Release 8.0.0

Discontinued Features

The following items, and their associated privileges have been removed:

DEV-6083  The Show where used repository context menu option has been temporarily removed as it was taking a long time to generate the list.

Databases Going Out of Support

Please email support@phixflow.com if you are planning to run PhixFlow 8.0.0 on an unsupported database version.

Changes to Privileges

If you have created an App User role, please update it to add the privileges:

• View Application

• View Layout Components

• View Streams

• View Styles

Features and Improvements

Performance

PhixFlow performance has improved in the following areas.

• DEV-5878  Card views now run actions or drive other views more quickly.

• DEV-5897  Viewing stream data that has filter rules is quicker.

• DEV-5900  Data in pipes is processed more efficiently.

• DEV-5982  Images are cached by the browser.

• DEV-6062  The audit summary loads more quickly.

• DEV-6031  Applications with a large number of objects in them open more quickly.
• DEV-6154  Dashboards load more quickly.

Analysis Models

Datasources, Collectors and Exporters, Email export, Streams and Pipes, Stream Views

DEV-5830  For transactional streams, where Period is set to Transactional, PhixFlow now creates the UID attribute automatically, if it is required. If you then set the transactional stream to audit manual changes, using Basic Settings → Audit Manual Changes, PhixFlow also creates the audit trail identifiers automatically, if they do not already exist. The audit attribute names are:

• UpdateAction

• UpdatedByName

• UpdatedByID

• UpdatedTime.

DEV-6007, DEV-6257  In stream view properties, there is a new Advanced option called Always Show Quick Filter. Tick this option so that, in a stream view, the column headers always display a filter icon. When not selected, the filter icon only appears when the mouse pointer is in the column header. Also, aggregate column headers no longer have the option to apply a column filter.

DEV-6239  For read-only grid cells in grid views, you can display action icons all the time. Use the option: stream view → attributes properties → Basic Settings section → Always Show The Action Icon. The user can click anywhere in the cell to run the action.

DEV-6059  It is now easy to show or hide columns in grid stream views. Previously you had to open the stream view properties and change the Hidden check box. You can now show or hide columns from the stream view's context menu.

1. Select Show Attributes for <stream view>.
2. PhixFlow displays the list of attributes. All attributes are listed. Hidden attributes are shown in italics.
3. In the attributes list, right-click an attribute and select Show this column or Hide this column.

You can also select multiple rows and show or hide them.

DEV-6157  Hidden stream view attributes do not appear in the list of options when creating a new filter.

DEV-5310  In a stream attribute grid, you can now right-click the attribute name to open its expression in the large edit box. This is a useful shortcut when you need to edit a long expression.

DEV-5997  When you drag a stream onto a form to create a card container, the card container inherits the name of the stream.

DEV-6162  When you drag a stream onto a form to create a stream view, the stream view is now auto-sized by default.

DEV-6276  If you delete a stream that has a pipe to a destination stream, PhixFlow does not delete the pipe. The pipe appears in the list of inputs in the destination stream's properties → Input section. PhixFlow now highlights pipes with no source stream so that you can resolve the problem by replacing the stream or by deleting the pipe.

DEV-6065  Decimal stream attributes now default to having 10 significant figures and 2 decimal places.

DEV-6311, DEV-6115  You can now limit the file size that a file collector will attempt to upload using Maximum Excel File Size (MB).  When exporting, PhixFlow generates Excel files in series, rather than concurrently. These changes prevent extremely large Excel files, or multiple files, from causing Phixflow performance to suffer.

Applications

Dashboards, layouts and layout components, styles, palettes, actions and context parameters.

General

DEV-5957  When you create a new application, PhixFlow automatically creates a default menu and displays it in the menu bar. This means you can quickly populate the menu, by simply dragging an action or a dashboard onto the menu.

DEV-5879  You can now load your own images into PhixFlow to use them as backgrounds and icons; see Image and Layout for details.

DEV-6141, DEV-6139  PhixFlow can now translate additional application interface text to the language in a user's locale; see Translating an Application Interface.  Provided the text is present in the translation table, you can translate:

• stream view headers

• tooltips, for example on an action icon (which is displayed in a grid)

• month names and abbreviations in date formats.

DEV-6132  The Translate function can now take a source language string and multiple parameter strings. When PhixFlow translates the source language string, any "%s" characters are replaced with each of the parameters, in order. 

