The Ribbon

The ribbon is a command bar in CDM that organizes commands into logical groupings to make working with the application easier.

The ribbon contains the following features that you can use when you are working in CDM.

Tabs

Tabs are the most obvious feature of the ribbon. A tab is a collection of the commands you can use when working with the application. For example, when working with a report object, the tab contains only commands that can be used with report objects. Another tab holds commands that are specific to the data you can use in an Excel object.

Designed for easy browsing, the ribbon includes commands that perform a task, open a menu, or open a window. The commands are collected together on tabs.

Figure 1. Ribbon for the Report Object Tab

Groups

Each tab contains one or more groups of related commands. You can use these groups to browse the ribbon more easily by viewing the relationship among commands on a particular tab.

Tab Scrolling

You can use the mouse scroll wheel to navigate from one tab to another when the mouse pointer is over the ribbon.

Split Buttons

You can use a split button to either perform a default action or view a menu of commands.

Figure 2. Split Button from Ribbon

Click the icon to perform a default action or click the arrow and text label to display the menu. The default action is the first item in the menu. Split buttons can be identified by the line beneath the graphic icon and the text description of the button.

Switch Ribbons

You can view the main ribbon for CDM, or the Microsoft™ ribbon in a particular report object.

When you start to work in CDM, by default you see the CDM ribbon. However, when you open a report object, such as an Excel object, you might want to work with an Excel ribbon, so that you can use Microsoft Excel features in your Excel object.

• To switch from the CDM ribbon to a report object ribbon, click the Section View Mode icon.
• To switch from a report object ribbon to the CDM ribbon, click the Default View Mode icon.