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Plant an App 1.23 | MEO, Version Control and Automation Updates

21 Nov 2022 | Product | Published by: Dragos Dascaleanu

Hi there,

 

Another great release from Plant An App.

 

Release 1.23 delivers a number of exciting new features.

 

We are building unique way to do version control and collaboration through GIT. In this release we take the first step in this exiting journey. 

 

Within our Automation feature we added the following new features:

  • Token intellisense/autocomplete in textboxes
  • Drag and drop actions from parent to child (and vice versa)
  • Validation of required parameters

These features will be merged in other parts of our product in upcoming releases.

Apart from these new features lots of other enhancements and fixes are available as well, so make sure to read to the end.

Try it out

Multi Environment Orchestrator and Version Control (experimental)

 

Release 1.23 delivers a new way to do version control. We developed a tool called Multi Environment Orchestrator (MEO).

 

This tool runs in a docker container and orchestrates version control, the connection between multiple PAA environments (production, development), and the transfer of code changes between environments.

 

 

 

 

In this release we developed the first step in this journey: committing code changes to a GIT version control system.

After an initial commit, changes to the PAA application can be committed at the user's convenience. The Low Code Engineer (LCE) can select his changes to be combined in a single commit and push them with title and description to GIT.

 

 

On Premise (that is your own infrastructure) you need to install the MEO docker package, on PlantAnApp Self Reg we already did that for you. Installation instructions for MEO can be found in our documentation.

 

 

Automation 

 

Drag and drop from parent to child 

 

Drag and drop from parent to child makes it easy to restructure and simplify your actions stack.

 

 

Validation of required parameters

This new feature helps the LCE during development. It prevents saving an invalid actions stack and points to incorrectly configured actions. A time saver!

 

 

Token intellisense/autocomplete in textboxes

Using tokens required the LCE to know their name and parameters. In this release we take a first step in improving the ease of use of tokens. Whenever one types a "[" in a text field, the autocomplete engine kicks in and offers options to select <namespace>:<tokenname> and token parameters. Currently we support MyTokens tokens and Core tokens.

 

 

Documentation

This release also marks the start of a concerted effort to keep the documentation in sync with the new functionality we are releasing. As a result of this effort you will find many new chapters on our learning site: learn.plantanapp.com

 

 

Other Enhancements

  • UI Changes:
    • Font awesome to version 6.2
  • The Safe File action now has allowed extensions
  • Minimum value of number field
  •  Automation
    • Jobs grouped by namespace
    • "Save" & "Save and Close" buttons just like in the workflows
    • Prevent overwriting work of others (or self in other window/tab)

 

For a nice demonstration of the new features please watch our Low Code Cafe episode #115

 

 

Highlighted Bug Fixes

  • Underscore in tokens names is allowed again
  • Connected forms
    • improved validation error message
    • BS5 improvements
  • AF: Save new fields and layout in 1.22 is working again
  • Hotfix version importance displayed correctly again
  • Grid buttons issue when there was no data
  • Grid filters now allow HTML

 

 KNOWN ISSUES 

  • Incompatibility between PAA 1.19+ and 2SXC content version 1.13+. We found that because of incompatible binding re-directs in the web.config, updates to a combination of above versions crashes the application. We have consulted with 2SXC and agreed upon an action plan to move forward.
  • Incompatibility between PAA 1.22 and DNN 9.11

We have a resolution document for the 2SXC issue. Please contact our support team for more detailed information.

 

 OBSOLETE   

 

Some tokens are scheduled to be removed:

  • [ EncodeSQL:"Some string"] is scheduled to be removed in 1.25, the following token can be used instead:
    [ SQL:Encode(Value="Some string")]
  • [ Context:...], [ ContextItems:...] are scheduled to be removed in 1.25, the following token can be used instead:
    [ HttpContextItems:...] as it does the same thing

Make sure to check the list of Obsolete Items in the documentation.

 

We at Plant an App wouldn't be here without you. You are the heroes that use the platform to solve real world problems fast and create an impact. 

 

Happy low-coding,

Bogdan Litescu

Founder & CEO