DEV-5986  Previously, layout components that can have actions (buttons, stream views and cards) could only be connected to a data attribute with a matching name. You can now connect components and data via a data map. This means you are no longer constrained to using dashboard element names while running actions or fetching data. You can use names defined via mapping instead.

DEV-5962  The detailed list of dashboards has a new column to indicate if a dashboard is configured to preload or not.

DEV-5848  The properties tab for a URL component now includes a field where you can enter an expression. This means you can add an expression that takes values from data entered in a form, or from context parameters. PhixFlow can then evaluate the expression to generate a URL.

DEV-1525  You can now expand or collapse grid columns in a dashboard. Right-click on the column header and select Hide this column. To expand the hidden columns, right-click any visible column header and select Show hidden columns.

DEV-6203  For card containers and grids that have scrollbars, you can now drag items to targets that are currently off-screen. Click to select the item, start to drag it in the direction of the target, then pause at the edge of the component. PhixFlow then automatically starts to scroll in the direction of your drag, which may be left-right, up-down or diagonal.

DEV-5927  In rare cases, the backing stream data may no longer contain an attribute that appears as a column header in the grid view. In this case PhixFlow will prompt you to select an alternative attribute of the same type, if one is available. If the backing stream has no attributes of the same type, PhixFlow reports an error.

DEV-5776  The property tab for a drop-down component now includes the Data Type property. This means you can specify the format of the numbers or dates in the drop-down list.

DEV-6145  The width of drop-down lists in grids the larger of:

• the grid column
• the stream view's default width.

Palettes

DEV-5869  There is a new  Show Palettes icon on the right bottom of the screen. Click the icon to open a panel on the right. The panel has sections for each of the available palettes. You can drag layout components from the palette into dashboards.

DEV-5992  The dashboard and layout context menu option,  Show Palettes, now opens the palette tab with all available palettes listed.

DEV-5849  You can now set a default palette for each application using the Basic Settings → Default Component Palette property. In   Design Mode, when you drag stream attributes onto a layout or area:

• If the container application that contains the layout is running, PhixFlow uses the default palette set for the application.

• If the container application is not running, PhixFlow uses the default palette set for the area.

• If the container application is not running, but you are dragging stream attributes into a layout for a different (destination) application, which is running, then PhixFlow uses the default palette for the destination application.

In all cases, if no palette has been set for the application or area, PhixFlow falls back to using the system default palette.

DEV-6008  In applications where users can edit data in a grid, PhixFlow now indicates the edit using a pencil icon, instead of a lightning bolt icon.

DEV-5994  Instead of automatically naming application components as "New", PhixFlow now asks you to specify a name when you:

• create a new form on an empty dashboard pane

• drag a layout template onto an area.

DEV-5930, DEV-5947  There have been several improvements to the usability of palettes. For example:

• You must save a new palette before PhixFlow allows you to drag in a layout template.

• When you add a layout template, the palette refreshes to show the change.

• You can select multiple layout templates and drag them onto the palette at the same time.

• A palette lists components in alphabetical order.

Layouts and Dashboards

For information about layout properties, see Layout.

DEV-5761  For form layouts, you can now add grey, placeholder text to display in an empty field. The text can provide a useful tooltip to application users. To specify the placeholder text for a layout component that has input fields, use the Place Holder Text property.

DEV-5824  You can now drag a layout template onto a palette's layouts list to add the layout. To set the default component for the palette, you can drag the components onto the corresponding drop-down fields.

DEV-5803  You can now add a paging bar to card views. In the layout properties for a card, tick the Show Paging Bar check box.

DEV-5871  The layout property, Default Value, is now also available for dynamic text layout components.

DEV-5922 When you are designing a layout, manually resizing an area will automatically untick Layout area → Style Settings→ Auto-size. There is a new context menu option  Turn auto size off/on, to toggle the autosize property as you work.

DEV-6308  Dashboards have a new Basic Settings → Cache Locally property. This option is an alternative to Preload. When the user loads the dashboard, PhixFlow caches it on the client computer. When subsequently reopened during the same session, the dashboard layout loads more quickly.

DEV-5996  The dashboard context menu includes new options:

•  Show Attributes for <stream name> is available when a dashboard has a backing stream.
•  Show Attributes for <view name> is available when a dashboard has a backing view, as well as a backing stream.

DEV-6163  It is possible to drag a dashboard onto a form, to create a button that opens the dragged dashboard. The button will be positioned to the next available space. If you want the button to be positioned at the drop position, use CTRL+drag.

Styles

For information about style properties, see CSS Properties.

