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About the Menu-Based Interface

A special set of themes and UI controls is provided to build a menu-based interface:

• Base Theme with Menu. This theme must be selected as the base theme. This theme provides auto-repricing. No base theme is provided to select manual repricing.
• Menu Product Theme. This theme must be selected as the product theme. It displays relationships and their contents. It does not displays attributes, resources, or linked items.
• Standard Menu Group Theme. This theme must be selected for all groups except a summary page group.
• Summary Menu Group Theme. Assign this theme to a group when you want to display a summary page. For more information on summary pages, see Adding a Summary Page.
• Check Box For Menu Theme. Select this UI control to display a check box with price.

The menu-based interface displays each group as a menu item. When the user clicks on the group name, a pane opens and displays the items that can be selected in that group. When the user makes a selection, the selection is displayed below the group name. Figure 9 shows a menu-based selection page. Two groups have been defined, Stereos and Options. The user's selection is shown below each group.

Figure 9.  Example of Menu-Based Selection Page

Both group names are hyperlinks. If the user clicks on the Options group, a pane displaying the contents of that group opens as shown in Figure 10. The user can then select items from that group. When the user is finished, they click Menu to close the pane.

Figure 10.  Option Package Group

Observe the following guidelines when using these themes and controls:

• The menu-based themes and controls can be used in conjunction with employee and partner applications. They cannot be used with customer applications, such as Siebel eSales.
• You cannot mix menu-based themes and controls with other types of themes and controls in a product. For example, if you select a menu-based base theme, you must also select a menu-based product theme as well as menu-based UI controls.
• A Customizable product that will be a component of another customizable product cannot use menu-based themes and controls. For example CP2 is a customizable product and a component of product CP1. CP2 cannot use menu-based themes and controls. Note that CP1 is not restricted from using menu-based themes and controls.
• Only one summary group can be defined for products that use menu-based themes and controls. The summary group must be named: &nbsp.
• Menu-based UI controls for links, resources, and attributes are not supported. Do not add links, resources, or attributes to groups.