How does web screen painter work? What files are modified while previewing, editing and publishing a form?
search cancel

How does web screen painter work? What files are modified while previewing, editing and publishing a form?

book

Article ID: 53542

calendar_today

Updated On:

Products

CA IT Asset Manager CA Software Asset Manager (CA SAM) ASSET PORTFOLIO MGMT- SERVER SUPPORT AUTOMATION- SERVER CA Service Desk Manager - Unified Self Service CA Service Desk Manager CA Service Management - Asset Portfolio Management CA Service Management - Service Desk Manager

Issue/Introduction

This article gives a detailed description of how web screen painter works and files modified while previewing, editing and publishing a form.

 



Environment

CA Service Desk Manager 17.X

Resolution

 



Its major features are customizing forms and schema editing. It is used to Create and modify web detail forms , list forms and menus with a drag and drop interface.



Feature Highlights



  • Create and modify schema
     
  • Create tables and columns
     
  • Review and change magic and schema
     
  • Edit CDD style sheets, JavaScript's and HTML
     
  • Preview, test and publish adaptations



WSP is a java application and can be installed on client or server. It is a slump application to connect to web engine. It stores everything on primary server and nothing locally.



How to start/Launch WSP



  • Windows start menu or pdm_wsp command



Wsp pops up browser window with standard USD login. This login creates a web session for preview.WSP icon marks preview session and shows read-only and read/write area. Session ends only when you exit WSP( closing browser does not end the session)



How to edit a form



Once a form is opened there are 2 views of it-> design view and -> source view.



Design view applicable to detail, list and menu forms.



Source view shows all text of form with keywords color coded and it looks like a notepad style editor. Changes are automatically reflected in design view and vice versa.



The form can also be previewed by selecting tools-> preview. When previewing wsp send the text of the form over to the web engine and stores the wsp preview form in site/mods/wsp/preview/userid/htmpl.



A preview session is always read only. Edit form is shown, but all database updates are ignored. This is a neat feature to experiment with database and live data. Pdm_wsp controls how the form is previewed.



SAVING A FORM



  • File>save
     
  • File>save all
     
  • File>save as



When a form is saved wsp saves form on server in subdirectory of site/mods/wsp/project/htmpl.All the wsp users save to same directory. WSP send it over to the server in subdirectory of site/mods/wsp/project/htmpl.



Delete forms



  • File>delete



Forms in site/mods/wsp are deleted immediately after confirmation however form groups and forms in site/mods/www are flagged for deletion by creating a dummy file filename. deleted. Accidental deletion can be prevented by selecting file->undelete.



PUBLISH: When we are ready for the end users to see the form we can run file>publish to publish forms. Publishing happens in wsp: web engine and all the forms are copied to site/mods/www and forms are distributed to all servers with a web engine .A publish command will also clear htmpl cache in all web engines. It also processes all pending deletes.



Notes: When a form is publish after editing, all adaptations go to site/mods and originals always exist in bopcfg.



Schema Designer



With schema designer we can review, edit, and add new tables and columns, test without affecting production. The changes can also be reverted and published online. The wsptbl and wspcol table in DBMS stores the changes.



File>save and publish to begin publishing schema. This process creates 5 files on the primary server under site/mods.



  • wsp.mods gets created under Majic folder.
     
  • Wsp_schema.sch and wsp_index.sch: contain all physical dbms changes that area created with wsp
     
  • Wsp.altertbl file lists new tables in text format.
     
  • Wsp.altercol is a text file listing new columns.



The changes are replicated to all the domsrvr using wsp.mods



To complete publishing, user must shutdown services.-> run pdm_publish script on primary server.



Pdm_publish runs a utility called schmerge to merge new schema with existing schema.



It rebuilds service desk data dictionary. It also updates wsp_schema.log in site/mods. This file is a log file that lists all the tables and columns that are added. Pdm_publish reads it to figure out what tables and columns are already added so that it doesn't attempt to publish the published tables. Hence it is strongly recommended not to delete this file.

 



Log files



Nx_root/log/jstd.log. Verbosity of this log can be increased by editing nx_root/site/cfg/log4j.properties   create a new entry:
log4j.rootCategory=DEBUG,jstd.log

Save and restart SDM to get additional logging to the jstd.log file
Change the entry DEBUG to ERROR  after troubleshooting any errors, save and restart to revert back to default logging.
 



Nx_root/site/mods/wsp_schema.log: Logs creation of tables and columns and never delete this.

Powered by Wolken Software