Release Date: January 31, 2020

New Features Release 5.0

UI Designer  

The UI Designer which is used for the creation of user interfaces has been completely redesigned. 

Besides the already known features, such as real-time collaboration, the new WYSIWYG editor is our greatest achievement: You can drag & drop your widgets into the editor, which directly displays the preview of the interface in real time.

Live Preview

In addition, you can use the Live Preview on different device form factors to test the layout without deployment first. This makes application creation much easier and saves a lot of time! The different selection of corporate designs (themes) and your changes in the CSS editor are also directly visible.  

 

Icon Explorer 

To assign meaningful icons to your modern layout, we integrated an icon explorer for searching and using icons visually. 

 

New Database Designer and No-SQL Access 

A very special feature is the new Database Designer. It drastically simplifies database creation, as you can now create your database scheme directly visually in Simplifier and deploy it to multiple target databases like MySQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and SQLite. 

 

Invite developer 

Working on an application with other people makes many things way easier. The new Share Button allows you to easily invite other team members via E-Mail to work on your current app project.

 

New Datatype Generation of Test results of Business Objects and Connectors 

To reduce the manual work of data type definition, you can create simple or complex datatypes from connector request or business objects results in the test dialog automatically. 

 

Asset Editor 

To help you better manage the static content of an app, we have created a new Asset dialog. This dialog allows you to upload and preview images as well as download them and provides more clarity. 

 

Theming Administration 

Corporate design is very important for every company. Accordingly, themes can be directly assigned and loaded to the Simplifier instance.  

You can therefore use the application on different instances in different corporate designs.  Separate loading of themes via business objects is now a thing of the past.  

 

Attribute and Role Mapping from external IDP 

Security and authentication are particularly important to us: The authentication mechanisms Active Directory, SAML 2.0, LDAP and OAuth 2.0 now offer central role and user attribute mapping based on defined rules. 

Roles and attributes can thus be maintained centrally in your company’s user administration and automatically synchronized in Simplifier.  A new standard role can also be defined. This is automatically assigned to a new user.  

Not to forget the metadata exchange via URL: This ensures that client and provider always use the most up-to-date metadata. 

 

Administration Interface Dark Mode 

It gets dark in our administration dashboard so you won´t have to be in the dark when creating apps: The new Dark Mode follows the trend towards eye-friendly operation. 

 

Functionality in Server-Side Business Objects 

With the Crypto JavaScript library you can now both decrypt and encrypt data. The functions of the Lodash library offer you a wide range of data filters and manipulations. Via our Simplifier User API you can now add your own profile pictures to the user profile. 

 

Mobile Actions 

Now, you can also record a video configuratively with the camera on your mobile devices. Simply choose how many videos are created and how long they should be. 

 

Plugin Secret Administration 

You can now create your own keys in the plugin administration to register your own plugins securely with Simplifier. 

 

Enhanced Feature-Set for OData v2 Connector 

You can now use the test dialog for testing OData calls directly. We also support Function Imports in our OData wizard to easily use this kind of business logic as a connector call. 

 

SQL Database Support for IBM DB2 

In addition to the well-known databases, we now also support IBM DB2 and IBM DB2 for AS-400 systems for easy recycling of old Lotus Notes applications. 

 

Support for Client X.509 Certificates 

Simplifier allows you to manage X.509 certificates and use them as a login method for authentication on backend systems via our connectors. 

 

Enhanced widget editing 

Be it icons, widget wizard, revised interface or drag & drop zones for the WYSIWYG editor – all UI5 versions of a widget can be managed directly in the mask. This includes support for auto-generating controls from the commercial SAP UI5 library. 

 

Optimized Process Designer 

Links to Process Designer Items are now highlighted when selected. The selection of mobile actions has been reworked for better handling. 

The Script Action now offers a selection of ready-made and useful JavaScript code to get results even faster. 

 

Enhanced RFC connector 

Our SAP RFC connector now also supports TABLES parameters for exchanging data from SAP function modules and Auto Commit to trigger automatic updates to the sap database. 

 

Test Dialog of Connectors and Business Objects 

The test results are now displayed in the test dialog for business objects and connectors formatted as JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) View including syntax highlighting.  

Individual result rows can be folded in and out, to get a better overview. 

 

Enhanced transport system 

Business objects that refer back to themselves through other business objects (circular reference) are now imported correctly. 

 

Templates Preview  

Templates now directly generate a preview when the content is changed. 

 

Optimized App Deployment 

You can now optionally activate the following deployment parameters for production environments: 

• Transpiler = The application is provided for browsers that only have ECMAScript5 support
• Polyfill = Creates workarounds for older browser versions such as Internet Explorer 11
• Minify = Compresses the JavaScript and CSS source for a minimal file size to optimize loading times 

 

Standard rolls 

Simplifier is delivered with new standard roles 

• SF_Administrator (This is a role for all AdminUI permissions) 
• SF_AppBuilder (This role provides the permissions for App creation) 
• SF_AppUser (This role provides the permission to execute Apps) 

• SF_Developer (This role provides the permissions to create Apps and building blocks such as Business Objects, Connectors, etc.) 
• SF_ExtAuthUser (This is a role for read-only users that are synced from an external authentication service) 

 

Optimized library administration 

Syntax highlighting is now also available for the inclusion of third-party libraries. This makes it easier to read the code and recognize its structure. 

Existing libraries can now also be downloaded. 

 

 Oracle 19c compatibility 

Simplifier now also supports the latest Oracle 19c database. 

 

 Security Enhancement 

The legacy route for direct execution of connectors is locked by default – in special cases this lock can still be removed in the system settings. In Release 5.5 this option will be removed completely. 

 

Live Preview on mobile devices 

Together with our brand new WYSIYWG UI Designer, we also offer the live preview in our simplifier mobile client (has to be activated in the developer settings. That means, that every change in the user interface will be published in real–time on your real hardware. This enables you to test your layout on different device factors and smartphone / tablet models in realtime. 

Support for Honeywell Scanners 

Our Simplifier Mobile client runs natively on Honeywell laser scanners with android operating system. This means you can use the information from the laser scanner directly in your business app without any extra interface. 

 

Updated Mobile APIs 

Our native mobile feature sets are updated to the latest version to give you the best native mobile experience. 

 

IOS 13 Support 

Our iOS Client was optimized for iOS 13 

 

New API for TCP socket connections 

With our new native tcp support, you can exchange data directly with other devices over ethernet or wifi interface. We use this to support external fix-mounted laser scanners on a fork-lifter for intra-logistic use case in production environments or warehouses.