Creating navigation tasks
Navigation tasks are used to create links from one
taskpad to another or from a taskpad to a saved console view.
Before you can create navigation tasks, you must save a console
view or a view of a particular taskpad to the Favorites menu. To do this, while in author mode,
navigate down the console tree until the taskpad or item to which
you want to navigate is selected and then select Add To Favorites
on the Favorites menu. In the Add To Favorites dialog box, shown
in Figure 22,
type a name for the favorite and then tap or click OK. Then you
can create a navigation task on a selected taskpad that uses that
favorite.
You create the navigation task using the New Task Wizard. In the New Task Wizard, choose
Navigation as the task type. Next, select the favorite to which
you want users to navigate when they tap or click the related
link. As shown in Figure 23, the only
favorites available are the ones you’ve created as discussed
previously.
Next, you set the name and description for the task. The
name is used as the shortcut link designator for the task. The
description is displayed as text under the shortcut link or as an
InfoTip, depending on the way you configured the taskpad. If you
are creating a link to the main console tool page, you
might want to call it Home.
Next, you can choose an icon for the task. As discussed
previously, you can select Icons Provided By MMC or Custom Icon. If you created a link called Home,
there is a Home icon provided by the MMC to use. If you use
custom icons, you probably want to use the
Shell32.dll in the %SystemRoot%\System32 directory to provide the
custom icon.
When you tap or click Next again, the wizard confirms the
task creation and shows a current list of tasks on the taskpad if you tap or click Finish to
finalize the creation of the current task. If you want to create
another task, select the When I Click Finish, Run This Wizard
Again check box and then repeat this process. Otherwise, just tap
or click Finish.
Arranging, editing, and removing tasks
As long as you are in author mode, you can edit tasks and
their properties by using the taskpad Properties dialog box. To
display this dialog box, press and hold or right-click the folder
or item where you defined the taskpad and then select Edit Taskpad
View from the shortcut menu. In the Tasks tab shown in Figure 24, you can do
the following:
-
Arrange tasks To arrange
tasks in a specific order, select a task and then tap or click
Move Up or Move Down to set the task order.
-
Create new tasks To
create a new task, tap or click New and then use the
New Task Wizard to define the task.
-
Edit existing tasks To
edit a task, select it and then tap or click Modify.
-
Remove tasks To remove a
task, select it and then tap or click Remove.
4. Publishing and distributing your custom tools
As you’ve seen, the MMC provides a complete framework for
creating custom tools that can be tailored to the needs of a wide
range of users. For administrators, you could create custom consoles
tailored for each individual specialty, such as security
administration, network administration, or user administration. For
junior administrators or advanced users with delegated privileges, you
could create custom consoles that include taskpads that help guide them by providing lists of
common commands, and you can even restrict this list so that these
individuals can perform only these commands.
Because custom consoles are saved as regular files, you can
publish and distribute them as you would any other file. You could put
the consoles on a network file server in a shared folder. You could
email the consoles directly to those who will use them. You could use
Active Directory to publish the tools. You could even copy them
directly to the Start menu on the appropriate computer, as discussed
previously.
In any case, users need appropriate access permissions to run the tasks and access the
snap-ins. These permissions must be granted for a
particular computer or the network.
