Back Forward Using the Class Explorer

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Class Explorer

The Class Explorer provides a developer with a unified means to navigate through all objects in every concrete class the PegaRULES database, rather than only through the rules and data instances in the database.

Depending on your access role and capabilities, you can locate rules, locate data objects, or locate all objects.

To start the Class Explorer, select Class Explorer from the Explorer Menu Items dropdown.

  Purpose

Use the Class Explorer to:

Familiarity with the terms class, inheritance, pattern inheritance, rule, sibling, and instance will help you learn to use the Class Explorer.

  Class Explorer elements

After you set up personal Class Explorer preferences, use these elements in this sequence:

  1. Use the Class Explorer tree control to identify and select a single class.
  2. Interact with the toolbar and workspace to list qualifying objects that are related to that class. See Explorer tools — Workspace results.
  3. Review and interact with the results, visible in the workspace.

  Using the Class Explorer tree

The tree control displays all or a portion of the entire class structure, growing from the left. Select a starting point from those in the selection box:

Use these single-click controls to interact with the tree display:

How classes are organized into a hierarchy, and the labels that appear on classes, depend on your role and preferences. Text in the tree control may identify a category, a class label, or a segment of the class name.

  Right-click to access instances, rules, or adjust the tree

For quick access to rules, place your mouse pointer in the Class Explorer and right-click to access a context menu. The menu choices that appear depend on the class visible to the topic of the display, shown as [Class] in the examples below, and the location of the pointer. PROJ-428 MELLJ 5.3 Select a menu item:

Menu

Select to:

New > Category > Type Create a new rule. The system defaults the [Class] value as the Applies To class of the new rule.
View > Category > Type List existing rules of the selected type with [Class] as the Applies To key part.
Instances > View List instances of the [Class ] class in the workspace. For example, if the [Class] class corresponds to a work type, the list shows the work objects of that type.
Instances > Popup List instances of the [Class] class in a pop-up window. The contents are the same as produced by the Instances > View menu selection.
Definition Open the Class form for the [Class] class.
Inheritance Presents the Class Inheritance display for the [Class] class. See Help: Using the Class Inheritance display.
Define Properties Starts the Define Properties wizard to let you create additional properties in the [Class] class. See About the Define Properties wizard.
Collapse All Redraw the entire Class Explorer with all nodes below the class nodes collapsed. BUG-3386
Refresh [Class] Refresh and redisplay the currently visible portion of the Class Explorer tree, which may then reflect recent additions, deletions, or renames of rules by other developers.
Refresh All Refresh the entire Class Explorer tree.

  Setting Class Explorer preferences

You can customize the display produced by the Class Explorer control.

  1. Select Preferences from the selection list; this is the bottom entry.
  2. On the Preferences form, click the  Class Explorer button in the Customize group.
  3. A window appears listing all top-level classes in your system that you can access. Select one or more check boxes to control which top-level classes you want to appear in the Class Explorer selection list.
  4. Click  Save  to close the window.
  5. Set the Display elements on the Preferences form as desired.
  6. Click  Save  to save the updated preferences, which take effect immediately.

  Understanding Class Explorer results in the workspace

The workspace changes to list rules or other instances of the selected class.

Page control Lists in the Class Explorer are presented in groups of 10 pages of 200 items each:

See Explorer — Workspace Results

  Notes

Note After you create a class, it may not appear in the Class Explorer display until you click the Refresh button (Refresh) on the Tab bar to refresh the display.

The Used by App Explorer is not available from the Business Analyst portal. REMOVED: A warning appears if you attempt to list more than 5,000 items.B-14781 KARAF REMOVEDNoteIn some Tomcat installations, the default location of the jar file supporting Xalan prevents the Class Explorer tool from presenting any display. To resolve this problem, copy the xalan.jar file from the web-inf/lib directory into the common/endorsed directory; then stop and restart Tomcat. SR-220

Related topics Designer Studio basics
Designer Studio — Setting your preferences

UpTools, accelerators, and wizards