Ignition 8.0.2: Improving Perspective with Translations, Security Helpers & More
Ignition 8 is still fresh out of the gate, but the Software Engineering team has been hard at work on adding various improvements. This update features well over 100 features and bug fixes mostly focused on the Ignition platform and the Ignition Perspective Module.
Longtime users may have noticed that Perspective doesn’t have quite the feature set that the Vision Module does; the Vision Module has been developed and improved upon for over 10 years. Because of this disparity, these updates introduce a number of new Perspective enhancements, several of which are inspired by features in Vision.
Translation in Perspective
Vision features translation capabilities, allowing you to develop projects that support multiple languages. With 8.0.2, Perspective now includes translation support. As an added bonus, both modules utilize the same translation terms, allowing you to define terms once, and reuse them in both Perspective and Vision.
In Perspective, translations are tied to your browser’s locale. The locale is determined automatically, but can also be changed via a session property.
Security Level Helper Functions
Security Levels, the premier method of access restriction in Perspective, gained several new helper functions in both the Expression Language and Python Scripts. Before this update, Script Actions were the only real mechanism that could be restricted based on Security Level. These new functions open up a wealth of options, allowing any type of script or expression in Perspective to check the current Security Level!
For more information on these functions, check out the system.perspective.isAuthorized (Python) and isAuthorized (Expression Language) functions in the Ignition User Manual.
Flex Containers and the “Display” Property
One of the most useful Perspective containers just got an upgrade. The Flex Container is a container that will perfectly align embedded components, as well as provide them with an explicit position and a host of layout configurations. As with all components in Ignition’s visualization modules, components can be hidden. The problem with hiding components in the Flex Container is that hidden components still take up space, leaving a visual gap behind.
In this new update, components placed inside of a Flex Container now have a new position property named “display.” This property allows you to temporarily remove the component from the container. Because it is simply a property, the component can be removed from the running session with a binding or script! A simple toggle now allows you to hide other components inside of the container, without leaving a visible gap in the container.
It’s easier than ever to configure collapsable sections of the container.
What’s Next?
This update features a large number of Perspective-related features, but there are even more on the horizon, such as the Alarm Status Table and Horizontal Menu components, which are slated for an 8.0.3 release. Additionally, we have plenty of features and improvements being added to all areas of Ignition. (Believe it or not, we’re not just working on Perspective!) Check out the Ignition User Manual, as well as the 8.0.2 release notes for a full list of additional features and changes.
For our next release cycle, we will be revisiting the 7.9 branch for a maintenance release, featuring a number of fixes and quality-of-life improvements.