IMatch 2017 - Progress and new Category Dashboard

[Mario]

Hi, users

as you all should know by now, I'm working really hard to make IMatch 2017 available for you.
IMatch 2017 is complete. I'm currently only testing, testing and testing. Working on the documentation, the web site and lots of time-consuming stuff like that.

Thanks to things and tools I've learned while developing IMatch Anywhere, I was able to automate about 80% of the production process for IMatch 2017. This is important because it saves hours of work each time, and avoids errors. Yesterday the production process ran through for the first time! Joy! Another milestone. New installer technology, new deployment tools, I finally can use the same technology for all my products. Awesome.


The only way to test everything touched by the new scripting environment and the integrated IMatch WebServices is to write apps. That's how I know that everything is working, fast and also correctly documented. And this means lots of useful apps for all users. And many, many examples for users who want to implement their own apps, or just want learn a bit about the technology that drives the internet (and IMatch, and IMatch Anywhere, ...). We can now do so much with so little 

The latest outcome of my testing is a new Category Dashboard.
This is an example for working with the selected files in the file window. It shows how to retrieve the categories and information about the categories. How to monitor IMatch and the database for changes done to categories etc. A useful example for many purposes.

I think this will be a welcome addition for users. You can use it together with the Category Panel and/or the File Categories panel. The Category Dashboard prepares the information differently than the other panels and makes it easy to see which categories are directly assigned, @Keywords or data-driven. It uses the color-coding settings and also indicates which categories are assigned to all selected files or only to some.

This is how the Category Dashboard looks with some selected files:

[Aubrey]

Wow!
Another milestone.
This dashboard looks very useful.

Aubrey.

[thrinn]

Looks really impressive!
Is it only me who can't wait to lay his hands on IMatch 2017? (Yes, I WILL upgrade as soon as possible!)

[Mario]

Things look well on the production side.

Over the weekend I will test all the various install combinations, including the side-by-side install with IMatch 5.5, automatic data transfer from IMatch 5.5 settings on the first run (IMatch 5.5 and IMatch 2017 use separate sets of configuration data). This causes a lot of wait time and I use that time to test and document.

I've just made the dashboard more useful by adding an option to show only the leaf levels (great if you have many categories and the leaf-levels are enough to know what's what). We have the same option in IMatch WebViewer.

That's the beauty of JavaScript, HTML and the whole app framework. New ideas can be implemented so quickly. And it it does not work, you did not waste much time. Fail fast and all that 

Showing only the leaf levels:

[BanjoTom]

I'm right there with thrinn and others: VERY impressed and ready to upgrade NOW! 

[Mario]

I also want to get this out of the door. Too much work for too long...but I need to be sure that it works beautifully.

[Jingo]

Looks good Mario.. no beta testing period with select power users this time around?  Now that's CONFIDENCE!   

[Mario]

Looks good Mario.. no beta testing period with select power users this time around?  Now that's CONFIDENCE!   

IMatch 2017 is an evolutionary upgrade and not a big bang upgrade like IMatch 3 / 5 in 2014. There is not more 'risk' involved with this upgrade than with any of the regular 6-8 week updates.

The new install process has already been tested from W7 to W10 and on Windows Server editions with IMatch Anywhere™ since December.
IMatch 2017 installs are now based on the same technology. The most critical part of the IMatch 3-5 installations was always the installation and registration of the COM-based BASIC scripting engine. Much could go wrong there. But this component is thankfully no longer part of IMatch.

The only big and potentially 'critical' component is the new IMatch scripting system based on IMatch WebServices™. But IMWS is in production and 'tested' by many users since December. It seems to work extremely well because there are zip bug reports. Superb product 

To find and figure out programming glitches or documentation issues in all the new programming stuff will take interested users several weeks  - not many IMatch users will ever do more than using apps.

And I can do bug fixes in apps within minutes and just make a patch file available for users in ZIP format. All that's needed to install/update apps is copying files into a folder.  No complex installation procedures or anything.

And the new build process allows me to create and ship IMatch updates faster than ever before. In case something urgent comes up.