Thursday, November 23, 2006
Portal Navigation with Short URLs VS Quick Links
Since Netweaver 04, the new Service Pack has provides a very nice features to improve the navigation in the portal. More and more companies start to implement External Facing Portal.
There are two navigation methods are very useful when we implement External Facing Portal, there are Short URLs and Quick Links.
Before these two navigation methods, we used to implement Absolute Navigation and Relative Navigation links to navigate portal pages and iviews among the navigation nodes.
One of the draw back of using these navigation methods are the navigation path is usually getting so long that it may cause more times to load the page, especially when we try to implement a light-weight navigation framework for out external portal. Also there is a limitation to the length of URLs, the long URL can lead to loading problem.
Now, we can use Short URLs and Quick Links to improve this problem.
I wrote a forum post about the SDN last week and get some good inputs from some members.
Here I would like to make some summary on these two navigation methods.
The portal supports navigation based on short URLs (also called Hashed URLs, as the navigation service actually put the long URL into a has table and assign a hash key for it). Instead of a URL such as the following:
http://myServer:50000/irj/portal?NavigationTarget=
ROLES://portal_content/administrator/super_admin/super_admin_role
/com.sap.portal.system_administration/com.sap.portal.system_admin_ws/com.sap.portal.permissions
the portal creates another URL for the same navigation target such as the following:
http://myServer:50000/irj/portal?NavigationTarget=
navurl://0c3c7ac0dfe1083d8f50ae954b8ec25f
(Note: 0c3c7ac0dfe1083d8f50ae954b8ec25f is the hash key in the hash table where the long URL assigned to.)
An administrator can turn this feature on, and then the navigation service creates hashed URLs for all navigation nodes. All links created by the navigation service are generated as hashed URLs and not as the original URL.
Also, the portal enables users to navigate to a specific node by entering the portal’s base address followed by a short string, or quick link.
For nodes defined by the roles connector, a portal administrator can assign quick links to a node by setting the Quick Link property of the iView or page associated with the node.
The quick link is for end users to get to a specific location quickly - it is a user friendly way to navigate. The short URL is mainly to prevent incredibly long URLs appearing all over the place.
In order to use the Short URL's you need to
1. Set the "Use Short URLs" property to "TRUE". This is done from System Administration -> Navigation -> Short URL's
2. View the iViews at least once from the portal, so that a short URL is generated before you can use the Short URL.
Where as in the case of the Quick URL, we need to add a value to the "Quick Link" property associated with the iView.
We usually use the Short URLs in an External Facing portal scenario, while we use Quick Links in the normal Portal scenario.
When you use Short URLs a unique short URL id is created for the iViews. No duplication of values for Short URLs.
In case of Quick Links nothing prevents you from creating a duplicate quick link. If one quick link string is defined for two navigation nodes, the first node in the user’s navigation tree is displayed.
I personally think that these navigation methods make the portal navigation like the regular websites, and it provides more efficient navigation and more user-friendly, in the sense that we don’t have to track the long URL in the web browser. It may also provides more security for the portal, since the actual portal navigation path is not shown in the browser URL field.
There are two navigation methods are very useful when we implement External Facing Portal, there are Short URLs and Quick Links.
Before these two navigation methods, we used to implement Absolute Navigation and Relative Navigation links to navigate portal pages and iviews among the navigation nodes.
One of the draw back of using these navigation methods are the navigation path is usually getting so long that it may cause more times to load the page, especially when we try to implement a light-weight navigation framework for out external portal. Also there is a limitation to the length of URLs, the long URL can lead to loading problem.
Now, we can use Short URLs and Quick Links to improve this problem.
I wrote a forum post about the SDN last week and get some good inputs from some members.
Here I would like to make some summary on these two navigation methods.
The portal supports navigation based on short URLs (also called Hashed URLs, as the navigation service actually put the long URL into a has table and assign a hash key for it). Instead of a URL such as the following:
http://myServer:50000/irj/portal?NavigationTarget=
ROLES://portal_content/administrator/super_admin/super_admin_role
/com.sap.portal.system_administration/com.sap.portal.system_admin_ws/com.sap.portal.permissions
the portal creates another URL for the same navigation target such as the following:
http://myServer:50000/irj/portal?NavigationTarget=
navurl://0c3c7ac0dfe1083d8f50ae954b8ec25f
(Note: 0c3c7ac0dfe1083d8f50ae954b8ec25f is the hash key in the hash table where the long URL assigned to.)
An administrator can turn this feature on, and then the navigation service creates hashed URLs for all navigation nodes. All links created by the navigation service are generated as hashed URLs and not as the original URL.
Also, the portal enables users to navigate to a specific node by entering the portal’s base address followed by a short string, or quick link.
For nodes defined by the roles connector, a portal administrator can assign quick links to a node by setting the Quick Link property of the iView or page associated with the node.
The quick link is for end users to get to a specific location quickly - it is a user friendly way to navigate. The short URL is mainly to prevent incredibly long URLs appearing all over the place.
In order to use the Short URL's you need to
1. Set the "Use Short URLs" property to "TRUE". This is done from System Administration -> Navigation -> Short URL's
2. View the iViews at least once from the portal, so that a short URL is generated before you can use the Short URL.
Where as in the case of the Quick URL, we need to add a value to the "Quick Link" property associated with the iView.
We usually use the Short URLs in an External Facing portal scenario, while we use Quick Links in the normal Portal scenario.
When you use Short URLs a unique short URL id is created for the iViews. No duplication of values for Short URLs.
In case of Quick Links nothing prevents you from creating a duplicate quick link. If one quick link string is defined for two navigation nodes, the first node in the user’s navigation tree is displayed.
I personally think that these navigation methods make the portal navigation like the regular websites, and it provides more efficient navigation and more user-friendly, in the sense that we don’t have to track the long URL in the web browser. It may also provides more security for the portal, since the actual portal navigation path is not shown in the browser URL field.
Labels: External Facing Portal, Portal