DEV-4649  You can now format static text that appears on a layout. In the layout properties, tick the Use HTML Formatting check box. PhixFlow adds a formatting toolbar to layout property → Display Text field. In the application, the static text will be displayed with the applied formatting.

DEV-5932  There are now more options to configure layout → Style Settings properties for forms, cards, tabs and areas. These give you more control over the way components flex as the application screen size varies.

•  When Auto Size is ticked, you can also specify the Grow Factor.
•  When you specify Direction there is now a separate property to control how components Wrap.

DEV-5983  There are new CSS properties Cycle Size and Offset. Use these options to apply CSS formatting to specific children of a layout.

Actions

DEV-6089  Actions no longer have to belong to a stream. This means you can create actions and use them with different streams. Actions are linked to stream data via stream item action rules. The repository has a new Actions branch for actions that do not belong to streams. If you drag a dashboard onto an area or button that does not currently have a backing stream, PhixFlow will create a streamless action. Similarly if you drag a column header onto a button that does not have an action, PhixFlow will create a new action and add the context parameter.

DEV-6133  You can now apply formatting to confirmation and response messages for actions.

DEV-2956  Action properties have a new field in Basic Settings → In Progress Popup Message. Enter text to notify the user about the action, such as how long it might take. Use the edit toolbar to format the text. When a user triggers the action, PhixFlow will display your custom message while the action is running.

DEV-5788  You can now include expressions in action properties → Result → Result Message text; see Action → Result Message.

DEV-3810  Button actions have a option, Advanced → Prevent Parallel Processing. Tick the check box so that, when the application runs the action, the button becomes unresponsive until the action has finished.

DEV-5935  You can drag a column header from a grid view onto an action button. This creates a context parameter, which was previously automatically given the attribute name. Now, PhixFlow will now open the context parameter properties. In the Basic Settings → Name, you can either select a name from the attribute list, or type in a different name. 

DEV-5978  You can now configure how long PhixFlow displays an action message using stream action properties → Result section → Result Message Timeout (s). Specify the number of seconds to display the message. PhixFlow then automatically closes the message.

DEV-6034  It is now possible to specify custom a message to display in the progress window while a stream action is running; see Action properties → Result section → In Progress Message. If you do not specify a custom message, PhixFlow displays the default message.

DEV-5985  You can now use the jumpTo function in Stream Item Action Rules → Action Attributes → Expression.

DEV-6240  You can now use the _field internal variable in double-click or in-cell actions. The variable refers to:

• either the name and label of a column
• or the value in the cell.

Common Features

Filters, tasks and task plans, data formats, functions and macros, interface menus and toolbars

DEV-6082  There is a new Help tab displayed to new users which provides links to the help and training. You can change whether or not this is displayed using the User menu → My User Details →  Show the help tab on startup check box.

DEV-6030  When you create a new application, PhixFlow asks if you want to load it immediately. Also, the repository context menu for Applications has new options:

• Load Application to select and load an application. The repository list is automatically filtered to show only the branch for the loaded application.
• Filter by name filters the list of Applications list and expands the branch of the selected application, but does not load it.
  

You can see the full list of applications again by removing the filter from the Applications branch.

DEV-5844  When you drag a stream onto a form, PhixFlow now prompts you to select the type for the stream view or card view that you want to create.

DEV-5850  Some property tabs have buttons to show specific items in the repository browser. If the items belong to a container, PhixFlow now shows the items within the container, rather than in the full repository. For example, in a layout component, if you click the Show Styles button, PhixFlow shows the list of styles in that container.

DEV-5757  In the repository browser you can now drag an attribute from its stream into an application component, such as a layout, area or form. PhixFlow adds a field to the application component for the attribute.

DEV-5927  There have been some improvements around creating a background filter on a layout. When working in a dashboard or layout, you can drag the column header from a grid view onto a form. This creates a background filter using the backing stream attribute. When you then select a different row in the grid view, the form updates to show the details for the selected row. You can now also drag a column header onto a card, to have the same effect.

DEV-5853  You can now filter branches of the repository to find items using search box next to the branch name. Type into the search box to filter by name. The filter is case-insensitive.

DEV-5828  When you add a filter or sort order on a grid view header, it is automatically applied. Previously you then had to select the new filter.

DEV-6062  The audit summary now includes the previous and new name when references to other objects are changed. 

Administration

Users, permissions, security, configuration, installation

PhixFlow and its libraries have been updated to maintain security.  (Internal reference numbers: DEV-5768)

DEV-5945  PhixFlow now returns an error message when a datasource has an incompatible database driver.

