Understanding Navigation Pages

You enable the display of standard navigation pages at the registry level on the General Settings page. You can then disable the display of standard navigation pages for specific folders in the registry on the Folder Administration page.

You access standard navigation pages by clicking a folder icon in the menu navigation. Items contained within the folder, including content references and other folders, are arranged in columns on the page.

Image: Standard navigation page

The following example illustrates a standard navigation page for the PeopleTools, Security folder.

From a navigation page, you can click any content reference link to directly access the component without drilling down through the folder hierarchy. When you click a folder link on a standard navigation page, you access another standard navigation page that reflects the contents of the selected subfolder.

Image: Standard navigation page for the User Profiles folder

For example, when you click the User Profiles link from the Security standard navigation page, the standard navigation page for the User Profiles folders appears as shown here:

While standard navigation pages automatically display only the contents of a selected menu folder, custom navigation pages can be defined to display any content references and folders available in the menu navigation, regardless of their location.

Unlike standard navigation pages, you access custom navigation pages using links in the menu navigation instead of folder icons.

Image: Context Manager Center custom navigation page from PeopleSoft Interaction Hub

For example, in PeopleSoft Interaction Hub, selecting the Context Manager Center link in the menu navigation displays the Context Manager Center custom navigation page as shown here:

Similar to standard navigation pages, when you click a folder link on a custom navigation page, you access another navigation page that reflects the contents of the selected folder. When you click a content reference link on a custom navigation page, you access the component to which the content reference points.

See Creating or Editing a Navigation Collection.

You can enable the caching of displayed navigation pages. Enabling caching improves performance because the next time the same navigation page is accessed from any computer via the same web server with the same cache designation (role, user, or public), the navigation page is retrieved from the web server cache. To clear the web server cache memory, stop and restart the web server or wait until the cache time elapses.

Methods for enabling caching depend on the method that you use to access navigation pages:

• To enable caching for a custom navigation page accessed by clicking a content reference link, select the Enable Caching option on the Publish Collection page when you publish the custom navigation page.

  On publication, the Cache Enabled Value field value you entered on the System Options page is added to the published custom navigation page registry structure definition.

• To enable caching for all folders or navigation paths, select the Enable Drill Down Cache option on the System Options page.

  Enter a value in the Cache Enabled Value field (role,max-age=30, for example).

• To enable caching for a standard navigation page that you access by means of menu navigation, edit the content reference for the Base Navigation Page object (PT_PTPP_SCFNAV_BASEPAGE_SCR) in the portal registry.

  The Base Navigation Page content reference is located in the Tools - Hidden folder. In the Content Reference Attributes group box, enter the PSCACHECONTROL attribute name and an attribute value, such as role,max-age=30.

See Setting Up Navigation Collection Options, Publishing Navigation Collections, Administering Content References.