Appboard/2.4/release notes

Introduction

Version 2.4 is a GA version of AppBoard that is currently scheduled for release in summer, 2013. This page summarizes the New Features, Resolved Issues, and Known Issues in the 2.4 release.

What is AppBoard

AppBoard is a data integration and data visualization platform that dramatically redefines the cost/benefit equation for the development and deployment of real-time business systems dashboards. AppBoard allows you to connect, integrate, visualize, and interact with your data in a simple, straight-forward builder environment. The end result is powerful, compelling dashboards that summarize data from multiple sources and can be accessed from any device.

New Features

This section describes the enhancements to AppBoard that are included in version 2.4.

• Updated configuration editing screens to a transactional model. Changes are not saved until the administrator clicks "Save". (2144)
• Added Column Width ratio and Bar Height ratio Sliders (.1 -.9) in Bar and Column Chart Widgets for addressing issues with font sizes being too small in axis labels. The width of the columns, and height of bars impact how big the labels can grow. For example, even when gutter values were manually increased, forcing more room for labels, the bar height itself could prevent the labels from growing larger. Labels can't be larger then their bars. So tiny bars will produce tiny labels, regardless of how much gutter space is provided. Setting the height ratio to 1 will help maximize available real estate per bar, but information density and the size of the widget will ultimately determine label size. (828)
• Re-architected the foundation of all Chart Widgets. This is a structural enhancement to make future changes to all Chart Widgets easier to implement. (2066)
• The legend location for individual Chart Widgets can now be specified on the Widget configuration screen, which will help designers better tailor the legends to specific layouts. (2067)
  • Vertical layout (Left): Best for large Data Sets, and interactive legends.
  • Horizontal layout (Bottom): Best for small data sets, used as reference.
• Substantial improvements to the use of legends in Chart Widgets: (2275)
  • You can choose whether you want Right or Bottom legends (Default is Bottom)
  • You can expand or collapse the legend area. (Show Legend now toggles Collapsed/Expanded instead of Hidden/visible).
  • Legend content wraps to fill available space.
  • Legend content scrolls on overflow (does not crop anymore).
• Added a new type of Column Renderer in the Basic Table Widget called a Sparkline, which is a very small line chart, without axes or coordinates, that presents the general shape of variation in some measurement, such as temperature or stock market price, in a simple and highly condensed way. (AB-3)
• Added a new option in the CSV Data Source configuration called "Header Meta Delimiter". This allows the header row of the data to specify the data types of each field, and specify which fields are primary keys. (AB-18)
• Updated the Theme Manager display to show un-editable system Themes as gray with a lock icon, to help differentiate from custom Themes that can be edited. (AB-128)
• Improved the "Search Text Field" (filter) presentation: (AB-178)
  • Replaced title bar search box with clickable search icon.
  • Clicking the search icon toggles visibility of the search box (on next line), which includes a small search icon in the box for greater clarity of operation to end-user.
  • Mouse-over on the search icon shows "Quick Filter" label.
• Added support for the administrator to re-name Data Sources by selecting "Edit" and changing the name of the Data Source. (AB-24)
• Streamlined LDAP configuration by referencing same interface as used in enPortal. (AB-10)
• Enhanced AppBoard to allow use of web proxies with NTLM authentication. Added as a general feature for all AbstractWebAdapters (including XMLWeb, CSVWeb, and JSON). (AB-135)
• Re-worked buttons on many screens in the AppBoard Builder to provide more consistent and intuitive behavior and style between title window and toolbar close icons and cancel buttons. (AB-145)
• Enhanced the layout manager to save and remember any changes made by the end-user to the layout of Widgets on a Board. The layout settings are stored in a cookie and can be different for each browser. (AB-76)
• Enhanced the options in the Data Collection editor to support sorting on multiple columns. (AB-21)
• Added failover support for SQL Data Sources, which is activated by the "Enable Failover" option and completing the new failover configuration UI in the Data Source editor. (AB-15)
• Improved the layout of the configuration panels of the CSV Web, JSON Web, and XML Config Data Sources to be more intuitive. (AB-192)
• Separated the Widget Actions configuration from the main Widget configuration wizard, and modified design of Actions editor to be non-transactional. (AB-85)
• Upgraded the Widget Title Bar to a more concise and intuitive presentation. (AB-94)
• Added Label Width setting to the Icon List Widget and Status List Widget, for controlling the size of the boxes to suit the length of labels or customer preference. (AB-109)
• Enhanced the Bullet Chart Widget to support the same font size and color options as available on other lists. (AB-137)
• Enhanced the "Fit To View" and zoom controls in the Google Map Widget to improve the default centering and display of points on the map under various scenarios. (AB-75)
• Enhanced the Web Page Widget to include a Home button in the Widget Title Bar, which will return the user to the last configured URL in the widget that was either set by an Action or else the default widget-configured URL. (AB-25)

Resolved Issues

This section describes the resolved issues that are included in version 2.4.

• Fixed an issue causing axis labels in some cases to appear very small in mobile Bar and Column Chart Widgets. The root cause was that a very small rotation angle had been applied. Applied correction to help prevent this by limiting the increment values to 15, 30, 45, 60, and so on. Note that the width of the columns, and height of bars, can still impact how big the labels can grow. (1614)
• Free Flow Layout of Widgets has been deprecated. To re-enable legacy support, you can change the following configuration parameter in /enportal/visualizer/assets/config.xml: (AB-7)
  • <!-- Allow boards to have widgets arranged in Free Flow layout -->
  • <attribute name="enableFreeFlowLayout"
  • type="BOOLEAN"
  • value="true" />
• Updated the placement and ordering of "OK" and "Cancel" buttons on several screens to provide consistency across the product user interface. (AB-39)
• Fixed an issue where deleting the last remaining Access Control Variable would give the error message: "Index '0' specified is out of bounds" . (AB-118)
• Removed the Complex Filter Widget, which was not properly functional in AppBoard 2.3. (AB-210)
• Removed the "CSV File Preferences" Data Source type from the Data Source wizard, as this is a system level element not needed for customer configuration. (AB-211)

Known Issues

This section describes the new known issues in AppBoard version 2.4.

• None

Contact Information

For questions or assistance with this release of AppBoard, please see the support page for contact information