Add Custom Navigation Menu to Browser View

You can change the FlowTracer web pages viewed through the browser so there is a customized navigation menu along the top. This allows you to provide explicit links so users can access other useful web pages without needing to create bookmarks to get there.

The added navigation menu is displayed just above the bread-crumb path in the top left of the page. The navigation menu can have one or many navigation choices.

The navigation menu choices are placed on a web page as anchor tags, which are standard HTML elements to define hyperlinks. An anchor tag is composed of an anchor text and a URL. The anchor text is what is displayed on the web page as the navigation choice. The URL is the hyperlink that is followed when a user clicks on the anchor text.

Example HTML source generated for custom navigation menu:

[<a href="http://license.myhost.com:1721">licmon</a>]
[<a href="cgi/cgi-metrics.cgi">metrics</a>]
[<a href="URL">anchor text</a>]

Which would display as a custom navigation menu looking like this:
[<a href="">licmon<a>] [<a href="">metrics<a>] [<a href="">anchor text<a>]

Note: The links in this and other examples on this page are not live links.

The URL can be a path to a location on the same domain, or can hold a fully qualified path to a resource at any domain.

Define Custom Navigation Menu Items

A custom navigation menu is registered by setting the EXTLINKS property of the unique "graph object" node in the flow. This graph object node is the one with an id value of 1. You set the EXTLINKS property of this particular node to define the custom navigation menu. Setting the EXTLINKS property on any other node will not do anything.

The added navigation menu is defined by placing pairs of anchor texts and URLs into the EXTLINKS property. Each pair of values defines one navigation menu entry. The anchor text and URL values are separated by one or more blank spaces. The pairs of values are separated by one or more blank spaces.

EXTLINKS Property Value:
anchor_text URL   anchor_text URL   anchor_text URL   ...

where anchor_text is the text displayed for the menu choice and URL is the hyperlink to follow when the navigation menu choice is clicked.

When there is an odd number of values in the EXTLINKS property, this means that one entry is not a pair. This will lead to the situation where the last value in the list will be interpreted as anchor text for a navigation menu choice but the associated hyperlink URL will be undefined.

Use Multiple Words in a Custom Navigation Menu

If you want to use multiple words in the anchor text that is displayed as the menu choice, you must set the space between words to something that is not a blank space, because a blank space is considered a separator between the anchor text and the URL, and between the pairs.

You can use an underscore or dash between words instead of a blank space. This gives a menu choice that is readable. However, the menu choice will contain the underscore or dash.

EXTLINKS Property Value:
Altair_Monitor  http://mydomain.com:3866   View-Metrics  /cgi/metics.cgi

Which would display as a custom navigation menu looking like this:
    [Altair_Monitor] [View-Metrics]

You can use the HTML entity code for a blank character ( ) between words instead of a blank character. This will cause the menu choice to show a blank character between words.

EXTLINKS Property Value:
Altair&nbsp;Monitor  http://mydomain.com:3866   View&nbsp;Metrics  /cgi/metics.cgi

Which would display as a custom navigation menu looking like this:
    [Altair_Monitor] [View-Metrics]

Set the EXTLINKS Property

You can set the EXTLINKS property from the command line, or from the browser interface.

This example shows setting the property value from the command line using the vovprop command to define a navigation menu. The value follows the above rules for defining two navigation choices.

# The property is type text, is being set on node 1, 
# and defines two custom navigation menu choices.
# The action "SET" can be lower case. The property name "EXTLINKS" must be upper case.
% vovprop SET -text 1 EXTLINKS 'License&nbsp;Monitor  http://myhost:5555   Metrics  /cgi/metrics.cgi'

Set the EXTLINKS property to an empty string to remove the custom navigation menu.

# The property is type text, is being set on node 1, and has an empty value, 
# as the technique to remove the custom navigation menu.
# The action "set" can be upper case. The property name "EXTLINKS" must be upper case.
% vovprop set -text 1 EXTLINKS ''

If you have Admin Security privilege, you can change the EXTLINKS property using a web based dialog in the browser. You can access this web based dialog either by going to the Messages page, or by clicking on the "[Edit Message]" navigation control that is visible to Admin Users in the bottom left of the page.

Both paths lead to a web page dialog where you can edit the EXTLINKS property. You are presented with a table for doing data entry, where the anchor text can be entered in the column called Label and the URL can be entered in the column called URL. Clicking Update EXTLINKS Property button submits the changes to the system.