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We have a fairly large mashup that was created in ThingWorx 8.3.3. Mashup Builder in 8.3.3 was pretty solid - I didn't experience any bugs, at least for what I used it for. It took a few moments to load in the Mashup Builder because the associated Thing has maybe 100 services in it. This is my first mashup creation, and once I got the hang of expressions and routers and bindings in general, I found it fairly easy to make the mashup do what I wanted.
Then came 8.5. We first tested an upgrade to 8.5.3 and found a bug with ptc-windchill-integration-connector. We have several services added to that connector and in 8.5.3, I was unable import the connector from the previous build or add services to the existing connector (the Add button was always grayed out, even for Administrator). I opened a case with PTC and found it's a bug. I received a query to run in the ThingWorx database that enabled the "Add" button, but we still had issues getting services to work in the connector, so we went with 8.5.1 instead (no issue with the connector in 8.5.1).
I've imported everything into 8.5.1 and I've been attempting to do some modifications to the mashup. I haven't pulled all of my hair out yet, but it's getting close. This is more of a minor rant than anything else, but I'm wondering if others have experienced the same things and have had better luck, or if there have been other issues in 8.5.x.
For the 8.5 upgrade, I exported everything I'd made from Composer in 8.3.3, wiped it all from the server, then installed 8.5.1 from scratch. The install worked great, no problems there, then I imported everything I had previously exported. The server is a VM, 4-core CPU with 16GB RAM. I don't know if some of the slowness is because it needs more horsepower, but the Mashup Builder performance in 8.5.1 is far worse than 8.3.3. The mashup runs great - it's just sluggish in Mashup Builder.
I wonder if some of the issues are due to simply importing the mashup from the older version. Is the export/import is the best (or only) way to bring a mashup into a newer install, or is there a migration tool or better way of doing it?
Has anyone else had similar experiences in 8.5? I saw a PTC article about a list widget issue that said it's fixed in 8.5.5, but there's no mention of 8.5.5 or anything after 8.5.3 in the PTC Product Calendar. Is there any news on upcoming releases that might help with some of these issues?
Solved! Go to Solution.
Hello,
The team is aware of many of the items you and others in this thread have encountered. We are happy to report that the following are addressed in 8.5.4/ 8.5.5 - Mashup Builder/ Canvas loading/ performance improvements (mainly when you use Grids and Charts), bindings for Functions (you can now bind widgets/ properties/ data to Functions, and in 9.0 the Functions tab has it's own Configure Bindings screen), and general bug fixes (includes binding and style theme issues).
One thing to note when using the in-place upgrade option - we will migrate your layouts, widgets, bindings, properties/ property values, but your style definitions and general styles may come out different based on our new design system. We encourage you to use our Theming feature to mitigate those in one spot through our new Theme Editor (the 9.0 release supports directly editing layout/ container styles in the editor), and also take advantage of the new layout capabilities, as many styles/placements should be reconsidered in a flex layout world, for better responsiveness. Apart from these, we're also improving performance in the 9.0 release, converting all of our old panels, components, and the canvas to be model driven.
We are also working on improving our documentation and adding more tutorials (visual) and videos for Web Components and Responsive Layouts.
Thanks for the feedback!
Hi,
Thingworx 8.5.4 is also available. Please check below the release notes for 8.5.4 (cannot see anything related to performance, but you can give it a try).
Also, for importing/deploying please take a look at Solution Central:
Hope it helps,
Raluca Edu
Thanks, I see the ThingWorx 8.5.4 download now (I had only been looking under the Nagivate downloads before). I'll give that a try and see how it goes.
Hello @DanWolf,
Few basic tricks that help us to work comfortably in the new Mashup Builder:
From my own experience 8.5.0 was very buggy, 8.5.1 was much better, but still far from perfect. Now we're on 8.5.3 and barely notice any bugs in Composer anymore, planning to upgrade to 8.5.4 next week, keeping my fingers crossed.
Regards,
Constantine
Hi @DanWolf.
If you're running Navigate, you need to check the prerequisites before upgrading the platform. Navigate has very specific requirements in regard to ThingWorx compatibility.
Regards.
--Sharon
Thanks, @Constantine. We use Chrome whenever possible. IE is just horribly slow and Edge isn't much better. The Edge Chrome version works pretty well, though. Good point on the contained mashups - I plan on reworking the big mashup into contained mashups when I get a chance.
Hi @DanWolf.
If you have found a solution to your issue, please post it here and mark it as the Accepted Solution for the benefit of others with the same problem. If you still need assistance, please let us know.
Regards.
--Sharon
We have been experiencing many of the woes mentioned, plus a bunch that you didn't. I have a level 1 impact gripe in about the pixel height of many widgets not allowing me to reset them less than 34 px. If they don't fix this, we are going to have to start from scratch to completely redesign ALL of our applications and seek "look and feel" approvals" from our customers...and they won't be happy about that. I'm struggling right now to wire in (bind) a NAVIGATION "function", and having very little success at the moment. Probably something I am missing...but I can't find the updated documentation for it. Wouldn't matter anyway because none of the documentation has any examples.
I agree that the style themes, while a great idea, is missing a lot in actual application. I've found it to be very difficult to block, get rid of, or work around PTC's default style theme. I will delete it, save my mashup, go back and there it is again. It won't go away unless I replace it. It does nothing to affect the size of the widgets, however. Text can get smaller (so long as you don't want to get smaller than 8 px), but some widgets have a minimum height of 34 px (valuedisplay's min. height is 26 px). Both values are almost double our approved height settings.
That constantly recurring warning "Your mashup uses deprecated widgets. Replace them now..." is placed horribly, and I am really getting sick and tired of seeing it. (Yes, I KNOW they are deprecated...got it...leave me alone! I'll change everything AFTER you FIX everything.) With over 200 production mashups alone, a mistaken "YES" click will completely ruin my day. But to my knowledge, there is no other way to break your mashup quickly other than by clicking "YES". At least the OTHER warning box goes away after a few seconds. It is annoying, too. But it won't allow me to commit Hara-Kiri. I had to waste two days making backups of all my mashups so we can recover from that mistake if it were to occur.
That's all I have for now.
@OldGoat, I feel your pain. I agree - hate having to click the Yes/No choice about replacing the deprecated widgets every single time I load the mashup. And binding navigation functions is a pain, for sure.
I updated ThingWorx Platform to 8.5.4 and it's working better, at least in terms of how long it takes to load the mashup. I'd say it's about half the time of 8.5.1. Still much slower than it was in 8.3.3, but improving.
Hello,
The team is aware of many of the items you and others in this thread have encountered. We are happy to report that the following are addressed in 8.5.4/ 8.5.5 - Mashup Builder/ Canvas loading/ performance improvements (mainly when you use Grids and Charts), bindings for Functions (you can now bind widgets/ properties/ data to Functions, and in 9.0 the Functions tab has it's own Configure Bindings screen), and general bug fixes (includes binding and style theme issues).
One thing to note when using the in-place upgrade option - we will migrate your layouts, widgets, bindings, properties/ property values, but your style definitions and general styles may come out different based on our new design system. We encourage you to use our Theming feature to mitigate those in one spot through our new Theme Editor (the 9.0 release supports directly editing layout/ container styles in the editor), and also take advantage of the new layout capabilities, as many styles/placements should be reconsidered in a flex layout world, for better responsiveness. Apart from these, we're also improving performance in the 9.0 release, converting all of our old panels, components, and the canvas to be model driven.
We are also working on improving our documentation and adding more tutorials (visual) and videos for Web Components and Responsive Layouts.
Thanks for the feedback!