THL Toolbox > General Principles > Universal Navigation Help

Help in Using the Universal Navigation for THL applications

Contributor(s): Steven Weinberger, David Germano

The THL Place Dictionary, Knowledge Maps, Media Management System (image collections and bibliographies), and Tibetan Historical Dictionary share a single integrated menu system that facilitates users exploring relationships between places, topics, media (images, audio-video, documents), and terms in Tibet and the Himalayas.

At the top of the page just below the banner, you will find the horizontal blue navigation bar that has buttons for each of the main sections of THL (Places, Reference, and so forth). The universal navigation bar for THL applications sits just below this blue bar.

The universal navigation contains two rows. The first row has a tab for each of the applications, with the active tab a lighter color than the other three tabs.

• Places: the THL Place Dictionary giving access to information about places, with mapping.
• Topics: the THL Knowledge Maps present hierarchical maps of areas of knowledge, including annotations.
• Media: the THL Media Collections present especially images, with limited access to audio-video and bibliographies.
• Dictionary: the THL rich historical Tibetan dictionary provides access to detailed studies of Tibetan terms.

Clicking on another tab will take you to that application.

Below the primary tabs is a secondary set of tabs that represent menu options for the application that is active. These secondary tabs also appear and disappear contextually as you work with the content accessible within the chosen primary tab. Thus the following is a list of the secondary tabs that appear with each primary tab:

• Places: Home, Places, Essays, Related, Topics, Pictures, Videos, Texts.
• Topics: Home, Topics, Places, Photographs, Videos, Texts.
• Media: Home, Search, Browse, Photographs, Videos, Texts.
• Dictionary: Home, Search, Term, Browse, Translate, Hierarchies, Bibliography, Projects.

“Home” in every case simply returns the user to the home page of that section, which can also be accomplished by clicking on the primary tab – places, topics, media, or dictionary. When viewing a place within the PLACES tab, you can see associated photographs or topics; likewise, when viewing a topic within the TOPICS tab, you can see associated places, photographs, and so forth. Thus the secondary tabs determine the main focus a user has in terms of exploring these interrelationships – whether places, topics, media, or dictionary terms.

We plan to redesign the interface to address a fundamental problem, which is that when you are in the currently active tab and then access any of the resources found in the other three tabs, the navigation will shift over to the relevant tab for the resource you are accessing. Thus if you in the Place Dictionary and access “photographs,” you will shift from the “Places” tab to the “Media” tab. You can still return back to the place you were viewing, but it is a two-step process: you have to click on the Places tab, which delivers you to the Home sub-tab, and then click on the Places sub-tab.

In addition, the Dictionary tab is not yet fully integrated. Thus, while the Dictionary uses “Topics” in its study of Tibetan terms, the topics are not hyperlinked to their corresponding entries in the Knowledge Maps. In addition, the Dictionary is not yet at all linked to the Media Collections.

Provided for unrestricted use by the Tibetan and Himalayan Library