SkySpark release notes 3.0.27

Datum release 7-12-2020

Overview

• Arc notes and workflow framework
• Table customization sidebar
• New table gauge visualization chart type
• New tariff builder views
• View builder binding enhancements
• Context menu enhancements

Arc Extension

This build introduces the long awaited Arc framework for customized workflows. Arcs are the 3.0 replacement for the classic notes app, but packing a ton more features:

• Arcs are fully integrated into clustering and replication
• Arcs are based on Haystack 4 to allow declarative def customization
• Arcs support fully customized workflows using finite state machine definitions
• Arcs support attachments using the new virtual file system
• A new filter builder dialog allows users to easily build custom summary reports

Table Customization

All table views now provide a customization sidebar to tailor the presentation of table columns, rows, and cells. This new feature works in a similar way to the chart customization released earlier this year. Table customization supports styling:

• Foreground/background colors
• Font weight
• Horizontal alignment
• Hide columns or the table header itself
• Visualization of numeric columns as cell bar charts, bubble charts, gauges, or heatmaps

Table Enums

Previously table views applied default logic to style status columns with color and icons. Although this worked for most common cases, it occasionally caused conflicts with data that used "status" in the column name. Starting in this build, enum display name and icon are managed strictly through Haystack 4 defs. In order to present a column as status color/icon, then the column name must map to a enum def that defines an icon and iconColor tag for each enumeration item.

Table Gauge

Build 3.0.27 introduces a new table cell visualization named "gaugeCell". This cell chart type visualizes numeric data using a gauge with a 180 degree arc and dial. A series of configurable colors is used to render the gauge's arc. This new visualization is available in all the swivel views as a new option. 

PDF Table Enhancements

Most of the table customization customization options were documented for Axon use in the previous build. However many of the presentation features were not yet fully supported by the PDF rendering engine. This build corrects all those issues to provide 100% fidelity to render PDFs using the same styling as what is shown in the browser.

New Tariff Builder

This build includes two new views to make working with tariffs easier. There is a new Tariffs view that allows you to create and edit tariffs and their charges from the UI. There is also a new Bill Periods view that allows you to more easily create and edit bill periods for your meters. When the tariff ext is enabled you will find both these new views in the Energy app.

Energy App Rollups

Prior to this build, only the Usage view would give you the option to change the fold function and rollup interval. In this build, we are adding that option to the Operation and Profile views also. Adding this feature introduces a small change in behavior for the Profile view: before we would always do a rollup on the data using non-standard, fixed intervals depending on the size of the data span being used. Now we have aligned the behavior with standard hisRollupAuto() semantics. This also aligns the behavior with the existing Usage view.

In particular, this means that if you have a period of less than 2 days selected, you will see the raw energy data with no rollup applied (whereas prior to this build you would see a 15 minute rollup). Use the "rollup" option of the view if you want to specify an explicit rollup interval. Note: the rollup interval will be specified in the title of the chart so that it is clear how the data is being presented. If no rollup interval is in the title, then you are looking at raw data.

Context Menu

This build introduces significant enhancements to the context menu we introduced earlier this year into many of the built-in views. The context menu works better over clusters now. Plus many more views now support a context menu including most of the Energy views. You will also find more menu items:

• link from a site/equip/point to the Site Builder
• link from a local rule to Code|Editor
• link from a connector or point to Connectors
• link from any target to the Arcs|Summary view
• create an arc directly from a selected target

New Monitor|Equips View

The Monitor app has brand new view calls "Equips". This is a simple, but powerful new view used to automatically build equip oriented tables of live point data. This view lets you pick a list of sites and an equip type from the Haystack 4 taxonomy, then displays all the point's curVal as columns. Combined with the new table customization feature this lets an end user quickly create customized visualizations for live data.

View Builder Binding

We are introducing two new features for bindings in the View Builder. The View Builder now sports a new "Batch Bind" feature. With one click, this command will batch bind a top level variable with every sub-view that has the same variable name and kind. It's very convenient for common use cases such as a top level Span picker used across several sub-views.

We are also introducing the ability to bind a table selection between sub-views. This works by annotating a sub-view variable with the bindSelect metadata to drive the variable from the selected row in the table. This variable can then be bound to peer sub-views as a pseudo-input. By removing the table header, you can easily use a table sub-view as a list selection box.

