Customizing › Web Interface Customization › The Web Screen Painter (WSP) › Using Design View to Edit List and Detail Forms › Preview Forms

Preview Forms

To see how a form would look to an end user, select Tools, Preview. WSP copies the modified form to the server, where it is stored in a directory accessible only for your Web Screen Painter preview requests, and then submits a URL to display the form in a browser window.

A Web Screen Painter preview window allows you to view a form as it would be seen by an end user. Although it resembles a standard CA SDM window, and most buttons and menus are functional, it is not a standard session, and you should not attempt to use it that way. The following are the principal limitations of a preview session:

• It is normally read-only. That is, although you can try out functions such as editing data, all database update requests are ignored; you cannot change the database in a Web Screen Painter preview session. The browser window indicates this in two ways:
  • The red Web Screen Painter icon on the top left corner indicates that the browser window shows a read-only preview session. It is possible for the CA SDM administrator to allow updates in the preview window. However, we recommend that you do not do this. If your administrator has configured WSP this way, the icon is yellow (caution).
  • Any occurrence of the word “Save” on a button or menu is changed to “noSave” to indicate that no database update will occur.
• Not all functions are available. WSP preview always shows you the form or tab you are working on. However, many forms are intended to be reached by a specific path through the application, and their environment may not be set up correctly when they are shown directly. If you click a button or attempt to use a feature that has not been properly set up, WSP displays a message explaining that the function is not available in preview mode.
• WSP always shows a detail form in edit view, and populates it with data from your database (it uses the most recently added row from the appropriate table that you are authorized to view). To see the read-only view of the form, click the noSave button.
• WSP always shows a list form listing a single row from the database, with its search filter closed. You can view and change the search filter and repeat the search as necessary to preview the form.

The default behavior for WSP preview is to display a detail form in edit view, or a list form in list view. You can modify this behavior for a particular HTMPL form with the PDM_WSP tag as described in the PDM_WSP: Control WSP Preview.