5.2 Creating and Viewing a Custom Property Page

It is possible to create custom property pages for individual elements in the Services hierarchy. Custom property pages display alongside the other property pages associated with an element. Access these pages by right-clicking an element in the Explorer pane, then selecting Properties.

NOTE:Custom property pages apply only to the element for which they are created. If an existing property page is “added” to an element using Manage Properties > Browse, a copy of the property page is created rather than linking the element to the metamodel property page definition. Any changes to the original property page definition in Administration > Medamodel > Property Pages are not updated in any copied property pages assigned to the element using Manage Properties > Browse. To assign an existing metamodel property page to an element or elements without making a custom copy, add a matching rule to a Behavior Model that then adds the Property Page. For more information about Behavior Models, see Section 4.3, Creating and Deleting Behavior Models.

Table 5-2 describes the operations that can be performed on custom property pages and fields.

Table 5-2 Custom Property Operations

Operation

Button

Description

New Property Page

 New Property Page Icon

Creates a property page.

Browse

 Brows Icon

Select a property page created under Administration > Metamodel > Property Pages.

Selecting a property page, makes a copy of the property page definition rather than linking the existing metamodel property page definition to the element. This new definition and any modifications to it, applies only to the selected element.

For information on custom property pages, see Section 4.0, Defining Classes, Behavior Models, and Property Pages.

Edit

 Edit Icon

Enables editing either the highlighted property page or field.

Copy

 Copy Icon

Creates a copy of the highlighted property page or field. The copy has the same name as the original with a number in parenthese. For example:

copy(1)

Delete

 Delete Icon

Deletes the highlighted property page or field.

5.2.1 Creating a Custom Property Page

To create a custom property page:

  1. In the Explorer pane, right-click an element in the Services hierarchy, then select Manage Properties to open its dialog box.

  2. Click Delete Icon (New) topen the Create Property Page dialog box:

    Create Property Page Dialog Box

  3. In the Name field, specify the new property page name.

  4. To add custom property fields to the page, click Create Property Page Dialog Box (New) in the Property Definitions section to open the Add Property dialog box.

  5. Specify the first property name and description, then click Forward.

    The remaining dialog boxes, which set up the property type, the default values, masks, required properties, and validation rules, are explained in Defining Properties for a Property Page.

    Property names cannot include the space character or the following special characters:

    <>#%"’{}()[]|\^`)

  6. Click Create to add the property.

    Add more properties as necessary.

    Add Property Dialog Box

  7. Click Close when finished defining properties.

    The Create Property Page dialog box displays the properties:

    Create Property Page Dialog Box

  8. Click Create to create the custom property page.

5.2.2 Viewing Custom Property Pages

  1. In the Explorer pane, right-click the element, then select Properties to open the Status property page.

    All custom property pages display at the bottom of the list on the left.

  2. In the left pane, click the custom property page name to displya its page.

    The following illustration shows a custom property page named BPA. The custom property Operating System displays a drop-down list of options.

    Properties Dialog Box