Nav Op uses 3.0 Tree

In previous builds, the HTTP nav operation used the classic navMeta navigation model. This operation is used when browsing the learn tree of a Haystack connector for connectors pointing to another SkySpark instance. Starting in this release, the nav op tree will be based on the 3.0 uiMeta configuration.

Connector Filter

The Connector view now has a new filter text field in the top right of the toolbar. This field uses the standard search syntax to filter the shown connectors - by default its a free form dis tag search or prefix with "re:" for regex or "f:" for a Haystack filter. Many customers have asked for this feature when they have 100s or even 1000s of connectors.

SwitchView Hot Key

In the classic Func editor, you could use hot keys to toggle focus between the editor and a simple built-in axon shell. Many users have missed this feature in the new Code|Editor. Build 3.0.27 introduces a new top level hot key "Ctrl + /" (⌘/ on Macs). This hot key will toggle the focus between the left and right split screen views. If you are in the Code|Editor, then using this hot key will automatically open the Tools|Shell view in the right split and then you can toggle focus between the views.

Writable Computed Points

Normally, a computed point is not writable - it is a read-only point that computes its values from some other point. This build introduces an enhancement that allows you to store "raw" data on a point with the hisFunc tag. When you do a read on such a point, by default, the hisFunc will be called like normal to compute the values instead of returning the "raw" data. Inside your hisFunc you will read the raw data from the point itself to yield the computed values.

This enhancement is particularly useful for handling totalized meter data. This forum thread goes into much detail about the use cases and alternatives explored to make working with totalized data easier. A full example of using a writable computed point for totalized meter data can be found in the post dated Wed 11 Nov.

Converting Notes to Arcs

This build includes a new utility function that allows you to convert your Notes to Arcs. Use the notesToArcs() function to do this conversion. The function allows you to convert all or a subset of your notes.

Haystack 4 Tag Migrations

Several extensions had their tags modified to better conform to the conventions and requirements of the Haystack 4 tagging model and defs. If you use one or more of the following exts then you are impacted by these changes.

• jobExt
• scheduleExt
• tariffExt

The 3.0.27 migration docs go into detail about the specific tag changes that are done.

Also if you missed, you might want to watch the SkyPosium session on how to perform migrations on a cluster with the provisioning service.

Job Ext

Running the migrate tool will automatically fix the tags for you.

Schedule Ext

Running the migrate tool will automatically fix the tags for you.

Tariff Ext

This build includes a significant refactoring of the tags used by the tariff ext. This was done primarily to align the tariff tags with the Haystack 4 tagging model, but also had the benefit of allowing us to create a new Tariffs view in the Energy App. You can use this view to create and edit tariffs and their charges.

MIGRATION REQUIRED: If you are using the tariffExt, then you must run the migrate tool when upgrading to 3.0.27. Please see the 3.0.27 migration docs for details about how the tags changed. If you have custom Axon functions that depend on the old tags, you will need to refactor your code accordingly.

Change Log

Build 3.0.27 (7 Dec 2020)

• ArcExt
• Table customization sidebar
• Integrate defs into table presentations
• Redesign table status color/icon handling using defs
• Rename generic status columns across different views
• Limit upload dialog size to 100MB
• New filter builder dialog
• Tweak context menu to use selection itself versus expanded descendent
• Demogen no longer generates any demo user accounts
• Gauge table cell visualization
• New Monitor|Equips view
• TableView bindSelect
• Update demo lighting model
• Change logRead function permission to su, level col to logLevel
• Support hisFuncWritable for computed points
• Downgrade SMILE to 2.4.0
• Document using uiContextMenu in your own views
• Enhance Ext.observe to take actor or method
• Rule|Debug support for reobserve
• Tariff def refactoring
• New funcs: parseAst
• Redesign PDF table layout to support explicit colWidth
• Fixes for PDF rendering of fandoc lists
• New hotkey commands: "C" Customize, "Ctrl+/" Switch View
• Chart fallback to col meta unit when all values are NA
• Optimize ConnPoint.updateCurOk to short circuit when no changes
• New Tariff builder in Energy app
• Migrate jobs to Haystack 4 defs
• Migrate schedule/calendars to Haystack 4 defs
• Convert nav operation to use 3.0 navigation tree
• Shell view always shows durations using actual unit now
• Make mobile an add-on system module
• Connector filter field