Mendix Release 9.19 – Continuing The Flow

Workflow

Call workflow (a.k.a sub-workflow)

Breaking up lager workflows into smaller process, reusing a sub-workflow in multiple locations or importing a workflow build by someone else to extend your own process, is now possible by using the Call Workflow activity (aka sub workflows). This will make it easier to create and maintain apps that support large workflows. Sub-workflows can have their own context entity or can also use the data from the main workflow when using the same context entity. The main calling workflow will wait for the sub-workflow to complete before it continues.

Re-using task pages

Many developers have requested to be able to use the same page for multiple task definitions. When completing a user task, you pick a string outcome that represents one of the user task outcomes. Now you can build a review task page that is used for multiple review task definitions.

Workflow API

Workflow public Java API is now available to perform Workflow actions like starting a workflow, completing a task or pausing a workflow. See the documentation about which Java API’s are available.

New Marketplace experience

We are excited to provide an improved experience for our community to access Marketplace content in Studio Pro! This revamp of Marketplace will help our users to have a better UI with easy navigation and a faster content discovery experience.

This release will provide a better search experience for content with filtering by category and support type. The segregation of master and detail layout view will also help to look at Marketplace content listing through the master layout and product detail information through detail layout.

Mobile

Control mobile log levels in cloud environments

When your app does not behave as wanted, logging is typically one of the first and foremost tools to understand what is causing the unwanted behavior. In particular, “trace logging”, which shows a lot of information about the inner workings of your app, can be very helpful. Enabling trace logging at all times, however, has a severe impact on the performance of your application, especially in a mobile setting where all logs must be transmitted from the mobile device to the cloud.

That is why you can configure your application’s active log levels per environment and topic of interest in the Mendix cloud. This is now also possible for client log levels. Changes to a client log level require the mobile app to be online in order to become effective. Thus, the change can take a while to be reflected in the log statements. You can read more about logging in native apps in the documentation.

Native Gallery widget

Lists are a the de-facto standard for presenting data on mobile devices. Yet, some data is more suited to being presented in a different layout. For example, beautiful images or otherwise rich content that does not fall into the rectangular list format. Well, say hello to our new Gallery widget for Mendix Native.

The Gallery widget lets you arrange a list of objects in multiple columns on the page. It comes with a built-in scroll view that supports horizontal and vertical scrolling. Additionally, you can specify the number of columns and the page size for the built-in pagination.

However, you are not limited to showing images. You can present any content as a gallery. Simply drag the widgets you want to use into the content area and construct your custom user interface. This way, the gallery can be used to build versatile and unique looking apps. Why not show contacts as cards instead of the usual list?

Last but not least, the gallery also supports a live filter. You can add a Text Filter (similar as with Web) widget that lets your users search for specific entries in the gallery. The attributes that are included in the search are configured in the widget.

We are excited to see what you will be making with this great extension to our widget set. You can get the new Gallery for native mobile by updating the Native Mobile Resources module.

Page Editing mode: Choose your default

We have improved the design mode a lot in recent releases, especially with the Page Explorer introduced with 9.18. If you prefer design mode as default when opening, however, you can now easily set it to the default via Edit → Preferences → Work Environment.

OData Composite Keys

Mendix 9.19 adds the ability to define OData APIs with keys consisting of multiple attributes. An example would be an orderline entity with a key composed of an order ID and a line number, as illustrated in this screenshot.

OData composite keys are fully supported by External Entities. This was already the case before Mendix 9.19, as many third party OData APIs rely on composite keys.

The main benefit of composite key support in Mendix OData APIs is for use with Connector Kit 2. It enables you to create OData wrappers for external services that make use of composite keys, thus making them compatible with Data Hub Catalog and use through external entities.

Catalog

Improved search experience

We’ve improved the search experience in the Catalog. When searching, you now get all results returned, allowing you to paginate through these results, making it easier to find exactly what you are looking for. Next to this, we’ve added new filter options that allow for more narrowed searches on, for example, only resources you own, or that contains specific capabilities, like being updatable. These improvements are also available on our Search API v4.

Resource documentation

Resource documentation has been improved, data sources and sets that contain specific restrictions or capabilities are indicated, making it easier for consuming developers to understand what they can and can’t do with a specific resource.

Control Center

It is now possible to off-board external participants from Data Hub, when doing so, admins can easily re-assign application ownership to another member in their organization. Next to this, admins are now able to hide sample data sources from showing on their Catalog’s homepage, as well as being returned in search results.

Are you ready to start making?

• Watch the Mendix 9.19 release video.
• Download Mendix 9.19 to get started building.
• For more details, take a closer look at all the features, improvements, fixes, and more in the Mendix 9.19 release notes.