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Harness and Section forms
About the Work Area control

Note: The Work Area control is deprecated. As a best practice, upgrade Work Areas to Dynamic Containers. Dynamic Containers, provide functionality similar to the Work Area control, but are easier to configure, have greater flexibility, and provide better performance. You can use the Work Area auto-upgrade tool to automatically convert Work Areas to Dynamic Containers. See Upgrading Work Area controls to Dynamic Containers on the PDN.

For new development, use the auto-generated Dynamic Container ( ) located on the Layout control group.

A section containing a Work Area control supports the runtime presentation of user forms and worklists in composite portals. Two formats are available:

Single Document Interface (SDI) — The runtime contents of the cell are produced by a single harness.
Multiple Document Interface (MDI) — The runtime contents of the cell are produced be one or more harnesses, each identified by a tab. One tab is frontmost.

For an example, the User portal has a single space, defined by the harness Data-Portal.WorkUser. The section Data-Portal.UserCenterPanel defines the Work Area.

This facility depends on rules of various types:

The standard control rule WorkArea.
Optionally, a style sheet saved as a text file rule. (In most cases, make style changes using the Skin rule form rather than through a separate style sheet.)
A section that contains the control
A composite portal. (See How to create a composite portal.)

Cell Properties panel — Top fields

Parameters to the standard control WorkArea control the display.

Field

Description

Property

Placeholder property pyTemplateDocumentView. (This property is not used.)

Control

Retain the default Control rule WorkArea. Click ( Pencil ) to enter parameters for the control:

Parameter	Description
ID	Not used. Leave blank.
Tabbed	Select `Yes` to divide the area into group of tabs.
Max Tabs	Appears if the `Tabbed` value is `Yes`. Select a maximum limit of Work Area tabs. The number can be no greater than 16.
Height	Select: `Fill` — At runtime, the work area expands to fill the available space regardless of the content’s height. `Size to Content` — At runtime, work area expands to the entire height offered by the enclosing section. `Fixed` — Limit the runtime presentation to a fixed height in pixels; scroll bars appear at runtime as needed.
Open by Default	If the `Tabbed` parameter value is `Yes`, complete at least one row of the Open by Default array to label and identify the contents of each tab. Order is significant.
`Label`	Enter brief text to appear as the label of this tab.
`Harness Class`	Identify the Applies To key part of a harness
`Harness Name`	Identify the Purpose key part of a harness.
`Icon`	Identify an icon that you want to display in the tab. Click () to open the Image Catalog (a pop-up version of the Image Library landing page). Select the binary file you wish to use.
`Tooltip`	Select a field value or enter a constant that contains a sentence or phrase identifying to users the content of the tab. Localization Use SmartPrompt to select a field value rule if you plan to localize the text. Enter no more than 64 characters. A field value rule with pyActionPrompt as the second key part and this text as the final key part is needed for each locale. When practical, choose a caption already included in a language pack, to simplify later localization. See About the Localization wizard.
`Auto Refresh`	Select to cause automatic refresh of the runtime harness display when the user clicks the tab to make it frontmost.
System	Not used. Leave blank.
Application	Not used. Leave blank.
Thread	Optional. If the `Tabbed` parameter value is `No`, you can force execution to occur in a specific requestor Thread. Enter the Thread name. Leave blank in most cases to use the default Thread, `Standard`.
Default Action	If the `Tabbed` parameter value is `No`, select to determine the automatic processing that is to occur when the section is initially presented: `None` — No automatic processing; the form area is initially empty. `Display` — Present a user form. `Create New Work` — Start a flow execution that creates a new work item. `Get Next Work` — Search for an appropriate assignment to present to this use next.

If you selected Display for the Default Action parameter, complete these additional parameters:

Parameter	Description
`Class Name`	Identify the Applies To key part of a harness.
`Harness Name`	Identify the Purpose key part of a harness.
`Read Only`	Select to present the runtime harness display in read-only mode, disallowing all input.
`Page`	Optional. Identify a clipboard page name to support the runtime harness display.
`Data Transform`	Optional. Identify the second key part — Data Transform Name — of a data transform to provide initial values on the clipboard page. To find this rule at runtime, the system uses the `Class Name` value as the first key part.
`Parameters`	Optional. You can pass parameter values to sections within the harness using a special syntax: paramname1=paramvalue1; paramname2=paramvalue2; ... where `paramname` is the parameter name and `paramvalue` is a literal constant within double quote characters, or a property reference of the form pagename.propname. For example: Length="20"; Width=pyWorkPage.Width;

If you selected Create New Work for the Document Action parameter, these additional parameters identify the starter flow:

Parameter	Description
`Class Name`	Identify the Applies To key part of a flow rule that creates a new work item, as a literal value or a property reference.
`Flow Name`	Identify the Flow Name key part of a flow rule that creates a new work item, as a literal value or a property reference.
`Parameters`	Optional. You can pass parameter values to the flow rule using a special syntax: paramname1 = paramvalue1; paramname2=paramvalue2; ... where `paramname` is the parameter name and `paramvalue` is a literal constant within double quote characters, or a property reference of the form pagename.propname. For example: Length="20"; Width=pyWorkPage.Width;

If you selected Get Next Work for the Document Action parameter, add parameters:

Parameter

Description

Parameters

Optional. You can pass parameter values to the Work-getNextWorkObject activity (or your activity built to perform such processing) using a special syntax:

paramname1=paramvalue1; paramname2=paramvalue2; ....

where paramname is the parameter name and paramvalue is a literal constant within single quote characters, or a property reference of the form pagename.propname. For example:

Length="20"; Width="200";

Behavior

Leave blank. Not used.

Cell Properties panel — General tab

The General tab for a Work Area control is identical to the General tab for a Text Input control. See Adding — Complete the Cell Properties Panel — General tab.