release notes

Universal Development Update August 2020

Related products: Universal GUI
Universal Development Update August 2020

Hello everyone, it's time for another Universal development update. We have some nice improvements and fixes for you.

We planned to also have the first version of grid edit mode. This is virtually complete, but we want to do some more review and testing before we release it. You'll get it the next release.

As always, we've made a demo for you: try it here. Before trying it out, press 'Clear Cache' on the login screen. You can read the GUI user manual to get familiar with Universal.

We'll keep you updated regularly about Universal's progress.

Universal version 1.2

Like with every blog, we've released a version so you can test Universal out for yourself. Don't forget the documentation and be sure to keep the following in mind:

  • Edge has been updated to use Chromium, which greatly changes the way it works under the hood. We now also recommend this browser to be used for Universal.
  • Universal must be deployed on the same server as Indicium or it should be an allowed origin in appsettings.json.
  • Universal only works with version 2019.1 and up of the Thinkwise Platform.
  • Furthermore, make sure you run all hotfixes on the IAM and SF that you plan to use for Universal.
  • Make sure you are on the latest version of Indicium Universal.

Download Universal version 1.2 here

Improved lookup controls

We had many issues with the lookup combo and lookup suggestion controls because of the third party components we used. This led us to completely rebuild them using different components. The following known issues have been resolved:

  • The dropdown always opened downwards, even if there was not enough space
  • The dropdown wouldn't resize itself if there was not enough space, leading to it falling outside the screen so you couldn't see all values.
  • The cross icon wouldn't always disappear when clearing the value
  • When deleting the value in the suggestion control, the filter would remain even after removing the entire value
  • The line under the input wouldn't become red when there where errors
  • The styling to achieve the desired look and feel was spotty, this has been refactored.

This is what it looks like:

The lookup combo has been completely rebuilt

Grid edit mode

We've added the architecture for the grid to go into edit mode. This is under the hood only. We wanted to also include a text editor, so any control that is simply text would be editable as well. As mentioned we want to review and test this some more, so you'll see that next sprint.

Profile picture

When you add a profile picture in IAM, it'll now show up in Universal. You'll see it in the topbar, and when you go to your User preferences. This makes it much more personal and easy to see who's logged in.

In a later iteration we want to make this editable from Universal.

A profile picture in Universal

Unit tests

In the past three weeks we've added another 20 unit test cases to the components and inner workings of Universal and were able to remove unit test cases for components we've removed. This brings us up to 1592 test cases in total.

Lots of minor fixes/tasks

Bugs

  • The user's password is no longer stored in IndexedDb
  • We now show the correct breakpoint, rather than always the biggest breakpoint
  • The number control now also has a label on mobile devices

UI/UX

  • The text indicating in which columns you're searching no longer has double colons (::)
  • Tasks shortcuts without a modifier are now also implemented

Technical

  • Fixed a security issue in several of our third party packages
  • If URLs get too long for the server to handle, we now send them in a different way (For the technically minded: we then use $query)
  • We now explicitly load the translations we need, rather than all translations
  • The active record is now only set after the data has loaded, not before as well
  • We send null to Indicium rather than undefined for missing values
  • Executing contexts no longer stops when it has failed once
  • Added markdownlint file to help with documentation consistency
  • Fixed several debug error messages showing up in develop

What we'll be working on next sprint

The next sprint we'll be working on:

  • Finishing base grid edit mode
  • Adding checkboxes to grid edit mode
  • Do the ground work for default editable and autosave
  • Capturing, translating and displaying TSFSendMessage
  • Grid multirow selection on desktop
  • Add option to reset your password
  • Squashing some bugs

The lookup combo update is great! It also being responsive to screen edges will really improve user experience.