DEV-4820  There is a new option System Configuration → General Settings → Feedback Email Address. Specify the email address for the User menu→ Send Feedback Email option to use. This should be your company IT support address.  

DEV-6153  You can now configure PhixFlow to automatically dismiss notification pop-ups after displaying them for a time. Set how long PhixFlow should display the notifications in System Configuration → General Settings → Notification Timeout (s). 

Bug Fixes

The following issues have been fixed in this release.

Models

DEV-5287  When you delete a modelling object, PhixFlow now correctly clears the references from other objects. Previously, if an object still had references to a deleted object, attempting to re-import the deleted object would fail.

DEV-5403  Modelling objects are not selected if you accidentally drag-and-drop over them.

DEV-5865  In a drop-down component, if you set a stream view to null, PhixFlow no longer reports an error when you save the component.

DEV-5936  PhixFlow now correctly removes commas from numbers exported from a grid to a CSV file.

DEV-5944  Copied stream sets now display the correct stream set size.

DEV-3497  After updating a macro, PhixFlow will always use the new version. In some cases, PhixFlow was using a cached version of the previous macro when running analysis on a model.

DEV-6091  When running analysis, if a file collector error count reaches the maximum allowed before rollback, PhixFlow displays the last error message as an error in the console, rather than as a warning.

DEV-6049  In a database collector, the Run query and show result button now correctly populates the grid.

DEV-5188  If export to email is configured, for example on a file exporter, a list of multiple users is now retained if a model is imported to another instance.

DEV-6044  In the console, viewing emails and managed files that reference deleted or removed fIle exporters no longer reports an error.

Applications

General

DEV-5845  When you drag multiple stream attributes onto a dashboard area, PhixFlow now sets up the input fields in the same order as the stream attributes.

DEV-6017  For a form or card view, PhixFlow now correctly uses the data in the backing stream (all attributes for one period). Previously PhixFlow was trying to use the default stream view.

DEV-5838  PhixFlow no longer lists layouts that have a container in the Unallocated folder of the repository browser.

DEV-6041  In   Design Mode, when you right-click on a dashboard in the modelling pane, PhixFlow opens the context menu without bringing the dashboard to the front of the open models and/or dashboards.

DEV-6213, DEV-6105, DEV-6106  When using an application, autosave now works correctly if you click outside a grid between updates. During autosave, data records in a grid are prevented from being updated multiple times in parallel. In the console, autosave events are now tagged with AUTOSAVE.

DEV-6181  Resolved issues with Google Chrome auto-filling drop-down lists with its own entries, rather than using the drop-down list entries configured in PhixFlow.

DEV-6287  When a grid has Refresh if not active unticked, it is now correctly refreshed when the dashboard is displayed.

DEV-6140  Where translation is configured, application menu options will continue to be translated when a page is reloaded.

DEV-5972  Forms are no longer marked as edited if the user clicks through the fields without making any changes.

DEV-6353  In a form, if you use the tab key to move into a drop-down list, PhixFlow opens the list.

Layouts

DEV-5837  The layout properties now includes the Parent Details section.

DEV-5845  In an area component, setting the style to add either a horizontal or a vertical scrollbar now correctly displays the selected scrollbar, rather than both.

DEV-6210  For card views with nested cards, you can now reference a parent card using data mapping with the option Current selected.

DEV-6171  Dashboards no longer keep data after layout components have been deleted.

DEV-6051  Check box selections are correctly cleared when a dashboard is re-opened. 

DEV-6052  Rearranging the order of layout components in the repository now correctly rearranges the components in the layout itself. Previously, a rearranged component had both relative and absolute positioning applied, so it was incorrectly placed.

DEV-6306  Formatting rules no longer override layout settings, for example to switch off scroll bars.

DEV-6261  For dashboards and layouts that have components with filters driven by views, the driven elements now correctly refresh if the driver has Show records count ticked.

Styles

DEV-5947  The application properties → Style Settings section now includes the Row Selection Style option.

DEV-5861  When you drag a style onto a layout component, PhixFlow now correctly applies the style immediately.

DEV-5659  When you add a background colour to a grid, PhixFlow correctly applies the colour even if you have also set opacity for the grid. Previously, the colour was not correctly applied to date columns.

DEV-6159  Horizontal bar charts now use the horizontal and vertical axis configuration values correctly.

DEV-6169  Stacked bar charts now load and display correctly.

