By using the Navigator you may gain insight within the models structure by navigating over the objects' relations (or a set of objects) to the related objects. These related objects may be the starting point for further navigation.

By using the Navigator you can explore the relations within your model by navigating over the relations within the model from one object to the other. These relations are shown with the corresponding icon as used in the model browser.

If the Navigator is not visible, you can make it visible by selecting the Navigator check box in the Tool Pane group on the Window ribbon tab.

On this page:

Using the Navigator

To fill the Navigator with data, select an object in the open diagram or view, and then click the Navigator control attached to the lower left of the object.

Navigator with ArchiMate^® objects

In the figure above you can see that the ArchiMate application process Report data is part of the application process Process data and that it sends output to business process Calculate Insurance Premium. The application process Report data is also triggered by application process Analyze Data.

Show profiles and attributes

The Show profiles and attributes check box is cleared by default. Selecting it will show the object profile properties in the Navigator.

Show profiles and attributes off (left) and on (right)

Show containing views

The Show containing views check box is selected by default. The option shows the views containing the objects and relations in the Navigator. Clear the check box if you do not want to see the views. If your model contains a lot of views, clearing the check box may also be useful because of performance reasons.

Show containing views on (left) and off (right)

Single-click versus double-clicking for opening diagrams and views

By default, opening a diagram or view in the Navigator requires a single click. If you prefer this to be a double-click, then activate Double-click in model browser to open diagram in the Enterprise Studio general options.

Generating a color view or label view

It is possible to directly generate a color view or label view on element type directly via the Navigator. To do this, right-click an element and then select Color view or Label view. Make sure that the view the respective element is in, is open.

Example of a color view generated on the application process element