Published Release Notes

Anypicker control is now available

The new Anypicker control displays a drop-down list of values that you can group into expandable categories for faster browsing. To save time and improve search accuracy, the Anypicker control filters the available values based on the characters that the user enters.

For more information, see Adding an Anypicker control.

Autogenerated controls have unique IDs

Autogenerated controls have a unique ID by default. This unique ID ensures that the Document Object Model (DOM) is HTML5-compliant and avoids problems that can be caused by elements having the same ID. The setting to enable or disable unique IDs is on the HTML5 Application Readiness page.

For more information, see Unique IDs in autogenerated controls.

Improved access to Cosmos UI settings

The Settings tab in the App Studio case designer now includes tools for configuring Cosmos UI. With this enhancement, you can adjust design system settings without the need to specialize individual When rules in Dev Studio, which simplifies UI creation and saves development time.

For more information, see Managing Cosmos UI settings in case designer.

Custom DX API attributes for auto-generated controls

Auto-generated controls now include the option to add custom attributes for use with the Pega Digital Experience (DX) API. The attributes are part of the DX API response to the front end and you can use them to modify the run-time behavior of the UI elements in your application. For example, you can add an attribute to a field that displays a tooltip text for that field at run time. This enhancement introduces significant flexibility to application development and gives you greater control over UI components.

For more information, see Adding custom attributes for version 1 DX API to auto-generated controls.

Click, record, and play UI scenario tests

You can now record, edit, and run scenario-based UI tests in end-user portals. By using scenario-based tests, developers focus on testing an application's ability to deliver real business value instead of writing code. Developers can test autogenerated and custom controls, actions, and navigation in a specific case or in an entire portal. Test recording is available on the run-time toolbar, and tests are available on a unified landing page that provides easy access to them. For more information, see Find and fix issues by using the Accessibility Inspector.

PegaWAI ruleset deprecated in 8.5

Accessibility functions that were contained in the PegaWAI ruleset are now integrated into the main Pega Platform™. Consequently, the user interface in your applications now features accessibility functions out of the box, so you no longer need to use the PegaWAI ruleset to ensure accessible behavior in your application.

For more information, see Building an accessible UI.

Personalized table views

You can now configure tables so that users can personalize table views at run time. Users can specify which columns to display, resize and reorder columns, and set an initial sort order and initial column filter. When users save these personalized settings, the table displays the personalized view each time that users access the table.

Personalizing table views can help users work more efficiently by providing greater control over what data they see and how it is presented.

For more information, see Configuring a table for personalization.

Select or edit a label format at run time

At run time in App Studio, when you edit a control, you can now select a new label format for the control or edit the currently selected label format. This change provides you with the flexibility to update control labels in real time as you process cases.

For more information, see Styling controls at run time.

Default support for skip links

All Pega Platform™ access groups now support skip links by default. Before, you had to create special access groups for users who require skip links for screen readers. Now, the feature is automatically enabled for every group, which improves the user experience and simplifies development.

Tamper-proof Pega Web Mashup loading

To protect your application from hackers, Pega Web Mashup is now loaded in a more secure way. The system generates a channel ID in the mashup code for validation on the server, before passing the mashup request. 

For more information, see Creating a mashup.

Upgrade impact

After an upgrade to Pega Platform 8.5, existing mashups, which do not have the channel ID parameter in their code, cannot load and users see the access control warning.

What steps are required to update the application to be compatible with this change?

If you need to maintain full availability of the mashup during the upgrade of the production environment, perform the steps in Migrating existing mashups.