Published Release Notes

Accessibility improvements

Several improvements are now available that enable application accessibility. These improvements affect the wait indicator, overlays, and collapsible layouts.

The wait indicator, or throbber, announces its status to an assistive technology such as JAWS.

• When loading, the throbber announces “Loading content” or other text that can be edited in the pyThrobberLoadingText property.
• When loading is completed, the throbber announces “Loading completed” or other text that can be edited in the pyThrobberLoadingCompletedText property.
• The loading announcement is set by default to a three-second delay, which can be modified in the pyThrobberAnnouncementDelay property.

Overlays are announced by an assistive technology and overlay content can be tabbed through by using the Tab key without closing the overlay. Overlays can be closed by pressing the Esc key. This behavior applies to all overlays and modal dialog boxes that are opened as local actions and popovers that are part of the autogenerated UI.

All users, including those not using an assistive technology, can focus the expand and collapse feature of a layout by using the Tab key. The expanded or collapsed state is announced by screen readers.

Date control for past and future years

The Date control can be configured to show only past dates, only future dates, or any date range that includes the current year. The Display range can be set to include a configurable range of previous years or next years. The number of years is relative to the user’s date.

Enabling run-time edit in Live UI

When you inspect a rule with the Live UI tool, you can enable editing if editing has not yet been enabled for the application. The Enable live editing link at the top of the property panel adds a run-time edit branch to the current application's definition. A similar option is available when you add or move elements by using Live UI.

Introducing the proximity widget

You can use the new proximity widget to display on a map the open cases that are within a certain distance of your current location. You can configure the widget to show open cases within a radius of up to 50 miles.

For more information, see Proximity widget.

Skins can inherit formats from a parent

Skin inheritance allows a dependent skin to inherit formats and mixins from a parent skin. This feature provides a modular organization of styles, reducing the cost of maintaining skins. You can create a specific mobile skin to include mobile-specific styles and disable unused styles to decrease the size of the CSS. Inherited formats are displayed on the Inheritance tab of the skin. Formats that are specific to the skin are displayed on the My formats tab.

For more information, see Skin inheritance.

Paginated lists in repeating dynamic layouts

Repeating dynamic layouts can now display paginated lists. Pagination reduces the cost of loading the entire list onto the browser. You configure pagination on the General tab of the layout properties.

For more information, see Dynamic Layout Properties - General tab.

Heading level support

You can configure heading levels for containers that support headings. Headings facilitate accessibility by making the UI understandable to assistive technologies. You can edit headings in the Base settings tab of the skin.

For more information, see Base settings.

Build consistent, high-quality sections with design templates

The Pega 7 Platform provides predefined design templates that you can apply to your sections. Templates eliminate the need to design or copy another layout each time you want to design a section. You also can create custom design templates that can be shared with other users. Custom templates can contain regions (dynamic layouts) that you can further customize for each section.

For more information, see Designing sections by using design templates.

Improved scrollable layouts in a new harness

By default, you can now create a new harness with a screen layout instead of as a container with a cell structure. This change ensures that you can create an application layout more efficiently; for example, you can specify a scroll area exactly the way you want in a desktop application or a mobile app. You can arrange the header, footer, and main area content at the new harness level by using sections. For example, you can specify headers and footers to be fixed or to scroll with the page. New layout options are configurable in the skin. Different layout selections are available when you use the harness as an app view, a main area, inner harness, or a page view.

For more information, see Configuring a screen layout.

New formats for styling report data grids

When you view a report, the data grid that is displayed is now styled by using either the List report format or the Summarized report format, depending on the report type. With this enhancement, you can display report data differently, and perhaps more effectively, than other grids in your portal. In the skin of your application, these new formats will be added and upgraded automatically by copying the Default format for the Trees & grids layout type, which was previously used to style reports.

For more information, see Modifying data grid formats for reports.