Content areas substitute object views and guide views

Content areas substitute guide pages, guide views, and object views including object cockpits and object profiles. They offer advanced configurability for the user. While the solution designer working with Alfabet Expand provides a default configuration for content areas, users can then decide to change the content area according to their needs. They can add, remove and re-order content.

Content areas have different pages accessible via tabs. The content of a page is preconfigured in Alfabet Expand and can contain the following elements:

• Configured reports. The report is displayed in the content pages. Users can edit a report directly in the content area if the report provides editing capabilities.
• Standard views. The view is displayed in the content page. Users can edit the standard view directly in the content area if the standard view provides editing capabilities.
• Data workbenches. Data workbenches can be added view only or with editing capabilities.
• Cards showing indicator values. Cards are based on card widgets defined in Alfabet Expand. Card assigned to indicator types or evaluation types during indicator type or evaluation type configuration can then be added as visualization to content areas. More details are given below under Changes to configured reports.
• Property Groups. Property groups can only be added to content areas which are assigned to an object class. Property groups are not defined directly in the content area. Instead, empty property groups are defined in the Property Groups node of the Meta-Model tab. Object class properties have a new attribute Property Group to assign them to one of the existing property groups. This assignment can be overwritten in the class settings to change it for object class stereotypes or individual user profiles. Object class properties of different object classes can be assigned to the same property group. If the content area specifies that a property group shall be displayed, in the user interface, the property group will display only the object class properties of the object class the content area is about.
• Buttons. In content areas defined for an object class, the buttons defined for the object class as Generic Operations or which are assigned to the class settings via the object profile selection are displayed automatically. Button availability can be changed in the class settings.

Click for a complete description of how to define a content area.

During migration from Alfabet 10.15.x to Alfabet 11.8, all existing object views will be moved to a folder OLD and set to ReadOnly. In a folder New a content area will be defined for each existing object view. Object cockpits are converted to pages in the content area. The migration of the content areas is not a complete process. The result will be fine-tuned by the Software GmbH team during the migration project.