Components of the user interface

The various components of the user interface are explained here:

• Banner Frame (top header): The banner frame appears at the top of the interface. This is where you see the logo, global navigation, logged-in user's info, search and other tools, and a settings (gear/cog) icon at the extreme right. This settings gear icon is extremely useful for developers as it is used quite frequently during development:

• Application navigator (left navigation bar): This is where navigation links to different ServiceNow platform applications and modules are visible. It has a text filter box at the top, which allows us to filter through available navigation links. There are three tabs available in the left navigation bar:
  • The Applications tab contains a list of all of the applications and modules the logged in user has access to. Based on the user's role, each link has an edit icon and inactive star icon to its right. The edit link can be used to navigate to the edit module page, and the star icon can be clicked on to add or remove navigation entries to user favorites.
  • The Favorites tab lists all navigation links and items the logged in user has added to their favorites.
  • The History tab lists navigation links and items the logged in user has recently accessed.
• Content Frame: This is the main section of the user interface where pages, forms, list of records, dashboards, Homepages of all applications, and modules are loaded.

• It is possible to switch back to an earlier version of the user interface (UI15) by clicking on the settings gear icon in the far right of the Banner Frame, which will open up the System Settings modal window (more on this on next page), and then clicking on the Switch to U15 button in the upper-right of the modal window. To switch back to U16, again click on the settings gear icon, and click on the Switch to U16 button:

Version 15 of the UI features The Edge, which has been replaced by the Favorites (left-navigation) tab in version 16 of the UI, as shown in the following screenshot: