Product Update - October 2019: New Status Bar, AIMMS Design System, Python Update and more
This post is an archive of the Product Update email sent by AIMMS Product Owner, Gertjan de Lange.
Before delving into the Product Update, I wanted to highlight some upcoming events. October is here and that means it's time for the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle. Many of us will be attending. I would love to meet if you're around. Send me an email and we can schedule a time or swing by Booth #3 to say hello. We are also organizing a Customer Event right after the INFORMS Annual Meeting. We will be touching on Customer Case Studies, our Supply Chain Vision and Product Roadmap, and Industry Trends. Sign up to attend!
Status Bar
We started developing the Status Bar this sprint and expect to round it up in November. We completed designs and functionality, adding the option to call a procedure right from the Status Bar (for example, to open a Dialog with more details). You can see its specification below.
WebUI::StatusBarItems === {'header', 'icon', 'color', 'text', 'tooltip', 'procedure', 'state'}
WebUI::StatusBarSpecification := {indexInteger, webui::indexStatusBarItems)
To learn more about this feature, visit this discussion in our Online Community.
Calendar and TimeZone Update
We are close to completing the DateTime picker this sprint and will be releasing this soon as an Experimental Feature. Stay tuned!
New Front-End Framework
At AIMMS, we consider it important to update our architecture and tooling on a regular basis. This helps us build the best technology for our customers in the most effective way. Our Visual Studio update, see January 2019 update, is an example of the changes we're making. Last month, we brought the WebUI team together and after intensive research, testing, and several proofs of concept, we decided to move to React.
We will transition away from our current jQuery-based code base by intelligently replacing existing components, while rethinking part of the underlying architecture and building new components.
React will allow us to create even more complex and responsive elements without sacrificing maintenance. Moreover, the concepts behind React will be more suitable for adopting new engineering developments in the future. This is a major step in the lifecycle of our WebUI!
AIMMS Design System
I have highlighted the AIMMS Design System a few times in previous updates, to share what we would like to achieve with our UX changes. We realized that our customers really benefit from having access to this information, so after some feedback rounds, we made it publicly available. Read about our UX developments, our recently developed features and get tips and tricks to make your application work better.
Python Integration
We announced our plans to develop a Python integration in May and have been working hard to complete it. At this time, we are tuning the Developer side of the work (allowing AIMMS developers to easily use a Python script, including the ability to debug them). The next stage is deploying the AIMMS models that make use of Python onto our AIMMS PRO deployment platform (cloud and on-premise). Without the second, the value is limited to the Developer community. We want to ensure everybody using AIMMS can benefit from this.
Let us know if you're interested, so we can provide you with pre-releases of the AIMMS-Python integration as soon as they become available. More updates to follow!
I hope this Update has been useful. Please share your feedback in the comments below.
Product Owner