number "25" at the beginning of the script "Load Selected Layouts into Nav Bar".

Security

As with the nav items names and their sort order, the navigation system simply reflects the security in place in FileMaker. So if a given privilege set is not allowed to see a layout, that layout won't appear in the nav system when a user with that privilege set logs in. The other nav items will slide to the left, taking its place.

Tips and tricks

Adding Actions, or things that aren't layouts

Note that all the items in that nav bar need not be instances of the field Interface::NavigationBarGlob. You can put our own buttons and icons there to do whatever you'd like.

Another way of creating actions is to use a layout for the action: the nice thing about this is that the layout will respect access privileges so you can hide the action from some users by just restricting access to that layout for some privilege sets. For an example of this, check out how we did the layout "Time". Note the script trigger on the Time layout, and the way the script "Show Time Entry Layout..." begins.

Spacing and arranging nav bar items

Even though the items in the nav bar are repeating fields, they aren't tied to each other, so you can increase or decrease the size of individual repetitions to suit your needs. You can also place them in different locations if you need to.

Copying the nav bar from layout to layout

The navigation bar is context agnostic, so you can copy it from any layout in SeedCodeComplete and paste it on any other layout in Complete without modification.

System Map

How can I modify the system map on the home layout?

The map on Complete's home layout gives you a quick visual overview of the main components of SeedCode Complete. You can click on any item to jump to that sections of the software.

This map is a simple set of FileMaker objects that you can move around, rename, and extend. Each box is a FileMaker button with a transparent graphic on top of it. Simply slide the graphic aside and you'll be able to change the button definition beneath it:

Most buttons are simple Go To Layout commands, but you can add your own refinements here to run scripts, bring up new layouts, etc.

The text on top of each box is straight forward FileMaker text, though we do have it there twice to create the drop shadow effect. The lists of entities in each section (customers, plaintiffs, etc. in the contacts section) are examples of the kinds of entities you can record there.