While the Constellation architecture has an extensive library of out-of-the-box assets, the framework provides tools for expanding the UI by adding Constellation digital experience (DX) components. This still-evolving framework helps early adopters build interfaces tailored to their specific business needs.
Extending Constellation with DX components
Professional front-end developers knowledgeable in ReactJS can extend Constellation, and then publish the extension back to the server for use by low-code App Studio developers. The extensions that you can build with DX components include widgets, templates, and controls.
As a best practice, DX components serve advanced use cases where an outcome cannot be built with out-of-the-box configuration in App Studio. To achieve best time to value, less code maintenance, and UI consistency across channels, leverage out-of-the-box configuration first.
- Custom control with Java
- HTML rule
- Custom JavaScript
- Design templates (Section rules marked as templates)
- Ensure you have the bandwidth to maintain the Constellation DX component and keep it up-to-date with every release of Pega Infinity. Evaluate if doing this might prevent you from upgrading to future releases of Pega Infinity.
- Evaluate if you are able to meet the compliance standards for data privacy and accessibility for Constellation DX components. Note that not meeting these standards might lead to legal compliance issues.
To maintain a consistent, branded experience across channels, Constellation applications rely on a proprietary design system for styling. The goal of the Constellation DX component toolkit is to extend the library of existing components and create new components that integrate seamlessly with the out-of-the-box components. You can use Constellation DX components to expand the Constellation design system in specific scenarios where out-of-the-box components might not meet immediate business needs.
Constellation UI gallery
The Constellation UI gallery is an open-source project that provides Pega customers and partners with a collection of ready-to-use and customizable components, such as widgets and templates. Its purpose is to offer inspiration, showcase best practices, and provide a foundation for implementing custom components in Constellation applications.
The UI gallery code is delivered as-is, which means that once the component is imported to an application Ruleset, the responsibility for the code in the application rests with the customer or partner who imported the component.
Pega's responsibility explicitly excludes:
- Support for any accessibility or localization issues.
- Support for issues that arise after a Pega Platform™ upgrade or a version update to core technologies such as React.
- Support for any gallery component included in your application.
For more information, see the Support policy at the project GitHub page.