In recent months the Webix team have been working hard crafting new features for Webix complex widgets and introducing changes aimed at upleveling our product. The efforts of our passionate professionals resulted in a release of a new Webix 10.3 version we are so delighted to announce today.
Webix 10.3 is meant to equip you with newly designed tools that are already at your disposal. From now on, typing mode for bot-generated responses is available in Chat; data facets – in Report Manager; standalone lines – in Diagram; data validation, formula parameters suggestions, checkboxes and radios – in SpreadSheet; additional operations in Pivot; ability to define hourly/minutely and secondly recurrences – in Scheduler. Let’s take a closer look at all the updates.
Chat updates
The previous updates of Webix Chat included the integration of a chatbot into the chat app as part of user experience improvement. But the Webix team decided to go a step further and added one more feature – typing mode for bot-generated responses. Now, when the user sends the request, the chatbot types the answer in a man-like way – the text appears letter by letter. The typing speed can be regulated.
Report Manager updates
Report Manager is now equipped with data facets – advanced feature for data analysis that allows creating result reports in the form of multiple tables (charts).
The user specifies a facet column and the dataset is divided into a number of independent subsets in accordance with the selected facet – the characteristics by which the data is grouped. To edit facets, choose one of your reports, then press Edit → Data → Facets.
Diagram and Diagram editor updates
In earlier Webix versions links in Diagram were used only as connectors for shapes, it was impossible to apply them separately as they needed to have a source and a target. The new version provides the possibility of utilizing lines (standalone links) that are not associated with any shapes (don’t have a source and a target). So, now you can use both – connecting links and standalone lines.
You can find this option in a new section of the Diagram editor called Lines. Just drag-and-drop a line into the workspace, move it or copy if needed.
SpreadSheet updates
Webix SpreadSheet received a number of innovations that are particularly noteworthy. The first one refers to data validation. Now you can establish your own rules for validating data to be applied to the selected area. This option prevents the user from inserting incorrect data into table cells. Validation rules can easily be added and removed with the help of the corresponding button in the toolbar, top or context menu.
You can choose a suitable way of handling errors and add the input message explaining validation rules – this message will be available to the user in a popup upon clicking the cell.
Let’s pass on to the next newly added SpreadSheet feature – formula parameters suggestions. In addition to math methods suggestions available in previous versions, the users are provided with tooltips for formula parameters. The popup text appears upon inputting formulas into cells and serves to reduce mistakes while working with formulas as the user receives the necessary information about the parameters applied. The tooltip is customizable, e.g. the popup text can be translated into other languages or even the tooltip itself can be hidden.
There is one more minor, but no less important improvement in working with formulas – the exponentiation symbol is now supported in SpreadSheet. Hope, this small upgrade will contribute to the speed of your calculations and make interaction with the widget even more smooth.
SpreadSheet has also been enhanced with controls – checkboxes and radios. The controls can be applied to table cells: as a group in case of radios or singly in case of checkboxes. Use the corresponding toolbar button, top or context menu to make use of the needed control.
This upgrade is a powerful and handy tool for making interactive calculations, carrying out budget management and complex analysis.
Along with the features described above, SpreadSheet now supports API calls for non-active sheets. In previous versions methods could only work with active sheets, now they can be called for both: active and non-active ones. This became possible due to the introduction of the page (string, optional) parameter in methods and events.
Pivot updates
A number of new math methods are now available in Pivot, including counting all items in the dataset, counting the number of unique values, the median of the given number, etc. These extra means of working with data are efficient for carrying out statistical computations, tendency analysis and all kinds of complex calculations. To find out more about the introduced built-in methods read Table Values Settings documentation.
Scheduler updates
A new feature is now available in Webix Scheduler – the user can specify hourly, minutely and secondly recurrences in addition to the existing ones (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly). Hourly is now one of standard options, while minutely and secondly are custom.
This enhancement allows defining repeated events based on the needed interval – of a second/minute/hour and gives the users better time management opportunities.
We also added one more improvement into Scheduler behavior – auto-range for dynamic loading. Now, the data can be loaded dynamically based on the visible UI.
Other Updates
In this release we have also worked hard on some other upgrades and bug fixes. Please, check out the What’s new page for more details. To get the library itself, upgrade via npm, Client area or click the big purple button below.
We hope that newly added features and updates will be useful for you in terms of facilitating efficient workflow and inspiring new achievements. We are open to any feedback, so feel free to come up with your ideas about possible improvements and share them in the comment section.
