# Console navigation

Source: https://docs.settlemint.com/docs/concepts/operating/console-navigation
The sidebar lists only what you can open, collapses to icons, and keeps you in the frame when an address is missing, retired or not yours to open.

Every signed-in Console page sits in one frame with three parts: the sidebar, the top bar and the content area. One set of access rules decides what the sidebar lists and whether an address opens. A page that is missing, retired or not yours to open stays inside the frame, with the sidebar in place.

What the sidebar lists follows the roles of the participant you act as, the person, organisation or account record whose authority the Console uses, so switching participant can change the list. The account menu shows who you are signed in as, the organisation you work in and the participant you work as.

## The sidebar lists what you can open [#the-sidebar-lists-what-you-can-open]

One set of access rules decides both what the sidebar's sections show and whether a direct address opens, so an entry and its address give the same answer. The Platform API still checks every read against your session, so the sidebar is not the access control. An area your roles, organisation, network or deployed add-ons do not allow is left out of the list, and a section whose entries are all gone loses its own label too. Add-ons are optional features, such as airdrops, that your organisation deploys before anyone can use them.

- A full page load draws the sidebar's links once, in the page the server sends, so no link appears or disappears when the browser takes over. This includes links that depend on your roles on single assets, such as Offerings for the holder of a sale role.
- The entry for the page you are on is marked as the current page, and opening a page directly scrolls its entry into view. A page below an entry, such as a trading desk under Trading, marks that entry.
- The Actions entry carries a badge with the number of actions waiting for you, and the badge disappears at zero.
- **Shared accounts**, listed before Wealth, lists the multisig wallets you can act as, wallets that need a set number of their signers to approve a transaction. Each entry opens that wallet's page under My participants. The list comes from the participants you can act as, and the group is hidden when that list holds no multisig wallet.
- On the pages the account menu opens, such as Profile, Security, API keys and My participants, the account menu button itself is marked as the current page. A shared account's page also marks its entry under Shared accounts.
- When the platform cannot answer whether you may use a section's areas, that section shows a "Service temporarily down" row and a Try again row instead of hiding them. Try again asks the platform again.

Some entries stay listed before they have anything to show:

- Portfolio and Invest under Wealth are always listed. Trading, Settlements and Votes each appear once your organisation deploys the add-on behind them, and stay listed while empty.
- All five pages need your on-chain identity, the identity you register before you can hold or trade assets. Until it is registered, each of them opens with "Register your identity to hold and trade assets" and an Open identity steps button.
- After that, an empty Portfolio says "No holdings yet" with a Browse offerings link, and empty Trading, Settlements and Votes pages say "No instruments to trade", "No settlements yet" and "No votes yet".
- If your roles let you use the add-ons under Asset lifecycle, that section also lists each of the three airdrop types, Push airdrop, Vesting airdrop and Time-bound airdrop, that your organisation has not deployed. For a system manager each of these entries opens Factories, and hovering one reads "Push airdrop is not deployed. Open Factories to deploy it." For everyone else the entry does not open, and hovering it reads "Push airdrop is not deployed. A system manager deploys it in Factories."

## The top bar [#the-top-bar]

The sidebar opens with the logo, and the top bar opens with the sidebar toggle and Search. [Search](https://docs.settlemint.com/docs/console/essentials/search) finds a page or a record by name or address. The Submissions badge shows how many of your submissions need review and how many actions wait for you, and its icon turns to a spinner while a submission you just made is in progress. Hovering it lists each count, and selecting it opens the Submissions panel that [Activity](https://docs.settlemint.com/docs/console/essentials/activity) describes. When the assistant is on and the page offers Ask, an Ask panel button sits before the Submissions badge and opens the Ask panel.

The account menu button shows an avatar over two lines: the active organisation, then your own name, or "Working as" followed by the participant's name while you work as someone else. The avatar is yours, or the participant's while you work as someone else. While you work as someone else, the whole button also turns violet, and a violet "Working as" bar under the top bar names the participant and offers Return to yourself, so the bar shows on every page. When the top bar is narrower than 672px, the button drops the two lines and keeps only the avatar.

## The account menu [#the-account-menu]

The menu opens with your name and a You badge, with your email below them. When your name is the same as your email, only the badge and the email show. Below them come up to three submenus, and each appears only when it offers a choice.

- **Organisation** lists the organisations you belong to and switches between them. It appears when you belong to more than one, or when you may create one, in which case it ends with Create organisation.
- **Working as** switches the participant the Console acts for. It opens with a card for the participant you work as and a search field. Below them come Return to yourself while you work as someone else, your recent participants, the other participants you can work as, and View all participants. It leaves out multisig wallets, which open as their own accounts under Shared accounts in the sidebar. It appears when you can work as at least two participants, and always while you work as someone else. [My participants](https://docs.settlemint.com/docs/console/my-account/acting-as-participants) explains what changes when you switch.
- **Network** lists the organisation's active networks and marks the default one. When those networks span more than one ledger family, a Ledger choice narrows the list. Organisation owners and platform administrators also see whether the active network's indexed data is up to date. The submenu appears when [multi-network support](https://docs.settlemint.com/docs/console/organisation-settings/networks) is on for the organisation and the organisation has more than one active network. When no network serves the selected ledger, the Actions page shows a Pick network button, which opens the account menu on this submenu.

