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    Home London Platform Capabilities Now Platform capabilities Service Portal Service Portal widgets Widget developer guide Widget troubleshooting guide

    Widget troubleshooting guide

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    Widget troubleshooting guide

    Use the following tools to investigate and resolve unexpected behavior in your custom Service Portal widgets.

    Reduce complexity
    Deactivate widgets unrelated to the widget you are troubleshooting to isolate parts of the page that may be causing errors or unexpected behavior. Set the active field to false on a widget record to hide the widget on the page, and prevent associated scripts from executing.
    Use the browser developer console

    All supported desktop browsers have built in developer tools. Access your browsers developer tools to view console messages and errors thrown by client-side javascript. Many of the logging tools detailed below output information to this console.

    Use the widget context menu to access information and options
    CTRL+right-click a widget to access configuration options for the widget. There are also options to output the scope and scope data object to the browser console. For more detail on this menu , see Widget context menu.
    Use script methods to capture debugging output

    Several methods are available to output debugging information within your server and client-side code.

    Table 1. Scripted debugging methods
    Method Availability Description
    console.log() Server and client Logs output to the browser developer console.
    $sp.log() Server Logs output to the Service Portal Log Entries [sp_log] table, when the logged in user has the sp_admin or admin role.
    gs.log() Server Logs output to the Log [syslog] table.
    Note: gs.log creates records on the syslog table. Excessive use can adversely affect performance.
    gs.warn() Server Produces warning level output in the Log [syslog] table.
    gs.error() Server Produces error level output in the Log [syslog] table.
    gs.addInfoMessage() Server Displays a green information message at the top of the browser window.
    gs.addErrorMessage() Server Displays a red error message at the top of the browser window.
    spUtil.addErrorMessage() Client Displays an error message within the browser window.
    spUtil.addInfoMessage() Client Displays an Info message within the browser window.
    spUtil.addTrivialMessage() Client Displays a message which automatically disappears after a short time.
    debugger Client Sets a break point in Chrome and Firefox browsers, allowing you to step through a script line by line in the browsers developer console.
    {{data|json}} HTML This code can be added to the HTML code of a page to output the data object to the portal page in JSON format.
    Check for security restrictions
    Often, widget display issues are caused by access rules rather than the widget script. Verify that any records that are not accessible within a widget are accessible using the platform UI. Use the ACL debugger to ensure that your users have the expected access to records used by your widgets. For more detail on the debugger, see ACL debugging tools.
    Create a reference to the widgets scope in the console
    Use reference to a widget to manipulate scope data or manually run the widgets client and server scripts. Use the following steps to create the reference.
    • 1. Right-click the widget and choose Inspect.
    • 2. In dev tools Elements tab, click to highlight the element with attribute widget=widget. You can find it a few elements above the currently inspected element. This element points the $0 scripting tool at the widget.
    • In the Javascript console, run the following code:
      var scopeRef = angular.element($0).scope();
    Use the reference to your widget to change data within the console. See the following example. Remember to run AngularJS $apply() on the scope to apply changes to the page.
    scopeRef.data.prop1 = "Pear";
    scopeRef.$apply();
    Run any function defined in the widgets client controller from your reference using the syntax below.
    scopeRef.exampleFunction();

    Use the refresh command to manually execute the widgets server script.

    scopeRef.server.refresh();

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      Widget troubleshooting guide

      • Save as PDF Selected topic Topic & subtopics All topics in contents
      • Unsubscribe Log in to subscribe to topics and get notified when content changes.
      • Share this page

      Widget troubleshooting guide

      Use the following tools to investigate and resolve unexpected behavior in your custom Service Portal widgets.

      Reduce complexity
      Deactivate widgets unrelated to the widget you are troubleshooting to isolate parts of the page that may be causing errors or unexpected behavior. Set the active field to false on a widget record to hide the widget on the page, and prevent associated scripts from executing.
      Use the browser developer console

      All supported desktop browsers have built in developer tools. Access your browsers developer tools to view console messages and errors thrown by client-side javascript. Many of the logging tools detailed below output information to this console.

      Use the widget context menu to access information and options
      CTRL+right-click a widget to access configuration options for the widget. There are also options to output the scope and scope data object to the browser console. For more detail on this menu , see Widget context menu.
      Use script methods to capture debugging output

      Several methods are available to output debugging information within your server and client-side code.

      Table 1. Scripted debugging methods
      Method Availability Description
      console.log() Server and client Logs output to the browser developer console.
      $sp.log() Server Logs output to the Service Portal Log Entries [sp_log] table, when the logged in user has the sp_admin or admin role.
      gs.log() Server Logs output to the Log [syslog] table.
      Note: gs.log creates records on the syslog table. Excessive use can adversely affect performance.
      gs.warn() Server Produces warning level output in the Log [syslog] table.
      gs.error() Server Produces error level output in the Log [syslog] table.
      gs.addInfoMessage() Server Displays a green information message at the top of the browser window.
      gs.addErrorMessage() Server Displays a red error message at the top of the browser window.
      spUtil.addErrorMessage() Client Displays an error message within the browser window.
      spUtil.addInfoMessage() Client Displays an Info message within the browser window.
      spUtil.addTrivialMessage() Client Displays a message which automatically disappears after a short time.
      debugger Client Sets a break point in Chrome and Firefox browsers, allowing you to step through a script line by line in the browsers developer console.
      {{data|json}} HTML This code can be added to the HTML code of a page to output the data object to the portal page in JSON format.
      Check for security restrictions
      Often, widget display issues are caused by access rules rather than the widget script. Verify that any records that are not accessible within a widget are accessible using the platform UI. Use the ACL debugger to ensure that your users have the expected access to records used by your widgets. For more detail on the debugger, see ACL debugging tools.
      Create a reference to the widgets scope in the console
      Use reference to a widget to manipulate scope data or manually run the widgets client and server scripts. Use the following steps to create the reference.
      • 1. Right-click the widget and choose Inspect.
      • 2. In dev tools Elements tab, click to highlight the element with attribute widget=widget. You can find it a few elements above the currently inspected element. This element points the $0 scripting tool at the widget.
      • In the Javascript console, run the following code:
        var scopeRef = angular.element($0).scope();
      Use the reference to your widget to change data within the console. See the following example. Remember to run AngularJS $apply() on the scope to apply changes to the page.
      scopeRef.data.prop1 = "Pear";
      scopeRef.$apply();
      Run any function defined in the widgets client controller from your reference using the syntax below.
      scopeRef.exampleFunction();

      Use the refresh command to manually execute the widgets server script.

      scopeRef.server.refresh();

      Tags:

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