Web App Customiser for 9.4

[Adam Buckle]

Finally I have found this site. I was floundering around Cognos Communites wondering where everyone went then finally came across here. Then I had to convince IT Gestapo to give me access to the site.

Anyway, does anyobe know if there is a 9.4 version of Web App Customiser? Of couse 9.1 version doesn't work with 9.4 and if go into production without customising it will be viewed by users as a step backwards. All cries into wilderness that is now Cognos support (including Insight) have gone unanswered.

Mind you every single beta version until 2 days before public release kept the 9.1 gui of tm1web. That was until of course some one in Ibcoglix marketing decided to change the gui of tm1web to something completely crap.

When Congos took over Applix I had some concerns because I saw Cognos as fundamentally a marketing company; then when IBM took over Cognos I was less concerned because they are "more" an IT engineering company and one would offset the other. Now it seems we have the worst of both worlds, IBM doing the marketing and Cognos doing the product engineering!

[Alan Kirk]

Finally I have found this site. I was floundering around Cognos Communites wondering where everyone went then finally came across here. Then I had to convince IT Gestapo to give me access to the site.

Welcome, welcome! I was wondering what had happened to you. You must have been absent in the dying days of the Applix site, where there was much discussion about moving over here.

You'll find rather less reference to OLAP Forums in Cognos Communities, since they edited some posts and censored others which referred to it.

Yes, we're mostly here, though John's been M.I.A. for a few weeks. I'm not sure whether a freak wave has taken him and his surfboard westward and he'll eventually wash up on the shores of Lake Michigan. Eric regularly patrols the shoreline with a towel and a hot coffee just in case.

Anyway, does anyobe know if there is a 9.4 version of Web App Customiser? Of couse 9.1 version doesn't work with 9.4 and if go into production without customising it will be viewed by users as a step backwards. All cries into wilderness that is now Cognos support (including Insight) have gone unanswered.

Go into PRODUCTION??? With 9.4??? Actually I think I'd rather ride a surfboard across the Atlantic... at least until there's an SP or two under its belt. Don't forget that you're dealing with a completely different animal here, and if it turns on you there's no going back because of the Unicode conversion of the databases.

Mind you every single beta version until 2 days before public release kept the 9.1 gui of tm1web. That was until of course some one in Ibcoglix marketing decided to change the gui of tm1web to something completely crap.

What, you don't like multiple tones of grey?

I can hazard a guess as to what the problem is.

I don't have a spare server to test 9.4 on, so I've been testing on a common or garden XP Pro notebook. When I installed it the first time I selected the server and clients option rather than Web. I figured that I could add Web later if I wanted to though I didn't consider that an XP server would be an adequate test anyway. I just went to update the install to add Web in so that I could take a look at this. The option wasn't there. Ooooh-kay, so I uninstalled and did a "from the outset" install of Web.

Uh-oh:

"Both TM1 Web and the TM1 Rules Editor require the Microsoft .Net Framework 3.0. Neither TM1 Web or the TM1 Rules Editor will operate without it."

Up to 9.1, of course, Web required .Net 1.1. EV required .Net 2.

I have .Net 1.1 and .Net 2 on my notebook. I REALLY didn't want to add yet more MS Bloatware in the form of .Net 3. When I did the original install it gave me the caution about the Rules editor (which I ignored, since .xru's rock) but didn't say anything about Web.

Aaanyway, my bet is that the reason that the Customiser doesn't work any more is because of the move from the v1.1 to v3 .Net framework.

That leaves one of two options; wait for a new version to be written... or monkey with the format manually. After all, it's just hacking around in HTML code. I had to do that with some things that I couldn't modify with the Customiser anyway.

When Congos took over Applix I had some concerns because I saw Cognos as fundamentally a marketing company; then when IBM took over Cognos I was less concerned because they are "more" an IT engineering company and one would offset the other. Now it seems we have the worst of both worlds, IBM doing the marketing and Cognos doing the product engineering!

And the former editors of Pravda taking over the "editing" in Cognos Communities.

[Adam Buckle]

Alan,

Thanks for the response. I guess it is pretty quiet around there today with none of those pesky journos running around!

I finally got reponse from Ibcoglix with a web app customiser for 9.4 and wouldn't you know it, at first attempt it no better than the existing web app customiser for 9.1! I will keep playing with it and provide updates. Hear what you say about messing around with html and call me naive but I still don't believe I should have do that. One of the reasons why I moved on from SPF. My naivety is further escalated by expecting that having provided functionality and created the expectation, it is the cardinal sin of software developers then remove it with out good reason.

I am not sure the problem is related to .net versions because during the beta there were perfectly ok versions of tm1web including with the new 9.4 buttons using the existing gui. Furthermore the 9.1 web app customiser worked perfectly with these. Actually that's given me a thought, if I could retrieve those earlier files maybe I can replace the html; thanks for the idea.

I still believe that this has come about because someone IBM marketing go hold of it and thought they would add value and improve it This has been confimed from anonymous sources inside.

My understanding about .net v3 is that is the same as .net v2 but for vista. I don't think you have to install it for it to work on a non vista box, I may be wrong

Alan Kirk wrote:
Go into PRODUCTION??? With 9.4??? Actually I think I'd rather ride a surfboard across the Atlantic... at least until there's an SP or two under its belt.

Yes, yes I know my naivety goes up a notch again. I volunteered to participate in the beta hoping I could help sort out some stuff and get an inside running on some of the functionality. The penultimate version of the beta basically got there. I even tried to get a head start on building some active reports, then they go and change the web interface. I can do what I like but I still need to think of my users.

