Navigation Areas

This area lists all of the navigation areas that are defined for use in the CM environment. The Edit icon at the bottom of the list enables you to add new navigation areas to the system, delete existing ones, or select exiting ones to change their properties.

The specific navigation areas that you select here determine which navigation areas are available for use by the navigation items that you define in the sitemap for this website. You must ensure that the master page used by this website contains elements that support all of the navigation areas that you select.

The master page of every template supports the four default navigation areas (Primary, Secondary, Auxiliary, and Footer). If you select any navigation area for use in this website besides these four defaults, you must ensure that the master page used by the website contains the elements needed to support that navigation area.

iMIS can support a maximum of 30 navigation areas, and each navigation area must have a unique Name.

Caution! Avoid deleting a navigation area, because doing so will remove it from the entire system, which affects all CM websites in the system. When you delete a navigation area, all navigation items that are currently defined to be displayed in that area will still appear in that navigation area in rendered website pages. The master page contains a framework for the navigation area, and published navigation items still contain the properties that make them be displayed in the deleted navigation area. The navigation area will not completely disappear from all of your rendered websites until you edit and save every navigation item in the system that currently uses it.

When defining a navigation area, the following properties are displayed. Not all of these properties are actually used by every navigation area. The specific properties that are used depend on which of the three ASI-developed controls are used in the website's master page to render the navigation area. For more information, refer to Defining navigation areas and breadcrumb areas.

■    Navigation Pane Code - (read only) - Specifies a unique identifier that must be used in the NavigationPaneCode attribute of various asi: and asiweb: controls used in master pages to support navigation areas. When you add a new navigation area, this code is displayed as 0 until you click Save and then select the navigation area to view its properties. (For more information, refer to Defining navigation areas and breadcrumb areas.)

■    Static Display Levels - Specifies how many levels of the sitemap hierarchy (which is zero-based) to display by default in this navigation area, based on the value of the Starting Level field. For example, if this value is set to 2 and Starting Level is set to 3, then the 3rd and 4th levels below the sitemap root are displayed in the navigation area.

Only navigation items that are active and not hidden are displayed. (Controlled respectively by the fields This navigation item is active and This navigation item is hidden, both located the Options section of the definition for a navigation item.)

If the range specified by this value comprises more than one level, the rendered list of navigation links is by default collapsed to the first level, requiring users to click one of the parent links in the range to expand that node to show the child links. This default behavior can be overridden on a per-navigation-item basis by selecting the This navigation item is expanded by default checkbox in the Options section of the navigation item's definition.

Note: This value is ignored by the asi:PageNav and asi:PageNavR controls that (by default) render the Primary navigation area, and by the asiweb:NavigationList control that (by default) renders the Auxiliary and Footer navigation areas.

■    Dynamic Display Levels - Specifies how many additional levels in the sitemap hierarchy to display when the lowest level of the range specified in Static Display Levels is expanded, either by user action or because the This navigation item is expanded by default checkbox is selected in the Options section of the definition for a navigation item.

Only navigation items that are active and not hidden are displayed. (Controlled respectively by the checkboxes This navigation item is active and This navigation item is hidden, which are both located in the Options section of the definition for a navigation item.)

Note: This value is ignored by the asi:PageSubNav control that (by default) renders the Secondary navigation area, and by the asiweb:NavigationList control that (by default) renders the Auxiliary and Footer navigation areas.

■    Starting Level - Specifies the level of the sitemap hierarchy (which is zero-based) that constitutes the first (initial) level of the Static Display Levels field. The value 1 corresponds to the first level immediately beneath the sitemap root (~). For example, if this value is set to 3 and Static Display Levels is set to 2, then the 3rd and 4th levels below the sitemap root are displayed in the navigation area.

Note: This value is currently ignored by the following ASI-developed controls for rendering content areas: asi:PageNav, asi:PageNavR, asi:PageSubNav, and asiweb:NavigationList. As a result, this field has no effect on navigation area behavior in the current release.