Nav Pane Groups

[DickyP]

The official documentation for Nav Pane Groups is sparse. Can anyone confirm, what appears to be the case, that an object can only be assigned to one custom group?

 

[isladogs]

Objects can be assigned to multiple groups as shown below:

 

[GPGeorge]

The official documentation for Nav Pane Groups is sparse. Can anyone confirm, what appears to be the case, that an object can only be assigned to one custom group?

Check out the Nav Panes in NW 2, primarily Developer Version. Although most of us don't bother with Nav Pane groups (preferring to try to hide the Nav Pane as much as possible in normal production), we implemented grouping in Nav Panes to illustrate how it could be approached.

If you think of it as a "shortcut" to the object, rather than a physical assignment, you can perhaps better grasp what's going on. Just as you can create multiple desktop shortcuts to an application or folder, you can create multiple groups, each with their own shortcut to an object.

 

[Pat Hartman]

According to the Access team at a meeting in Redmond in 2006 as they were demoing the beta of Access 2007, they told us that their intention was to use the groups to replace the switchboard which they wanted to deprecate. But, since we never want the user to have access to the Nav Pain (sic) that doesn't work. Also, you don't have the ability to have a user view vs a developer's view so I never bothered with creating custom groups.

 

[DickyP]

I only ever imagined groups as developer's tool. It was just that they were simplicity itself in 2003 whereas in 2021 the are complex for no obvious reason.

 

[Pat Hartman]

As I explained, some bright young thing thought they could be used to replace the switchboard which everyone thought was ugly. They didn't think it was non-functional, just not pretty. But, the groups idea was only half formed and once they realized that they didn't have a way to support two views, they stopped pushing the concept.