Don't forget that you're dealing with a completely different animal here, and if it turns on you there's no going back because of the Unicode conversion of the databases.

I realise that and it didn't bother me too much once I sorted everything of substance out on my dev box. The functionality I was actually looking for was the >255 characters and ability to use unicode for simple chinese and the like. Strange as it seems to some, at this place there is desire for people to use tm1 to write essays and store translated descriptions. Of course you can't do that too well in realtime with Lotus Notes (another great IBM product).

Active reports hasn't turned out as efficient as I hoped as I am still finding it too hard to build from scratch without slicing from a view first.

I guess I will just get back into my box and wait for SP1 and beyond.

Tell me, do you have separate web installations for EV and tm1web or are they separate? I still haven't got EV here yet but am thinking about it.
Did you end up deciding the go to Asia pac conference? Unfortunately i haven't been able to make a case internally.

Adam

[Alan Kirk]

I finally got reponse from Ibcoglix with a web app customiser for 9.4 and wouldn't you know it, at first attempt it no better than the existing web app customiser for 9.1! I will keep playing with it and provide updates. Hear what you say about messing around with html and call me naive but I still don't believe I should have do that. One of the reasons why I moved on from SPF. My naivety is further escalated by expecting that having provided functionality and created the expectation, it is the cardinal sin of software developers then remove it with out good reason.

Agreed; but my bet is that the Iboglixians are of the view that it was never OFFICIALLY part of the TM1 toolset (I don't know who wrote it, but it used to be on AOD rather than on the Applix website) and therefore there are no guarantees of future availability.

I am not sure the problem is related to .net versions because during the beta there were perfectly ok versions of tm1web including with the new 9.4 buttons using the existing gui. Furthermore the 9.1 web app customiser worked perfectly with these. Actually that's given me a thought, if I could retrieve those earlier files maybe I can replace the html; thanks for the idea.

I still believe that this has come about because someone IBM marketing go hold of it and thought they would add value and improve it This has been confimed from anonymous sources inside.

Wouldn't surprise me in the least. I just finished making a series of Adobe Captivate movies for our TM1 Web users, including guidance about what all of the toolbar icons do.

If / when we go to 9.4, I get to do it all again!

My understanding about .net v3 is that is the same as .net v2 but for vista. I don't think you have to install it for it to work on a non vista box, I may be wrong

Yes V3 was released with Vista, though it should work with other O/S's as well. You could well be right, though I find it odd (oh, wait, maybe I don't...) that I'd get that error dialog. The installer should be able to tell which O/S I'm on.

I decided to stick it on my computer anyway even though I didn't particularly want to, so I downloaded it early this morning. Or thought I did. Then I fired up the install program only to find... it's not the ACTUAL install program. It's the program that LAUNCHES a download which does the install.

There's a story of Gates having annual weekend retreats to just think about the computer industry and where it's going to. At one of those a few years back, he apparently had the epiphany that "hey, the Internet ISN'T just a passing fad!"

Great. Now if I could get Boofhead Billy to realise another fact; Not Every Computer Is Connected To The Internet All Day Every Day.

I'll try again when I'm home... and my notebook is again attached to a network.

Which it isn't, when I'm at work.

The functionality I was actually looking for was the >255 characters and ability to use unicode for simple chinese and the like. Strange as it seems to some, at this place there is desire for people to use tm1 to write essays and store translated descriptions. Of course you can't do that too well in realtime with Lotus Notes (another great IBM product).

I'm trying to remember what functionality DID work well in Bloatus Jokes. Lemmie see, there was... ummmm.... no, not that.... ummm... errrrr.... I'll get back to you on that one.

(6 years I've been away from Notes. It ain't long enough.)

Active reports hasn't turned out as efficient as I hoped as I am still finding it too hard to build from scratch without slicing from a view first.

Yeah, in an earlier thread I found that they were like Web; performance isn't too bad with a small data set, but as it expands it gets worse fast. I was taking a couple of minutes to do exactly the same operation that an ISB could do, on the same set of data, in seconds.

I guess I will just get back into my box and wait for SP1 and beyond.

Oh, I dunno... SOMEONE has to be the first to put it into Production. I'd just rather that it not be me is all...

Tell me, do you have separate web installations for EV and tm1web or are they separate? I still haven't got EV here yet but am thinking about it.

You can run EV and Web separately on the one box. We were doing that on our old Dev box but I haven't got EV installed currently.

I was going to take a look at EV 9.4 to see whether it had improved over the last version that we were looking at, but wasn't able to download it since for some reason Iboglix thought that I wasn't licenced for it. I referred that one off to my account manager but haven't heard back yet. It's not a pressing priority, so I haven't followed up.

Did you end up deciding the go to Asia pac conference? Unfortunately i haven't been able to make a case internally.

I could have had I wanted to (possibly not now with greater emphasis on cost cutting, but back when it was announced), but I just didn't see the value. Too long, too far away. Had it been 2 days and/or in Sydney, Melbourne or Canberra I might have, but I just didn't see myself getting value from it. (At least not technical value; networking value maaaaaybe.)

But also I couldn't have brought my assistant anyway; we can't both be interstate for 3 days. I had pretty much decided not to go from the moment they uttered the words "3 days" and "Gold Coast".

[Eric]

VOTE

Are Adam and Alan allowed to post in the same topic? It is so long I am going to printing this out and read it through out the day.

[Martin Ryan]

VOTE

Are Adam and Alan allowed to post in the same topic? It is so long I am going to printing this out and read it through out the day.

Is it a coincidence that they're both Aussies?