Ignition 8.1.45: New Pager Property, Greater Visibility For Tag Scripting Errors, Perspective Designer UX Improvement

The Ignition release train wants to wish you a happy new year! And what better way to kick off another trip around the sun than with a fresh shipment of Ignition improvements. IA’s developers are primarily focused on getting Ignition 8.3 ready, so the release train will be switching tracks soon, but we’ll continue to ensure any critical 8.1 bugs are fixed in the meantime.

Ignition 8.1.45 delivers a new Perspective pager property, boosted visibility for errors in tag change scripts, a better saving experience in Perspective, and numerous framework updates to improve performance.

New Perspective Pager Property

In Perspective, you can now change the number of rows displayed at runtime in an active client with a new activeOption pager property for table components. We’ve introduced an updateOptionFromProps method (for allowing external writes to the activeOption property to update the pager's pageSize), along with a syncOption method (for allowing internal writes to the pager's pageSize to update the activeOption property).

Previously, with table.pager.initialOption bound to a view parameter, once a table component was first rendered, the (now soft-deprecated) initialOption property didn’t enable changing the amount of rows displayed in the table, unless it was configured to be persistent. Essentially, this property just didn’t play well with bindings.

But with the new activeOption property’s ability to accept runtime updates, things are a lot simpler. Its functionality is especially useful for views that appear on different screen sizes, when you might not want to use scroll bars, offering an easier way to control the appearance of views.

Heightened Visibility Of Tag Scripting Errors

To make it easier to realize when there’s a problem in tag value change scripts, errors in these scripts will now be logged at the info log level once per minute.

Before, after the first error was thrown, subsequent errors would be thrown in at the debug log level (unless a specific logger was in debug mode). This meant you wouldn’t see these errors unless you restarted the tag or turned the tags.eventscripts.dispatcher log to debug.

Now, when a value change script in a tag is faulted, it will throw an error once per minute in the wrapper and Gateway logs when the tag is triggered. And when a Gateway tag change script is faulted, it will throw an error every time the tag is triggered in both the wrapper and Gateway logs.

The increased frequency of logging these errors at the info log level will make it clear when a problem exists so that you can resolve issues efficiently.

Improved Save Operations In Perspective

With 8.1.45, the experience of building in the Perspective designer just got even better. We added the designer system property ignition.perspective.designerSaveTimeout to control how long the designer will wait for the embedded browser frame to return results. The new property’s default timeout period is 60 seconds — three times longer than the previous timeout period.

Additionally, we improved asynchronous handling, so things should feel a little snappier when you’re working in the designer. And we made error messaging more explicit if you encounter issues while waiting for browser resources during a save operation, so that you have a clearer understanding of what’s going on.

These refinements to Perspective’s saving process should help eliminate some stressful moments as you build industrial applications, bringing a little more zen to your workflow.

To learn about the range of functionality in Perspective’s designer that helps you design and build projects, check out the Perspective Designer Interface section of the Ignition User Manual.

Honorable Mentions

There’s a handful of additional updates we’d like to call your attention to, where we’ve internally upgraded frameworks for better performance.

Ignition Cloud Edition

Updated the Ignition Cloud Edition’s bundle of Cirrus Link modules (including MQTT Transmission, Distributor, and Engine modules) to version 4.0.25.

BACnet

Upgraded the BACnet4J library to version 6.0.1.

Java/Azul

Upgraded the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version to 17.0.13.

OPC UA

Updated Milo to version 0.6.15.

Perspective Geolocation

Geolocation functionality in Perspective now also works with the most recent version of multiple desktop browsers, including Google Chrome (versions 126 and above), Microsoft Edge, and Firefox (version 130).

Improving Ignition, One Release Train At A Time

Learn more about these updates in the 8.1.45 release notes and the Ignition user manual. And be sure to visit the ideas portal if there are any new features that would make building industrial automation solutions in Ignition better, faster, or more fun. The next release train is chugging right along, and will deliver its precious cargo (AKA Ignition updates) by late February.