Action Groups provide a submenu grouping of actions within the assigned tab. In the following screenshot, the Page Preview is highlighting the submenu Main Asset, which is the Caption for the associated ActionGroup. In RelatedInformation ActionContainer, we can see the other ActionGroup, Fixed Asset, Insurance, and History matching the submenu groups on the ribbon's NAVIGATE tab:
The following are theActionContainer properties:
- ID: This is the automatically assigned unique object number of the action
- Name and Caption: These are displayed in Action Designer
- CaptioML: This is the action name displayed, depending on the language option in use
- Description: This is for internal documentation
The following are the ActionGroup properties:
- ID: This is the automatically assigned unique object number of the action.
- Name and Caption: These are displayed in the Action Designer.
- Visible and Enabled: These are TRUE or FALSE, defaulting to TRUE. These properties can be assigned Boolean expressions, which can be evaluated during processing.
- CaptionML: This is the action name displayed, depending on the language option in use.
- ToolTip and ToolTipML: This is for helpful display to the user
- Description: This is for internal documentation.
- Image: This can be used to assign an icon to be displayed. The icon source is the Activity Button Icon Library, which can be viewed in detail in the Developer and IT Pro Help. Here is a screenshot of the Properties for an action from Page 5600 - Fixed Asset Card followed by explanations of those properties:
The following are the Action properties shown in the preceding screenshot:
- ID: This is the automatically assigned unique object number of the action.
- Name and Caption: These are displayed in the Action Designer.
- CaptionML: This is the action name displayed, depending on the language option in use.
- Visible and Enabled: These are TRUE or FALSE, defaulting to TRUE. These properties can be assigned Boolean expressions, which can be evaluated during processing.
- RunPageMode: This can be View (no modification), Edit (the default), or Create (New).
- ToolTip and ToolTipML: These are for helpful display to the user.
- Description: This is for internal documentation.
- ApplicationArea: This allows us to hide controls based on the Application Area feature introduced in NAV2017.
- Image: This can be used to assign an icon to be displayed. The icon source is the Action Icon Library, which can be viewed in detail in the Developer and IT Pro Help at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics-nav/action-icon-library.
- Promoted: If Yes, show this action in the ribbon Home tab.
- PromotedCategory: If Promoted is Yes, this defines the category in the Home tab in which to display this action.
- PromotedIsBig: If Promoted is Yes, this indicates if the icon is to be large (Yes) or small (No - the default).
- Ellipsis: If Yes, this displays an ellipsis after the caption.
- ShortCutKey: This provides a shortcut key combination for this action.
- RunObject: This defines what object to run to accomplish the action.
- RunPageView: This defines the table view for the page being run.
- RunPageLink: This defines the field link for the object being run.
- RunPageOnRec: This defines a linkage for the run object to the current record.
- InFooterBar: This places the action icon in the page footer bar. This only works on pages with a PageType of NavigatePage.
- Gesture: This allows an action to be executed, swiping left or right using the universal client.
To summarize a common design choice, individual Ribbon actions can be promoted to the ribbon Home tab based on two settings. First, set the Promoted property to Yes. Second, set the PromotedCategory property to define the category on the Home tab where the action is to be displayed. This promotion results in the action appearing twice in the ribbon, once where defined in the action structure hierarchy and once on the Home tab. See the preceding screenshot for example settings assigning the Depreciation Books action to the Process category in addition to appearing in the Fixed Assets category on the Navigation tab.