Let’s be honest. The Navigator is the entry point to all applications but advanced users write in the short name of the form like HR11 or MMS001. But what if you don’t know what to search for?

The administrator can prepare a canvas for you with all the necessary shortcuts… or what if you had a Start Pad with the functions you use the most?

I’ll show an easy way to do two different kinds of start pads. The mashup project can be downloaded from my SkyDrive.

Let’s start with the Procurement Start Pad. It is based on buttons with icons. The icons are included in the mashup project as resources.

<Button Name="LateOrders" Height="76" Width="112" Grid.Column="0" Grid.Row="0" Margin="16" IsDefault="True" Style="{DynamicResource styleButtonPrimaryMashup}" ToolTip="Late orders">
    <Button.CommandParameter>
        <mashup:Events>
          <mashup:Event SourceEventName="Click" LinkUri="mforms://PPS220" />
        </mashup:Events>
      </Button.CommandParameter>
    <Image Margin="6" Source="Icons\alarm128.png" />
</Button>

The LinkUri can be any link, for example a M3 bookmark or an enterprise search that will bring out all late orders for the current user. The button style ‘styleButtonPrimaryMashup’ is available in the framework but you can use your own styling so the sky is the limit here.

The resulting example looks like this:

This new control is available in the first version of the Mashup designer. There is also another control that you can use that has a different approach. It uses the idea that everything you can launch is a Task. The example can be found in the TileMashup.xaml file.

In the Tile example a new control is introduced, TileShortcut. It’s kind of a draft and does not support styling but it does have the option to show a rather fixed sub menu with subtasks. This way it is possible to group a number of tasks under one icon. In the example I used icons that are packed with LSO but you can just as well link in your own images by adding them as resources as in the previous example or have them as URIs. I would recommend you to pack the images with the mashup so that they don’t get downloaded but are deployed with the mashup.

Please note that the icons that are packed with LSO might be removed (or moved into a separate feature) in coming versions. They are available in version 9.1.2, 9.1.3, 10.0.0 and 10.0.1. But you will use them at your own risk since they are not officially documented.(Edit 2013-March, the icons are inlcuded up until version 10.0.5, but they will not be available in higher versions).

You have to add a namespace mapping to xmlns:core=”clr-namespace:Mango.UI.Core;assembly=Mango.UI”, then you can use the Task class.

<mashup:TileShortcut Text="To Do" Margin="300" ImageSourceRest="pack://application:,,,/Mango.Skin;Component/Resources/FrogPond/Images/Shortcuts/Icons/todoDefault.png" ImageSourceDisabled="pack://application:,,,/Mango.Skin;Component/Resources/FrogPond/Images/Shortcuts/Icons/todoDefault.png" ImageSourceHot="pack://application:,,,/Mango.Skin;Component/Resources/FrogPond/Images/Shortcuts/Icons/todoRollover.png" ImageSourcePressed="pack://application:,,,/Mango.Skin;Component/Resources/FrogPond/Images/Shortcuts/Icons/todoRollover.png">
<mashup:TileShortcut.Tasks>
  <core:Task>
  <x:Arguments>
        <x:Uri>sforms://HR11</x:Uri>
        <x:String>Employee</x:String>
    </x:Arguments>
  </core:Task>
</mashup:TileShortcut.Tasks>
</mashup:TileShortcut>

If there is only one task then that task will be launched when the user clicks an icon. But if there are multiple tasks a Popup will show a list of the containing tasks.
This is the result.

And with a submenu.

Don’t forget that it is possible to pin any running program to the TaskBar so that it is available the next time you login.