Published Release Notes

Add custom controls to section palettes

You can add custom controls to the Basic or Advanced palettes in sections. With this enhancement, Pega^® Platform developers have easy access to custom controls. The Show in authoring menus check box is available in the HTML tab of the custom control rule. You can add a custom icon to display in the menu with the custom control.

For more information see Adding custom controls to the section palette in Designer Studio.

Actions available for custom controls

All standard actions that are available for autogenerated controls are available on non-autogenerated custom controls as well. You can configure actions on custom controls by using the legacy actions options or the standard options that are available to custom and autogenerated controls. By using the standard options, developers can now configure multiple action sets for different types of events on a single custom control.

For more information, see Actions tab.

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.

Enhanced autocomplete control with combo box functionality

You can now add combo box functionality to an autocomplete control. You enable this functionality on the Presentation tab of the control. In the combo box, search results that match the search criteria are displayed in a list that you can scroll through by clicking the down arrow.

For more information about how to configure an autocomplete control as a combo box, see Autocomplete Properties — Presentation tab.

Tour IDs and Test IDs in UI controls

Many UI controls now support the Test ID and Tour ID fields in the General tab of the layout properties. The Test ID setting generates a data-test-id attribute to provide a fixed reference to a UI control for automated testing. You can use Tour IDs to create a guided tour of your user interface for users. For more information, see Test ID and Tour ID for unique identification of UI elements.

Test IDs and Tour IDs have been extended to the following UI controls.

Both Test IDs and Tour IDs are supported in the following types of controls:

• Autocomplete
• Button
• Check box
• Date time
• Drop-down
• Formatted text
• Icon
• Label
• Link
• Radio button
• Text area
• Text input

Test IDs are supported in the following controls:

• Grid
• Hidden text
• Tree
• Tree grid

Tour IDs are supported in:

• Dynamic layouts

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.

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.

Style radio buttons as segmented buttons

You can configure radio buttons to be displayed as segmented buttons. Segmented buttons display multiple button options in a compact format. Segmented buttons do not support vertical orientation. On the Presentation tab of the properties panel, set Control format to Other and select Segmented.

For more information, see Radio Buttons control properties – Presentation tab.

Create email correspondence by using templates

You can configure email correspondence rules by using email templates. Email templates provide custom email formats for users and give developers a greater degree of customization in designing email correspondence. Select an email template on the Corr tab of a correspondence rule by clicking Edit mode and selecting Templated email from the menu. You can also create a section as an email template by clicking Email template on the Settings tab of the section form. For more information see Creating email correspondence by using a template.

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.