Release notes Universal GUI 2023.1.13

Hello everyone,

An important change in this release is, that we improved the responsiveness of controls in a form. This might require some adaptations to your model, so read the notes on this subject carefully.

A new feature is the possibility to provide Indicium with a hint about your authentication provider(s), which will add the required OpenID providers to the login screen. We also improved the developer experience by adding support for refreshing the model and reloading the application model when it has expired.

A full overview of all features, changes, and fixes can be found below.

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

We will keep you updated regularly about Universal GUI's progress.

Universal GUI version 2023.1.13

Do not forget the documentation and be sure to keep the following in mind:

• A modern browser is required to access the Universal GUI, e.g., a recent version of Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari mobile. Using the Universal GUI with IE is not supported.
• The Universal GUI must be deployed on the same server as Indicium or an allowed origin in appsettings.json.
• The Universal GUI only works with version 2021.2 and up of the Thinkwise Platform.
• Make sure you run all hotfixes on IAM and the Software Factory that you plan to use for the Universal GUI.
• Make sure you are using the latest version of Indicium.

Download the Universal GUI version 2023.1.13 here

Contents

New

Provide an authentication provider hint to Indicium

Community idea

It is now possible to provide Indicium with a hint about the authentication provider that should be used by adding the setting 'loginAuthProviderHint' to the config.json file. It can be used for single Indicium instances with multiple OpenID providers configured.

Imagine a scenario where three OpenID providers are configured: Google, Facebook, and AzureAD.

• You can host a Universal GUI with the 'loginAuthProviderHint' set to "Google, Facebook" to show both OpenID Provider buttons for signing in.
• You can host another Universal GUI for your employees on a different URL with the 'loginAuthProviderHint' set to "AzureAD".
• To provide a hint that allows only local sign-in, you should add "localLogin".

If, after filtering the options on the hint, only one option is available, it will be chosen automatically.

Refresh model from profile menu

We have added an option to refresh the model. It is available from the profile menu (this is the menu you can open from the top-right corner). This option will reload both the model on Indicium and the Universal GUI. It is only available to users configured as developers in IAM.

Reloading on model change

We now support reloading the application when the application model has expired. Just click 'Update now' to reload and use the new model. This is the same as when the GUI version is renewed. It also adds an indicator to the user profile menu if a user closes the message without updating (now).

History browsing supported

We now support history browsing. With history browsing, you can use the back and forward buttons in your browser or device to navigate between previously active subjects. Reloading the Universal GUI, for example, by pressing F5 or using the refresh model function, re-opens the last opened subject.

It has some limitations:

• When browsing back, a subject with a selected tab and an active record will be restored only if it was present as an open document. If it is closed or if the entire Universal GUI is reloaded, the subject will start in a default state.
• After reloading, only the last subject is restored. Open documents are not.
• In this first version, the history browsing does not recognize an opened detail subject (double clicking on a tab header or detail tile).

Changed

Improved responsiveness

The Form component of the Universal GUI has been designed to be responsive. This means that editors will fill out 100% of the available space while respecting side-by-side placement.

In the Software Factory, the width of the fields is configured in pixels, whereas the Universal GUI's responsive design asks for percentages. Previously, this calculation did not respect hidden controls ('hidden outside form' or number 3 in the layout logic). This resulted in empty space around the visible controls on the same line, which looked a bit messy. 

This has been fixed for the Form component and the task/report parameter input. Of course, the open space will remain reserved for controls defined as 'hidden inside form' or number 2 in the layout logic.

Before:

After:

This change is also visible in the Form list component. Previously, the width of controls placed side-by-side was spread equally over the number of controls without the possibility to change it. Now, the Universal GUI will listen to the field width configured in the Software Factory with the algorithm described above.

Toolbar positioning and density improvements

Previously, the toolbar containing the search and filter bar and the action bar had the width of the entire subject. When an area of the subject only contained detail subjects with their own toolbars, it could be unclear which buttons belonged to which subject.

Now, the toolbar only has the width of the components of the subject, so it no longer extends above the details. In addition, we have removed the Filters and Actions labels.

Activate the form on double click

The grid and the card list will now activate the form on a double click if no double-click task is set.

Single cube view button hidden

When a cube subject contains a single cube view, a button for it in the toolbar is not necessary. From now on, it will be hidden.

Mandatory indication changes to indeterminate checkboxes

If a checkbox is set to mandatory (menu Data > Domains), it may give users the impression that they have to select it, even if they do not want to. To address this issue, you can set the checkbox to a default state of 'null' (indeterminate). After selecting an indeterminate checkbox, the mandatory indicator will now disappear, making it less confusing for the user.

Minor fixes and tasks

Fixes for process flows

• In some situations, in a process flow in combination with an Add row process action, a 'Bad Request' error could occur. This has been fixed.

Fixes for the grid

• When an image column was used as a grid group, the image would not be displayed. This has been fixed.
• When canceling touch multiselection in the grid on a touch device, it would wrongly keep showing the multi-select checkboxes. This has been fixed.
• When scrolling in the grid on a slower touch device, the performance would be somewhat worse because the active row was changed wrongly with each swipe. This has been fixed.
• We also made some minor extra performance improvements in the grid.

Fixes for documents

• When an auto-saving document is open (with or without changes), it is now possible to log off via the profile menu. The document will be saved automatically.
• When an already opened document was re-activated, it sometimes opened empty. This has been fixed.
• When reopening the last opened document after refreshing the browser window, its icon was not displayed. This has been fixed.

Fixes for tasks

• When a task is configured with the refresh option Row, the Universal GUI now refreshes all the selected rows after the task has been executed successfully.
  Note: as of 5 selected records and up, the entire set is refreshed instead of only the selected records plus their logic. At some point, the latency on the number of network calls will overrule the performance win.
• The form controls in a task popup would show as read-only when something went wrong during the execution. This has been fixed. Now, the task popup is editable after an error.
• When using [ctrl]+click to select grid rows, the Universal GUI would not always take all the selected rows into account when executing a task. This has been fixed.

• We fixed an error message being shown when canceling a task from a start object or the menu. We also fixed an issue with start objects being started twice.

Fixes in the layout

• The Label control type now listens to the Field width setting (menu Data > Domains > tab Form > tab Domain).

• In compact mode, the progress bar is now aligned vertically in the center of the grid.

• SVG icons in the tree are now limited to 20px in compact mode and 24px in comfortable mode to keep the tree tidy.

• A form can be divided into groups with or without a title. Without a title and only a separator, the separator line was shown sticky against the first control. Now, the separator has proper padding.

• The bottom borders of buttons in the toolbar were missing. This has been fixed.

What we will be working on next sprint

The next sprint we will be working on:

• Custom settings for the grid line height sizes. 

• A new process action that allows you to copy anything to the clipboard.

• Tooltip translations in action bars and form controls.

Questions or suggestions?