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Using the Desktop App's Title Bar

Every ABM Service desktop app window has a title bar drawn by ABM Service itself, in your chosen colours. From left to right it holds the picture of the screen, the File and Go menus, the Back and Forward arrows, the name of the screen in the middle, the version number, and the Minimise, Maximise and Close buttons. In a web browser there is no such bar: the browser's own buttons and tabs do these jobs.

What is on the File menu in the desktop app?​

The File menu, at the left of the ABM Service desktop app's title bar, holds four items.

  • Documentation — shown in grey because it is not available: point at it and its tooltip says Documentation is not available in this version. Choosing it leaves the menu open and does nothing else; a screen reader reads the same sentence out.
  • Check for Updates… — asks straight away whether a newer version of ABM Service is available. If there is one, the update window appears in the bottom-right corner of the screen; if not, a message says ABM Service is up to date. with the version you are running. The same message appears when the update server could not be reached, so if a colleague already has a newer version, tell your IT support.
  • About — a box titled About ABM Service with the version, when it was built, the company this copy is signed in to, and the version of Windows. Support may ask you to read it out.
  • Exit — closes this window only. Your other windows stay open, and ABM Service keeps running beside the clock. To close every window of the company, use Exit on the tray icon instead.

How do I use the Go menu in the desktop app?​

The Go menu, beside File in the ABM Service desktop app's title bar, moves the window you are in to one of the four main screens: Home, Customers, Calls or Scheduler.

  1. Click Go in the title bar.
  2. Choose the screen you want.

The window changes screen instead of opening a new one, and the screen you left is behind the Back arrow, so one press of Back returns you to it. A list left through Go may not keep your place, though: when Back brings you to it, the marked row can be gone and the list can open as it does afresh. To keep your place in a list, switch screens with the navigation menu on the screen itself. To open a main screen in a separate window instead, use the tray icon's Open ABM Service or Open scheduler, or a button on the toolbar of ABM (Advanced Business Manager).

The Go menu is especially useful in a window that opened straight onto a call from ABM's toolbar: such a window has nothing behind it, so Back is greyed out and Go is the way to the lists.

The items on Go have no keyboard shortcuts of their own.

Can I work the desktop app's menus from the keyboard?​

Yes. The File and Go menus in the ABM Service desktop app's title bar work like the menus in other Windows programs.

  • Click a menu word to open it, and click it again or anywhere else to close it.
  • Point at the other menu word while one menu is open, and that menu opens instead.
  • Press Enter, the Space bar or the Down arrow key on a menu word to open it with the first item selected.
  • Press the Up and Down arrow keys to move through the items; the selection wraps round from the bottom to the top.
  • Press the Left and Right arrow keys while a menu is open to move between File and Go.
  • Press Escape to close the menu.

The Tab key reaches the title bar's controls in the order they are drawn, from left to right.

What do the words and numbers in the middle of the title bar mean?​

The middle of the ABM Service desktop app's title bar shows the name of the screen in the window: Home, Calls, Scheduler, New call, a call's own name, or a customer's name once it has loaded. A long name is shortened with "…" rather than pushing the buttons along; point at it to see the whole name.

To the right of the name is the version of ABM Service you are running, followed by a short build code. Point at the version to see when that version was built. The same version appears at the foot of the desktop sign-in window and in About on the File menu.

On a test copy of ABM Service, the product is called ABM Service Development and a small dev label sits beside the version. The copy your company uses every day has no such label.

What are the buttons at the right of the title bar?​

The three buttons at the right-hand end of the ABM Service desktop app's title bar are the usual Windows window buttons: Minimise, Maximise (which becomes Restore when the window is maximised) and Close.

They keep working even while the screen inside the window is busy, for example while a very large paste is being taken into a call's documents, so you can always minimise or close a window.

Close closes only this window. ABM Service keeps running with its tray icon beside the clock, ready for the next window.

Warning: Closing a window does not ask about unsaved changes. Save your work first.