Tom Sawyer Perspectives, Java Edition

Release 7.0.0

Overview

This release introduces charting. It is now possible to add chart views to Tom Sawyer Perspectives web applications through Designer configuration.

A UI Editor has been integrated into the Tom Sawyer Perspectives Designer so you can create composite UIs more easily. You can now create complex UIs for drawings, nodes, edges, labels, and connectors visually with the UI Editor instead of creating UIs programmatically.

Data integration has been greatly improved by adding a new JSON data integrator, adding support for the latest Neo4j 2.2 releases, and improving XML data integration performance by as much as thirty-five percent.

This release also introduces new tools for viewing and editing. The new modeless Select and Pan tool unites the functionality of the Select tool, Pan tool, and zooming tools to eliminate the need to switch between tools. The Move tool can transfer drawing objects from one nested drawing level to another nested drawing level. Further, Tom Sawyer Perspectives adds a Reconnect Edge tool for use in web applications.

Additionally, this release adds support for visually representing edge crossings.

For those who use Maven, Tom Sawyer Perspectives has been fully mavenized with a public Maven repository for downloading new releases.

Finally, this release offers many new performance and quality enhancements.

New

Designer

• UI Editor integration

Data Integration

• Added a JSON data integrator
• Added support for merged cells in the Excel integrator

Views

• General
  • Added a JavaScript callback for when a view and its sub-components are initialized and applied to the DOM
  • Added a JavaScript function to validate before closing a view
  • Added a preference to enable closable tabs in web applications
• Charts
  • Rule-driven chart views
• Drawings
  • Modeless Select and Pan tool support for desktop and web applications
  • Transfer tool support for desktop and web applications
  • Reconnect Edge tool support for web applications
  • Visual edge crossing representation
• Tables
  • Added a new option to choose which columns are sortable
  • Added the ability to sort by multiple columns
  • Added an action to reset the sort order
  • Added sort-by and sort-order properties to combo box editors in desktop and web applications
  • Cell editability can be defined by an expression
  • Added HTML formatting support for table headers in web applications, including support for style attributes, image icons, and tooltips
• Trees
  • Added HTML formatting support for node labels and text cell values in web applications
• Inspectors
  • Added sort-by and sort-order properties to combo box editors in desktop and web applications
  • Cell editability can be defined by an expression

Examples

• New tutorial for chart views
• New tutorial for the UI Editor
• New tutorial for the JSON integrator
• New example to demonstrate chart views with map views in web applications
• Added a JavaScript command to set model attributes
• Added a JavaScript command to clean up a view on the server

Build and Distribution

• Introduced Maven support

Improvements

Designer

• Enabled the Neo4j integrator to accept query parameters and then substitute those evaluations with actual values before passing the query to the Neo4j server
• Improved the text integrator binding definition panel
• Improved map functions to operate based on the insertion order

Data Integration

• Improved data refresh performance in the Designer for the Neo4j, REST, SQL, and XML integrators
• The Neo4j integrator connection and read timeouts are now configurable
• Performance improvements in the XML integrator by as much as thirty-five percent
• REST integrator requests use the same encoding that is set for responses

Views

• Drawings
  • Improved memory management of the UI style map in HTML5 applications
  • Improved the use of drawing templates for child drawings in HTML5 applications
  • Improved performance of the Select Region tool in web applications
  • The At and Between tools now respect using the Shift, Control, and Meta keys
  • Improved image loading in HTML5 applications avoids the need for redundant image resources
  • Improved rendering of the overview window in desktop applications
  • Improved the rendering performance of various UI elements
  • Improved bend animation in desktop applications
  • Improved precise shape clipping in desktop and image map web applications
  • Improved the Link Navigator tool
  • Improved Move tool performance in HTML5 views
• Maps
  • Improved selection and deselection in map views
• Trees
  • Improved the tree views in desktop applications to require significantly less memory
• Tables
  • Improved rendering of table views with toolbars when they are scrolled

Layout

• Improved node packing in nested drawings with a hierarchical layout style
• Improved inside node connector and labeling placement in all layout styles
• Improved rotated labeling quality
• Improved the orthogonal layout style to reduce possible crossings
• Improved nested hierarchical layout to have fewer crossings
• Improved layout performance
• The one-line layout action is now cancelable in web applications

Licensing

• Licensing setup web proxy information can be set through System properties

Documentation

• Various improvements in all areas of the documentation

Examples

• Enhanced the International Flights example to show additional data through a chart view
• Enhanced the World Cups example to show additional data through a chart view
• Improved the text positioning of Action node names in the Business Process example
• Improved the look and feel of the Social Networking example.
• Enhanced the Social Networking example to show additional data through a chart view
• Improved search in the Neo4j Cineasts example

System Requirements

• Added support for Neo4j 2.2
• Added support for GWT 2.7.0
• Dropped support for GWT 2.6.1
• Added support for these browsers:
• 64-bit Google Chrome
• Opera
• Opera Beta

Fixes

Designer

• When the Designer is closed and there are unclosed web applications in the Previewer, artifacts are no longer left on the machine
• Show an alert when a color's alpha value is empty in color expression editing

Model

• Fixed a potential deadlock that occasionally occurs when removing an element from a custom model implementation
• Modified the Delete tool to clear model selection to avoid a selection desynchronization issue between different views
• Fixed color functions behavior when the colors' alpha value is empty

Views

• Fixed an issue in the date editor in web applications to show the correct month
• Fixed a potential exception in search result selection in web applications
• Fixed a randomly occurring issue in the Tasks example where filter selection was not respected
• Drawings
• Transparent images are properly supported in HTML5 views
• Curved edges work properly in HTML5 views
• Fixed incorrect effects of the flow edge animation in image map views
• The drawing background image UI element centers properly
• Drawing object tooltips are now positioned correctly in Microsoft Internet Explorer 8
• While exporting a drawing to an image or viewing it in Print Preview, the hover overlay is no longer exported
• Improved the At tool and Between tool to show a context menu on right-click of the selected element
• A JavaScript callback notification now passes the correct event data object from the Select tool for web applications
• Fixed a potential exception in HTML5 views when Zoom Fit is used before the diagram is fully loaded
• Fixed a potential exception related to nesting border UI elements
• Fixed a flickering problem in image map views
• Fixed a problem with partially shown drawings in HTML5 views
• Fixed incorrect effects on the toolbar when fade animation is used in desktop application drawings
• Fixed a rare issue in HTML5 views where occasionally all of the nodes or edges were missing from the drawing view
• Fixed a canvas flickering issue that occasionally occurred in image map views
• Fixed an issue when SVG images were used without width and height specified in the SVG tag
• Maps
• Improved selection and deselection behavior
• Improved highlighting synchronization in map view
• Trees
• Improved context menu button states on selection changes in web application tree views
• Improved tree view cell rendering in desktop applications
• Tables
• Table sorting by empty column no longer changes the sort order in web applications

Data Integration

• XML or Microsoft Excel third-party libraries are no longer required if the XML or Excel integrators are not used by the application
• Fixed an exception in the XML integrator that occurs when an XSL transformation is applied on an invalid input XML document

Examples

• The Clear Results button in the m-Slice example works properly in web previews
• Fixed a potential exception in the Network Editor example web preview that occasionally occurs after checking and unchecking some filter values and then selecting table rows
• Fixed the label text truncation in the HTML5 view of the World Cups example
• The time slider in the desktop preview of the Governance example works properly

Layout

• Fixed an exception caused by long rotated labels in drawings with the hierarchical or orthogonal layout styles
• Fixed non-orthogonal edges in orthogonal drawings

Issues

• None