Legal notes

Copyright 2022 by TECHNIA AB

All rights reserved.

Preface

Widget as a Service (WaaS) is a configurable widget framework for the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and is a cost-efficient solution to raise productivity and user acceptance.

WaaS allows configuration of tailored 3DDASHBOARD widgets presenting data from standard OOTB services in any preferred way making users more efficient and willing to accept using the platform. The framework contains many different building blocks, such as tables and forms, that could be configured individually into simple or together into more complex apps, all integrating well with OOTB functionality such as 6WSearch.

The widget framework and definition is hosted on TECHNIA.cloud. Access controlled by subscription and token it can be added to any 3DEXPERIENCE environment, including cloud tenants. The widget is added by pasting a link into the administration dialog “Create Additional App“. The dialog allows adding widgets without any customization to the target environment just by adding the metadata of the whereabouts of the widget that is kept fully outside.

Widget as a Service consume all 3DEXPERIENCE data locally, between the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and the client browser. No 3DEXPERIENCE data, except user information for usage audit purposes (see agreement for details), is passed elsewhere or to the TECHNIA.cloud.

Supported platforms

3DEXPERIENCE 2019x or higher

Subscription & access

Widget configuration is controlled by a subscription and access token. Subscriptions have an end date and a user count. As the subscription runs out or the user count is exceeded, the widget is no longer accessible.

Hosting

Widgets are hosted on TECHNIA.cloud (currently on AWS). For more detail please refer to the agreement.

The following resources are hosted on TECHNIA.cloud

• Widget Framework (.html, .css, .js)

• Widget Definition

  • Configuration (e.g. columns, datasets etc .json)

  • Code (e.g. custom rendering, data calculations etc .js)

• Subscription detail and usage data

Setup (adding a widget in 3DEXPERIENCE)

Updates

The widget framework is evergreen and updates at least every 11 weeks. Updates could include improvements to existing functionality or new functionality enabled by configuration.

Deployment & administration

Customers or customer representatives (consultants) sometimes control widget definitions themselves (depending on the agreement). Widget definition is currently managed over https://curl.se/ using basic authentication (you can use git bash or similar terminal).

• Configurations

  • List configurations

  • Create configuration

  • Update configuration

• Code Resources

  • Create & update code resource

Configuration administration

List configurations

The following cURL will list the id and name of all configurations related to the admin user.

export SERVER=https://waas.technia.cloud
export USER=
export PASSWORD=
curl ${SERVER}/api/v1/configs -u "${USER}:${PASSWORD}" -k 

Create configuration

The following cURL template will create a new widget definition.

export SERVER=https://waas.technia.cloud
export CONFIG_NAME=
export CONFIG_FILE=
export USER=
export PASSWORD=
export CONTENT_TYPE='Content-Type: multipart/form-data'
curl -XPOST ${SERVER}/api/v1/configs -H "${CONTENT_TYPE}" -F "name=${CONFIG_NAME}" -F "config=@${CONFIG_FILE}" -u "${USER}:${PASSWORD}" -k 

Update configuration

The following cURL template will update the widget definition and/or its name (used referring from 3DX).

export SERVER=https://waas.technia.cloud
export CONFIG_ID=
export CONFIG_NAME=
export CONFIG_FILE=
export USER=
export PASSWORD=
export CONTENT_TYPE='Content-Type: multipart/form-data'
curl -XPUT ${SERVER}/api/v1/configs/${CONFIG_ID} -H "${CONTENT_TYPE}" -F "name=${CONFIG_NAME}" -F "config=@${CONFIG_FILE}" -u "${USER}:${PASSWORD}" -k 

Code Resource administration

Create & update code resource

To add a custom js resource to use in configurations (e.g. custom dataHandlers) you can push a js file to the server using the following cURL.

export SERVER=https://waas.technia.cloud
export COMPANY_ID=
export FILE=
export USER=
export PASSWORD=
export CONTENT_TYPE='Content-Type: multipart/form-data'
curl -XPOST ${SERVER}/api/v1/companies/${COMPANY_ID}/resources -H "${CONTENT_TYPE}" -F "file=@${FILE}" -u "${USER}:${PASSWORD}" -k 

Components & configuration

Framework

To make configuration independent of service detail, and to hide complexity from the developer, the framework comes with a technical concept common to all components.

All services loads data to a common in memory data store. Query statements and other configuration is applied to populate UI components, all from the data store. This allows a compact and standardized cross component configuration format independent of service details. There is no direct dependency between any UI component configuration and the service layer, on top of that all components share the same data store and reflect data changed by other components.

Data store

The client (browser) data store is in memory and temporary, the purpose is to track cross component state, provide data to the UI rendering and to provide a common format to avoid service dependency in configuration. A data store is common practice in many modern UI frameworks e.g. https://redux.js.org/ and should not be confused with a data base.

Cytoscape.js

https://js.cytoscape.org/, a “Graph theory (network) library for visualisation and analysis“, is used as data store. The graph capabilities enables complex data store selection and structure traversal (similar to mql). The cytoscape.js selectors is similar to css selectors and is used in configuration. Normally cytoscape runs in headless mode without any visualizations. Visual graphs can be enabled in development mode and provides a live view of the data store but comes with a performance cost. Developers can also query the data store graph using developers console.

Cytoscape.js Nomenclature

Colours

TODO

Widget

A top level configuration. Defines a 3DDASHBOARD widget app that could be added to the compass.

{
  "$schema": "./schema/waas.schema.json",
  "title": "Widget Example",
  "resources": ["my-plugin.js"],
  "components": [{}],
  "table_definitions": [{}],
  "tableColumn_definitions": [{}],
  "toolbar_definitions": [{}],
  "command_definitions": [{}],
  "datasets": [{},{}],
  "services": [{}],
  "mode": {}
}

Component

Defines a UI component used by the widget.

Remove this? Move requiresContext and root def to root widget conf?

{
    "name": "??neverUsed??",
    "type": "table",
    "definition": "ups-roots-example",
    "root": true,
    "requiresContext": true
}

Data set

Service

Table

Plugin code extensions

To enable custom logic (e.g. calculated values) the framework comes with a plugin architecture.

TODO