Below them, the menu opens Profile, My participants, On-chain identity, API keys and Security, switches the language and the theme, and offers Documentation, Keyboard shortcuts, Report an issue and Sign out. When your deployment has an Investor portal, the menu links to it too. Organisation owners and platform administrators also see Export debug information, which downloads a zip to forward to the support team. An organisation owner's zip leaves out the platform logs and traces, which carry every organisation's activity. [The admin debug bundle](https://docs.settlemint.com/docs/deployment/observability#the-admin-debug-bundle) lists what the zip holds.

## Collapse and resize the sidebar [#collapse-and-resize-the-sidebar]

The sidebar toggle collapses the sidebar to icons, and `Ctrl` + `B` or `⌘` + `B` does the same from anywhere outside a text field. From 768px wide you can also drag the sidebar's edge to set its width between 12rem and 24rem. Dragging it narrower than 10rem collapses it, and double-clicking the edge restores the default 16rem and expands it. Hovering the edge reads "Drag to resize, double-click to reset".

This browser keeps the expanded or collapsed state and the width in cookies for seven days, so a reload opens the sidebar the way you left it.

- A collapsed icon names its page in a tooltip on hover, and adds the key chord that opens the page where it has one.
- Each sidebar destination has its own icon, so two pages stay distinguishable when the sidebar is collapsed. The exceptions are the asset classes your organisation defines, which share one class icon, and the Shared accounts entries, which share another.
- An expanded entry wraps its name onto two lines at most. When the name is still cut short, hovering the entry shows it in full.
- The sidebar has flat, labelled sections and no groups that fold open, so no entry hides behind another, collapsed or expanded.

## On a small screen [#on-a-small-screen]

Below 768px wide the sidebar opens over the page as a drawer and the toggle closes it again. From 768px it stays beside the page.

From 768px to 1023px wide the sidebar collapses to icons on its own, so the page keeps its room. The toggle or `Ctrl` + `B` opens it while you need it, without changing the state this browser keeps. From 1024px the sidebar opens the way you left it. The Investor portal and this documentation site behave the same way.

- The top bar sizes its parts by its own width rather than the screen's, because the sidebar takes part of the screen. The account menu button takes at most 45% of the bar, and never more than 18rem, so a long participant name truncates instead of crowding the search.
- The content area takes its height from the visible part of the screen, so a phone's browser bar never covers the last row of a table or the page's action.
- On a screen shorter than 30rem, such as a phone on its side, the top bar shrinks to 3rem so the page title and its first row of content share the first screen.
- A sheet and a dialog are never taller than the screen. One with more to show scrolls inside itself.

## Page headers [#page-headers]

Console pages open with one shared header, in one order: the breadcrumb, the page title, a description, a line of facts about the record where the page has one, and the page's actions. The actions sit beside the title, and move below it when the header is too narrow to hold both. Sign-in, onboarding and full-screen flows keep their own title.

- A title can carry an information button that opens a short summary of its topic and a Read the docs link.
- Tabs sit directly under the header, and any notice for the page sits under the tabs. The tab bar stays at the top of the page while you scroll.
- A page with more than seven tabs shows seven and folds the rest into More, and a trading venue's page folds after six. The tab you are on is never folded away. While tabs that need an access check are still loading, More lists the tabs that are ready and one loading row.

## Links to the documentation [#links-to-the-documentation]

Console pages link to the documentation in four ways. Each link opens in a new browser tab, and each points to a page under `/docs` on the Console's own address.

- An information button beside a title or a term, labelled "Learn more about" and the topic, opens a one-sentence summary and a "Read the docs" link.
- A term inside a sentence is a link with a book icon.
- A message that blocks an action can carry a "How to fix this" link with a book icon.
- A guide link, in the page body, shows as text with a small arrow.

The account menu holds a "Documentation" item. In the Console it opens the Console section of the documentation. [Documentation served from the Console](https://docs.settlemint.com/docs/deployment/install/values-secrets#documentation-served-from-the-console) says how a deployment supplies the pages behind these links.

## Follow the breadcrumb [#follow-the-breadcrumb]

The breadcrumb at the top of a page walks back up its sections. It starts with a home icon that opens Dashboard, lists the sections between Dashboard and the page, and ends with the page itself.

