The Navigation Area displays a hierarchy of icons that represent collections of computers, individual computers, managed resources, and tasks. Each Navigation Area icon identifies a plug-in. At the highest point, or root of the tree, is the Management Environment. The Management Environment plug-in contains one or more host computer plug-ins that are managed by the console. Each computer plug-in contains multiple application plug-ins that contain managed objects, tasks, and actions for a related set of system entities or resources.
When you click on a plug-in icon in the Navigation Area, it opens to display its contents in the Contents Area. Navigation Area icons that are preceded by an expansion symbol (plus sign or '+') represent plug-ins that contain other plug-ins. When the expansion symbol is in the closed state (minus sign or '-'), a single-click on the icon causes the plug-in to display its lower-level plug-ins in the Contents Area, but does not expand the Navigation Area branch represented by the expansion symbol. A single click on the expansion symbol causes the Navigation Area branch to expand, revealing lower-level plug-ins, but does not update the Contents Area. By double-clicking on a Navigation Area icon, the navigation branch expands and the contents area updates to display the lower-level plug-ins.
You can adjust the width of the Navigation Area with respect to the Contents Area by clicking and dragging the Navigation Area sash to the right or left. If you need to maximize the space available for the Contents Area within the console, you can completely close off the navigation area by dragging the sash all the way to the left. A single click on the sash also causes the Navigation Area to close, and a subsequent click causes it to reopen to the previous position.