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More about Sections
 

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The Pega 7 Platform resolves a reference in a harness to a section during stream processing, by evaluating the<pega: include > JSP tags (or include directives).

For both sections and harnesses, the system generates HTML from information provided in the rule form as it saves the rule form. Note these important differences:

Linked property references

For fields that are always displayed as read-only, you can enter a linked property reference, of the form .AAAA.BBBB, where AAAA is the linked property and BBBB is any property reference in the object identified by the value of AAAA as a key. For example, if the property AAAA has a value corresponding to a key of a Data-Admin-Operator-ID instance, then .AAAA.pyUserName presents that Operator ID's full name. This allows values from that object to appear (read-only) in the run-time display of the section, although your processing does not explicitly load the object onto the clipboard.

Java code display

When you save a Rule-HTML-Section rule, the system converts your HTML and JSP tags or directives to Java source code. As a learning or debugging aid, you can review this Java code.

Select Actions > View Java to see the system-generated Java code that implements the section. The window presents a read-only preview of the Java that implements this rule instance. This Java code is not identical to the Java that executes at runtime, which includes Java code inlined from other rule instances and reflects rules in the requestor's ruleset list.

SmartInfo support

Sections support the SmartInfo capability of pop-up windows. When the user holds the mouse pointer over a display element for 700 milliseconds, a pop-up window appears that can supply static or variable information in context. Most SmartInfo pop-up windows are read-only and disappear as soon as a user clicks anywhere outside the window.

By default, SmartInfo pop-up windows disappear when a user clicks anywhere outside the window. To add a close box to the SmartInfo pop-up window and have the pop-up window remain until explicitly closed, include the standard section @baseclass.SmartInfoClickable within the section. (This standard section adds a close box but does not otherwise alter the appearance of the section.)

Parent class

Through directed inheritance, the immediate parent class of the Rule-HTML-Section class is the Rule-Obj-HTML class.

Preview and Run

After you save this rule form, click Preview from the Actions menu or type the equivalent keyboard shortcut CTRL+ALT+P to see a pop-up window presentation of the runtime appearance of the section. (Many sections depend on context. Even when the section is correctly configured, the Preview display may fail and report JSP errors if this section depends on clipboard contents that do not exist or other rules that cannot be found.)

Click Run from the Actions menu to test the section with data from the clipboard. See How to test a section.

As with the Design tab, the system renders both the Preview and Run displays using the styles of the skin rule identified in the Using skin preference. If the Using skin field is blank, these displays use the styles marked Work on the Styles tab of the skin identified in your current portal rule.

Security

If your application rulesets contain sections that are not auto-generated, run the Rule Security Analyzer before locking a ruleset Version to look for possible security issues.

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