- The trail stays on one line. The home icon never truncates, however long the trail. The entries after it shrink and truncate instead, and hovering a cut entry shows its full name.
- Every sidebar section in the trail, such as Wealth, Asset lifecycle or Organisation settings, links to the section's own address, and that address opens the first page of the section you may use.
- The current page and any entry whose address leads to no page are plain text without a link.
- A trail with fewer than two entries is hidden.
- When the trail has less than 576px of room, as on a phone, it shows only the entry just above the page, with its chevron turned to point back. That entry opens its page when it has one.
- On a settings page the trail is the sidebar section followed by the sidebar item, such as Organisation settings, then General.
- A token's trail reads Assets, the asset class, the token and the open tab. No entry names the instrument template.
- A record page adds the record after its list, such as Asset lifecycle, Venues, then the venue. A page with tabs adds the open tab, such as Wealth, Portfolio, then Returns. The page title names the open tab, the first tab keeps the section's name, and the tab's own heading is not repeated under the header.

## Read a table's filters [#read-a-tables-filters]

Where a table offers filter buttons, each column that holds a fixed set of values, a status or a day gets its own button: the column name and a down arrow, which opens that column's values. A table's create action is never one of these buttons. It sits at the top right of the page header. An applied filter shows its column name and the chosen values on the button itself, with its own clear control. A text, number or other date filter shows as a chip beside the buttons, with the same operator wording as the filter menu. A filter set from the address bar therefore reads the same as one you picked from the menu.

When the Console's AI assistant is on, a phrase typed into the search of a table that supports it can offer a filter. The offer row reads "Filter ·" followed by the conditions and "Press Enter". Pressing `Enter` writes the same filter state the menu writes, so the address, the filter buttons and the rows all agree, and a screen reader hears "Filter applied."

## When an address does not open [#when-an-address-does-not-open]

A missing page, a refused area and an unanswered access check each show a state inside the frame, with the sidebar intact and a way back.

| What you see | When it appears | What you can do |
| --- | --- | --- |
| "This page does not exist" | The address matches no page, or names a record the platform does not know. | Go back or Go home |
| "Not available" | The area exists, and your roles, organisation, network or add-ons do not allow it. | Go home |
| "Couldn't check access" | The platform could not answer whether you may open the area. | Try again or Go home |
| "XvP settlement isn't set up" | The address leads to an add-on page that no deployed add-on serves, and your organisation has no XvP settlement add-on. | Go home |

"This page does not exist" adds that the address may be mistyped or the page may have moved, and that the sidebar and top bar still work. Go back returns to the previous page, and Go home opens Dashboard. An unknown record shows the same state. Some record pages replace that sentence with their own and add a link back to their list: an external token address the platform has never seen says there is no external token at that address on the active network, and offers Back to external tokens.

"Not available" reads "This page isn't available for your account or organisation." The browser tab and the breadcrumb read "Not available" too, so the name of the refused page does not show, and the home crumb opens Dashboard. The check runs before the page reads any data, so nothing behind a refused area loads. The Platform API refuses the same reads on its own, whatever the Console shows. Try again on "Couldn't check access" asks the platform again.

A bare section address, such as the one for Compliance, opens the first page of that section you can use, in sidebar order. When you can use none of them it shows "This page does not exist". When the platform cannot answer for one of them before the Console reaches one you can use, it shows "Couldn't check access".

## Retired addresses [#retired-addresses]

An address an earlier release served opens the page that replaced it, for the retired addresses listed here, so a bookmark or a link in an old document still opens the current page. The query and the anchor carry over to the new page, and the old address is replaced in the browser history, so Back does not bounce between the two.

Retired addresses lead to Portfolio, Contacts, My participants, Transaction funding, Organisations under Platform admin, External tokens, Issue asset, and the pages under Organisation settings, Compliance and Asset design that replaced the old platform settings area. They also lead to organisation setup, the Insights pages, an asset class's list, the token and venue tabs that changed name, and the XvP settlement create flow.

A redirect is kept for a limited number of releases. Update saved bookmarks and links in your own documents to the new address.

## Moving between pages [#moving-between-pages]

A link to another Console page replaces the page you are on at once, so the previous page never stays under the new address. The content area draws the destination's own loading frame at the click when the browser already has that page's code. The browser has it when you opened the page before, pointed at its link, or the sidebar fetched it. Otherwise the content area stays empty until the code arrives.

When you open a page, the Console uses your sign-in session as it last read it and starts a fresh read in the background, at most once every five seconds. Once the Console has read your session, a navigation never waits for that read. The platform judges each read against your session and refuses a read made with a session that has ended.

## When your session ends [#when-your-session-ends]

If the background read has already seen your session end, the next page you open goes to the sign-in page. Otherwise the page opens. When the platform refuses a read because you are signed out, the Console asks the platform again for your session. If that answer reports you signed out, the Console clears the data it holds in this browser and opens the sign-in page. Once you sign in, the page you asked for opens.

A session read that times out, or that the platform answers as busy or failed, does not count as signed out. The Console keeps the session it last read and does not open the sign-in page. Every read still goes to the platform, which judges it against the session.

## A new page opens at the top [#a-new-page-opens-at-the-top]

A followed link opens the new page with its title and actions in view. Back and Forward return each page to the scroll position you left it at.

[Keyboard shortcuts](https://docs.settlemint.com/docs/console/essentials/keyboard-shortcuts) lists the keys that open a page, a page's main action and its table search.