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Pinning Items

IT Asset Management Guide
Getting Started

Pinning Items

xAssets lets you pin three kinds of items to a personal pin list for quick access: queries, menu items, and individual assets. The pin list lives in the left menu and is accessed from the navigator's icon bar at the bottom.

Pinning is per-user. Your pins are not visible to anyone else, and they do not affect the menu structure for other users.

The Navigator Icon Bar

At the bottom of the left menu, three icons sit anchored together:

Icon Action
hamburger Menu Collapses the menu to an icon-only rail. Click again to expand. When the pinned view is active, this icon switches back to the menu.
clock Recents Opens "Recent Assets For This User" -- assets you have viewed or edited recently. The top form has buttons to switch to "New Assets" (recently created across the system) and "Recently Edited (All Users)".
pin Pinned Switches the navigator to your pin list. Click it again, or click the hamburger, to return to the menu.

The icon bar fades in only when you hover over the navigator, so it stays out of the way during normal menu use.

Pinning a Query

Each query has a variant dropdown in the top form (the small arrow next to the query title). Open it and you'll see one entry per variant of the query, plus standard items at the bottom. Pin this Query is one of those standard items -- click it to pin the query as you currently see it (with whatever variant is active).

Clicking again unpins.

Tip: Pinning a query records the saved-select and the variant. If a query has several variants (e.g. table, chart, summary), you can pin each one separately and they'll appear as separate entries in your pin list.

Pinning a Menu Item

Hover any menu item in the left menu, settings, user profile, or notifications dropdowns. After about two seconds, a small pin icon fades in at the right of the row. Click the pin to pin that menu item.

The pin icon is also available on hover for items in the header dropdowns (Settings, Profile, Notifications). It is not shown on the main top-level menus -- those are always one click away, so pinning them isn't useful.

Pinning an Asset

In any asset list, hover over the asset's description (or any other field shown as an asset link). After about two seconds, the pin icon fades in at the right of the cell. Click the pin to bookmark that asset.

Asset pins make it easy to keep a small working set of assets close at hand -- the server you're maintaining this week, the laptop you're investigating, an asset awaiting decision.

The Pin List

Click the pin icon in the navigator's icon bar to switch to the pin list. The list is organised in two sections:

  • Pinned Assets -- newest at the top, up to 10 assets per user
  • Pinned Menus and Queries -- newest at the top, up to 24 menus and queries combined

Click any row to launch that item:

  • Asset -- opens the asset editor
  • Menu item -- runs the menu's action
  • Query -- opens the query at the variant you pinned

The two pin caps are independent. Heavy use of asset pins won't push your menu and query pins off the list, and vice versa.

Unpinning

Hover any row in the pin list. The leading pin icon turns red with a strikethrough -- click it to unpin that item. The row slides up and disappears.

You can also unpin by repeating the original gesture: open the variant dropdown for a pinned query and click Unpin this Query, or hover the pin icon in the menu and click again to toggle off.

When the Cap is Reached

When you pin a new item and your cap for that type is full, the oldest pin (longest since pinned) is silently removed to make room. This mirrors the Windows Start menu jump-list behaviour and means your pin list reflects what you've been touching recently.

If you want to keep a specific item indefinitely, just touch it occasionally -- re-pinning the same item refreshes its date and protects it from eviction.

Refreshing the List

If the pin list is open and you pin or unpin something elsewhere -- for example, by clicking the pin icon on a menu item while the pinned view is showing -- the list updates immediately. New items slide in at the top of their section; removed items slide out.

Switching Between Menu and Pin Views

The hamburger icon does double duty:

  • When you're on the menu view, clicking it collapses (or expands) the menu.
  • When you're on the pin view (or the recents view), clicking it switches back to the menu.

In collapsed mode the rail is too narrow to display the pin list, so the recents and pinned icons are hidden until you expand the menu again.