Using the Clipboard tool
The Clipboard tool displays two panels.
- The left panel displays, for a selected thread, the page structures in a hierarchical tree format. As you interact with Dev Studio, you create new Threads in a variety of ways. These include starting user portals, opening rules or landing pages in portal tabs, or creating work items in a process or a wizard.
- The right panel contains the names and values of Single Value, Value List, and Value Group properties and messages for one page selected in the left panel.
To interact with the clipboard:
- Select a Thread from the Clipboard header. Every Thread in your requestor session has a clipboard context. Each open tab on Dev Studio has a dedicated Thread. Thread names correspond to their tab names; work item Threads are identified by their IDs. By default, the thread for the selected tab appears when you open the clipboard.
- Select an aggregate object in the left panel, which may be of mode Page, Page List, Page Group, Value List, or Value Group.
- Review or interact using menus and links in either panel.
Review page structure in the left panel
The left panel presents the entire clipboard for the currently selected Thread as a tree, growing from the left.
Click a name or expand arrow to display any node in the left panel to view the page structure it contains. Click again or click a collapse arrow to hide) the pages within a page.
The clipboard contains three groups of pages:
User Pages– Top-level pages created by your normal processing, sorted alphabetically by page name. For more information on adding user pages to facilitate testing, see Adding a user page to the clipboard.Data Pages– Read-only data pages (created if necessary when accessed, defined by data pages rules).Linked Property Pages– Read-only pages retrieved because a harness, section, flow action or other rule contained a property reference based on a linked property. These pages are read-only, and never updated. They are removed automatically whenever your requestor performs any Commit operation.System Pages– Top-level created pages created during authentication. These correspond to the organization, division, access group, application rule, and organization unit of the operator. None of the pages are available to guest users.
Three single, system-maintained pages are always present and are displayed when you click the Show Advanced link at the bottom of the tree:
pxThread– Known as the thread page, it provides the context of clipboard.pxRequestor– Known as the requestor page, it contains information about your access roles, RuleSet list, and HTTP protocol parameters.pxProcess– Known as the process page, it contains information about the server's Java Virtual Machine and operating system.
Each top-level page may contain other pages that in turn may contain other pages, and so on. For most pages, the class of the page appears in parentheses after the page name and a single space. (For group and list properties, additional parentheses appear around subscripts.)
Every embedded page is defined by a property. Properties of mode
Page
,
Page Group
,
and
Page List
may
appear as embedded on the clipboard. Pages may contain properties (of any mode) and
messages.
The branch structure of the tree in the left panel directly corresponds to the fully qualified name of a property reference. For example, the property reference:
pyWorkPage.pxFlow(VacationRequest).pyConfirmationNoteidentifies a Single Value property named
pyConfirmationNote embedded on a page named
pxFlow("VacationRequest"), an element of a Page Group
named pxFlow on the top-level user page named
pyWorkPage.
Square brackets and the term [Refers to ..] indicate a reference property. The text in the square brackets identifies the non-reference page.
Using the Tools menu
Click the Tools menu on the Clipboard header to do the following:
- Select Analyze to review a tabular report showing the approximate size in kilobytes of each clipboard page, the page name and class, the number of accesses (read or update), and date and time of the last access, and passivation history. If the Collect Details mode is enabled, the display contains stack traces showing how pages were created or deleted and historical information about pages no longer on the clipboard.
- Select Collect Details to enable, or disable, automatic collection of detailed clipboard size and access information. A check mark next to this menu option indicates that data collection is active. A pop-up window confirms your menu action. While enabled, select the Analyze Clipboard option to review the size and use of each page on the clipboard, including pages that were removed during the data collection period.
Using right-click command menu
You can perform the following right-click commands on a page you select in the tree.
Options that update the clipboard are available only to users who have the hold the
clipboardViewerUpdate privilege.
| Command | Description |
| Refresh Page | Select to cause the Clipboard tool to access and redisplay only a single aggregate property and its elements. |
| Delete Page | Select to delete a page. Confirm the deletion in the resulting dialog box. |
| Show XML | Select to display the page's underlying XML. Use this command to see
pz properties and other clipboard entries that aren't truly
properties. |
| Show JSON | Select to display the page's underlying JSON, which is sent to the mobile client. |
| Execute Activity | Select to test a rule without the need to create a test activity that creates
the pages and properties expected as starting conditions for the rule. The selected
page becomes the primary page for the activity. An Execute Activity dialog appears and displays the class of the selected page in the Page Class field.
|
Review property values in the right panel
When you select a page in the left panel, all Value List, Value
Group, and Single Value properties on that page appear in the
right panel, sorted by property name. Property messages appear in red text.
Click a property name to open its form in Dev Studio.
Values of TextEncrypted properties are encrypted. They appear as blank in
this display.
The following options are available in the right panel:
| Option | Description |
| Refresh | Click to cause the Clipboard tool to access and redisplay the properties on the current page. |
| Edit | Select to add a single value property to a page, modify an editable property
value, or delete an editable property from the page. When you select
Edit the following occurs:
When you are finished with your edits, click Save to keep your updates and save the page to the memory, or click Cancel to cancel them. |
| Add | To add a single value property to a page, select the Edit option, select a row in the list, and click Add. Enter the property name and value in the Add properties dialog box. |
| Save | This option is available when you click Edit. Click Save to save your updated page to the memory. |
| Delete | This option is available when you click Edit. Select a row containing an editable property and click to delete it from the page. |
| Discard | This option is available when you click Edit. Click Discard to cancel your updates. |
| Actions | Click to select the Show XML, Show JSON, or Execute Activity commands as described previously. |
Page and property messages
Clipboard page names with errors appear in red text on the left panel. Click the name to view messages associated with properties on this page in the right panel.
A page message is a text clipboard value that is generated by the system and associated with a page. Similarly, a property message is a text clipboard value that is generated by the system and associated with a property. These messages can convey error conditions, progress, or exceptions to a user.
Although messages appear as values on the clipboard, they are not defined through properties. Generally, a clipboard page containing messages cannot be saved, because typically, the message indicates that the page, or a property on it, is invalid. The value of a property might not meet the requirements of a permanent instance of the page's class because of missing or incorrect data.
Property messages are associated with a single property and value. They might indicate that the property value is not valid. Page messages are associated with an entire page.
When a workstation user submits an HTML form, previous page messages corresponding to the input are cleared, and property messages are cleared for any value that changed.
Properties and pages not found on the clipboard
The following items are not visible on the clipboard:
- Properties with Internal status ( properties with names that start with
pz). These standard properties support internal Pega Platform operations. To view these properties you can override the @baseclass.pyShowInternalProperty when rule or right-click in the left panel and select Show XML. - Primary pages of some activities. The parameter page of an activity. Use the Tracer to view these pages.
- Properties of mode
Java Object,Java Object Group, andJava Object List.
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