Top navigation
Same screen, side navigationThe second console shell: sections live in the bar above, and their menus open on click.
What to try
- Press Operations or Configuration in the bar. The menu opens on click, never on hover, and only one menu is open at a time.
- Press Escape, or press outside the menu. It closes and focus returns to the section you opened.
- Look at Operations while its menu is shut. The section you are in stays marked.
- Reach the bar by keyboard alone. Every section and every destination is reachable without a pointer.
- Narrow the window below 900px. The bar steps aside and the drawer takes over, the same drawer the side-navigation shell uses.
- Turn JavaScript off and try again. The menus still open, because they are native disclosure elements.
Which shell should a console use?
The side navigation remains the default, and it is the better choice when a console has many top-level areas, because a rail shows them all at once. This bar suits a console with a handful of sections, up to about nine, each holding a short menu.