Explorer Studio Tour

This article applies to versions 4.9.6 and later of P2 Explorer. For help on earlier versions, see Release History below.

Studio is your design interface for building Explorer pages.

To add or edit a page, you can:

  • Open the Home ribbon tab, and click New Page
  • Open the Page ribbon tab, and click Edit.

1 Studio Ribbon The Studio tab on the ribbon is activated whenever someone creates a new page or edits an existing page. For details on the functions available in the ribbon, see Explorer Studio Ribbon.
2 Toolbar

Above the component toolbox is the toolbar. The toolbar contains common functions for editing pages.

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Save 

Click to save changes to the page. The date and time that you last saved is displayed, along with your user name, on the Explorer page properties.
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Save As

This is how you can copy your page. Type in a name, and select a workspace from the drop-down list, in the Save Display As window that appears. The original page is closed without any changes saved, while the new page (with most recent changes) remains open in Studio.
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Cut Click any component on the page, and click Cut. You can also use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+X. Use in conjunction with Paste, unless you want to remove the component altogether.
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Copy Click any component on the page, and click Copy or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+C. Use in conjunction with Paste.
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Paste If you have copied or pasted a component, you can paste it anywhere on the page (multiple times, if you want to). You can also use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+V.
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Finish & Open Click this button to save a page, and open it in run time.
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Preview Click the Preview button to see how your page will look in run time. When previewing your page, you can also interact with all the elements on the page, as if you were in run time. 
Click the Preview button again to make further changes to the page.
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Undo

Click to undo the latest change. You can also use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+Z. You can click repeatedly to undo previous changes, or click the downward-pointing arrow to select how far back you want to go. The different steps are listed from most the recent activity.

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redo
Redo

Click to redo the latest change. You can also use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+Y. You can click repeatedly to redo previous changes, or click the downward-pointing arrow to select how far back you want to go. The different steps are listed from most the recent undo action.

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3 Component Toolbox

The component toolbox is the area on the left of Studio that contains all the components that can be dropped onto the canvas.

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4 Component A component is an item that is added to the canvas.  When you drop a component onto a page, it has the same icon as what is shown in the component toolbox. Click on a component to edit its properties.
5 Canvas and grid lines Pale blue dotted lines are present on the canvas when the page uses a grid layout.  When a grid cell is clicked, the focus changes to that cell and the outline changes to solid blue.
6 Component Editor

When you select a component on the page, you can edit its properties in the component editor.

You can see on the page which component is currently selected, by its outline. In a grid layout, the grid cell is outlined in blue for the selected component. In precision layout, the selected component is outlined in blue.

1. Name and description
This is the component name as it is in the components toolbox, and an accompanying short description. Click the Help button to open a tutorial for that component, in the Help Center.

2. Properties
These are the properties that allow you to configure this component for a specific purpose. For example, in a Combo Box, you have an Option Names property, which allows you to specify what appears in the drop-down list. Properties with an asterisk are mandatory for the component to work.

3. Data Selector
Many properties allow you to define a value through the Data Selector. The Data Selector is a powerful sub-control that allows you to specify dataset queries, tags, attribute values, calculations, and static values. 

4. Variable
Many properties also allow you to set or use a variable to provide an interactive page for your users. Variables are indicated by one of the following symbols:

variables

With variables, users can change the type of data displayed on a page. Common uses include changing a date or an entity. 

5. Style Property
Some of the components allow you to apply a predefined style. All components come with a default style, and some allow you to choose from several other styles, specific to that component.

6. Position in Layout
If you are using a Grid Layout, you can reposition the component by specifying the row number and column number.
If you are using a Precision Layout, you can reposition the component by specifying the X and Y coordinates, and you can also specify the exact height and width of the component.

7 Link to Contextual Help  Many of the Explorer components have contextual help on the Help Center. Components such as this one have a help icon with a direct link to related help.
Click the icon to open the Explorer Help Center, in a new tab on your internet browser.

Release History

  • Explorer Studio Tour (this release)
    • Explorer shortcut menu added to the left of the framework
    • Other minor cosmetic changes
  • Studio Interactive Tour 4.0
    • Initial release

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