Back Forward Class rules
Completing the New or Save As form

 About Activity rules

Most new classes needed in your application are derived from the Work-, Data-, or Embed- base classes.

TipReview standard and existing classes before creating new ones, as your application may only need new properties, not a new class.

A class rule has a single key part. Enter a class name. Then select a RuleSet name (that is not part of the key) for use with the Archive tools.

NoteYou can't add a class rule to a shared RuleSet or override RuleSet.

Field

Description
Type

Select Class from the SysAdmin category.
Class

Type the name of a new class. Choose each new class name carefully. When creating an abstract class, end the name with a dash character.

zzzAs a best practice, make any top-level class you create — a class with @baseclass as its immediate parent — abstract.

Class names can contain up to 64 letters, digits, or dash characters and must contain at least two characters. However, limit the length of the class names you enter here to 56 characters, as the system creates a History- class by prefixing "History-" to the class name you enter.

Use a dash between segments to show the relationship to superior classes. Follow the dash by a letter as the first character in each segment.

Class names must be unique system-wide. By convention, an initial prefix or portion of your class name matches a top-level class for the organization, which helps assure this uniqueness.

NoteYou cannot create a class derived from the Code- or System- base classes. These base classes are restricted.

NoteExcept in unusual situations, do not create a class derived from the History- base class. Such classes are created automatically.

TipAs a best practice, do not choose a name that matches or starts with the name of an existing class group, unless the class you are creating is to belong to that class group. This is allowed, but results in a warning message.

The following are not valid as names for new classes:

  • Data-Party-4Aces — Segment after a dash must start with a letter
  • Work-Cover-Smk:4 — Colon character not allowed in name
  • Data-AGENT — Matches existing class Data-Agent

TipAs a best practice to help assure unique class names, identify an organization in the first segment of a class name. In the second segment identify a division; lower portions can identify more specific purposes.
This convention does not limit how such classes can inherit rules, through directed inheritance. For example, MYCO-HR-APPLICATION can be derived from Work-, and MYCO-HR-JOBTITLES can be derived from Data-.
RuleSet Name

Identify a RuleSet to be associated with this class. This is not part of the key and is not used by rule resolution. This RuleSet value is used only by the Archive tools and the Application Explorer tool.

For general information about the New form, see Completing the new rule dialog box. For general information on the Save As form, see How to enter rule keys using Save As.

Rule resolution

The system does not use rule resolution or rule availability to find instances of the Rule-Obj-Class rule type. Choose class names that are unique system-wide, across all applications.

As soon as you save it, a new class is available immediately to all users and all applications. The system applies access control restrictions to the properties, activities, HTML, and so on that apply to the class (if any), but not for the class definition rule itself.

So although the new class is accessible to other developers, they cannot use its facilities until you update access groups, Access of Role to Object rules and other security rules.

The Availability value for class rules is always Yes.

zzz About Class rules