DEV-5894  For grid rows set to be higher than the default value, any True/False columns now have their row background styles correctly applied to the full row height.

DEV-5980  Importing a style will now reconnect it to any layouts that refer to it.

DEV-6172  PhixFlow correctly uses the page size settings when it reopens a cached dashboard.

DEV-6168  The border formatting for layout components now correctly combines settings in the layout's CSS  and Style Setting properties. Also, margins and padding are now correctly applied.

DEV-6120  Formatting rules referring to driven components now correctly refresh after the driven component refreshes.

DEV-6095  Tabs headers now correctly apply any flex settings. You can now use the Focus state on tabs components.

DEV-6279  HTML editor fields, when driven by other views, now correctly re-render.

DEV-6044  Tabs headers now correctly apply the height from shared styles.

DEV-6215  If a CSS property evaluates to null, the whole grid row no longer loses its styling.

DEV-5825  Attributes are now correctly added to charts when dropped onto chart editors.

Actions

DEV-5949  Stream actions now correctly move uploaded files to the directory specified in their Tag expression.

DEV-5799  If a user double-clicks on a button, the second click is ignored. The action runs once and PhixFlow no longer reports that the action is already running.

DEV-6365  When the user double-clicks in a grid cell, PhixFlow now correctly runs any in-cell action, rather than the default action for double-clicking.

DEV-5916  If an action has an incorrect target view, PhixFlow will report an error when the user attempts to run the action.

DEV-6236  Context parameters are now correctly cleared after closing the dashboard, even if the dashboard is set to Preload.

DEV-6209  Context parameters now work correctly while set to '0'.

Common Features

DEV-6097  If you right-click on a branch of the repository, the context menu is no longer displayed if there are no options for the selected branch. This is the case for right-click on Full Repository and Unallocated.

DEV-5960  When closing a filter editor opened from a column filter, the column filter now also closes correctly.

DEV-6275  When applying filters on charts, clicking Show The List of Values now correctly displays the list of values, rather than a chart.

DEV-6234  To resolve issues with filter selection lists displaying incorrectly, they are no longer formatted using the default column header style defined in the system configuration.

DEV-6146  Expanding the repository Unallocated → Database collectors branch now correctly displays the list, rather than reporting an error.

DEV-6134  Deleting a date style now deletes any date style mappings that refer to it. PhixFlow notifies you that the mappings will be deleted.

DEV-5790  The context menu options for an object now correctly exclude any option that has no purpose for that type.

DEV-6074  PhixFlow correctly applies the default filters and sort orders when it reopens a preloaded dashboard.

DEV-5188  In previous versions, if you exported data with an email distribution, but the users did not exist in the export instance, you would lose any mailing lists.  PhixFlow now retains the mail list, even if the users do not exist in the instance.

DEV-5896  For the background filters on a drop-down component, you can no longer set a boolean filter field to null.

DEV-6227  PhixFlow no longer reports an error when you add a background filter to a drop-down list of attributes in a stream view. PhixFlow was previously incorrectly reporting that the attribute came from a different stream.

DEV-5880  When you import modelling objects with PhixFlow-defined drop-down lists, the audit detail now correctly displays translations (if it is configured) for the items listed.

DEV-6364  Resolved an issue with layouts using shared styles. This occured when shared styles were exported then imported into a different instance and the layout components were being developed in both instances. 

DEV-6202  After importing a configuration file using the Import Configuration form, PhixFlow optionally publishes any changes to the streams that are backed by database tables. PhixFlow now no longer reports that the configuration upload has failed if there is an error during the publishing stage. An example of a publishing error is an attempt to change the type of an attribute from a Date to a Number. In the console, the import will be shown as successful and any publishing errors will be reported.

Administration

DEV-5591  The PhixFlow installer now correctly closes when the installation has completed.

DEV-5924  Some database connection errors were returning empty messages. These have been fixed.

DEV-5974  When adding a user group to a user, an audit summary record is created only if the user is new to the group.

DEV-6027  Users with no privileges will no longer see an error message when attempting to log in to an application.

DEV-5868  The Users and Privileges branches of the repository no longer also appear in the Unallocated branch.

DEV-5948  When you reopen the system console, it now automatically selects the most recently opened task and displays its details.

DEV- 6071  Filtering the grids in the properties for roles and for user groups now behaves correctly for is null, is true and is false filter conditions.

DEV-6362  When a task is in progress, selecting a row in the Console Log will no longer select all rows.