It seems like just a few days ago we released Ignition 8, and yet here we are with our first maintenance release. In fact, thanks to our new release model that we outlined in this blog post, it’s the first of many regular maintenance releases you’ll see this year.
In this post, we wanted to touch on some of the updates included in this new maintenance release, as well as give a bit of insight and opinion as to how the new major release is going.
Ignition 8: The Launch
Getting Ignition 8 out of the door was a huge effort, and involved changes to many areas of the product. We’re proud of the quality-assurance effort that went into the release and we’re very appreciative of the many, many users who contributed to the beta program. Still, it’s only natural that we couldn’t catch everything, and much of the early feedback has been centered around upgrade issues. We’re working diligently to quickly address these challenges and appreciate your willingness to work with us through our support staff and through the forum.
On the subject of support, our email and call load has really ramped up over the last few weeks, and many tickets are experiencing longer-than-usual wait times. We’re working hard to bring the times back down; thanks for your patience while we work on this issue.
It’s been great to see the early feedback from users starting to develop projects in Ignition 8 and the Ignition Perspective Module. We’ve been blown away by how much you’ve already been able to develop, and are really impressed by your creativity. Although it’s a bit quick, if you’re working on an exciting project, don’t hesitate to apply for a ICC 2019 Discover Gallery spot. The deadline for the initial application is May 15th!
Maintenance and More
The development team has certainly not been sitting back since the release, and we’re excited to be able to launch 8.0.1 right on schedule with over 138 fixes and improvements! Most of these changes are bug fixes which we’ve been diligently working on to ensure that the user experience for new and upgraded systems in Ignition 8 is a pleasant one. We also rolled a handful of new features into the 8.0.1 release. This is a pattern that you’ll see us employing over the next year: blending fixes and features in our maintenance releases.
Ignition 8.0.0 contained an incredible set of new functionalities, but that doesn’t mean that it’s “finished.” Software is never finished! We have dozens of improvements, polish points, and new features planned that will make Ignition easier to use and expand the scope of what’s possible for you to build. Here are a few highlights of the Ignition 8.0.1 release:
- Perspective is now compatible with the Ignition Designer’s search-and-replace system. This is always a big help in large projects and is a great match with Perspective’s new component-level message-passing system to help you find where message IDs are referenced.
- We added a new file-upload component to Perspective for applications that need to gather files from the user (see the screenshot above). As an added bonus, if you’re using this component in a Perspective session running in one of our Android or iOS native apps, then this component doubles as access to the device’s camera, allowing you to gather photos from the field.
These are just a few of the features we added, alongside many polish items and smaller helpful features that make the design experience easier.
‘Til Next Time …
Remember that our new release model gives you greater access than ever to new updates, with new beta builds available every day in the Nightly Build section of the Downloads page. Keep up to date on the Ignition Forum, where daily changelogs are posted under “Early Access,” and vibrant community support is available 24/7.
