Release notes: Intent Architect version 4.4

Version 4.4.6

Improvements in 4.4.6

  • Improvement: The Software Factory SDK now exposes Application References when requesting SolutionConfig, providing access to all Application IDs within an Intent Architect solution. This allows for more effective cross-application metadata access.

Issues fixed 4.4.6

  • Fixed: The GetSolutionMetadata() method previously had limitations when requesting designer metadata for designers not present in the current application scope. This has been resolved, and the method will now load metadata across application boundaries on demand, enabling more flexible and comprehensive metadata access.

Version 4.4.5

Improvements in 4.4.5

  • Improvement: Support for overriding the automatically selected map-to parent when double clicking elements in the Advanced Mapping dialog. This improvement addresses the friction in mapping Service Operation elements to the domain.

Version 4.4.4

Issues fixed in 4.4.4

  • Fixed: (MacOS) EACCESS error raised when attempting to open Rider IDE from Intent Architect when Rider is set as preferred IDE.

Version 4.4.3

Improvements in 4.4.3

  • Improvement: All files in the .intent/previous_output folder will now have an extension of .previous added to their name, this will stop other tools which may scan for known file types from incorrectly thinking these files are relevant (this folder is used by our code merging algorithms and contains the previously output versions of files).
  • Improvement: The Software Factory will now respect end of line ending settings as specified in .gitattributes if specified, otherwise falling back to .editorconfig settings if available and if neither is specified it will use the default line ending of the operating system (CRLF on Windows, LF on Linux and macOS).
  • Improvement: The Software Factory will now ignore whitespace (including line endings) when detecting whether or not a file should show in the Changes view.

Issues fixed in 4.4.3

  • Fixed: Filenames containing invalid characters are consistently sanitized when files are created for both Windows and Unix environments.
  • Fixed: When files would be generated to a path not within the Intent Architect Application output path, their "previous" versions could "escape" the .intent/previous_output folder, they will now be placed in folders named __parent instead.
  • Fixed: (Linux) When closing the application window the parent process for it would not also close requiring it be manually terminated.
  • Fixed: Application setting of type numeric not populating configured value.

Version 4.4.2

Issues fixed in 4.4.2

  • Fixed: Module interop dependencies could cause those dependencies to have their module installation settings changed to enable module options when installing seemingly unrelated modules.
  • Fixed: It was not possible to update .application.config files as part of a module migration as Intent Architect wouldn't save files them before migrations or re-read them afterwards.
  • Fixed: On macOS dialogs could be become un-closeable under certain circumstances (such as minimizing Intent Architect while the dialog was open).
  • Fixed: Casing functions (toPascalCase, toCamelCase, etc.) in macro scripts did not correctly format strings like "MyObject_IdentifierInputType".

Version 4.4.1

Improvements in 4.4.1

  • Improvement: It is now possible to search by guid (id) in the fast search and tree view filters.
  • Improvement: copyToClipboard added to JavaScript Macro API.
  • Improvement: Improved errors are now shown when designer configuration issues are detected.
  • Improvement: Stereotypes in lookup dropdowns now also show which elements they apply to allowing disambiguation when they have the same names.
  • Improvement: Improved telemetry collection of certain metrics of usage.

Issues fixed in 4.4.1

  • Fixed: Clicking on a task in the taskbar would minimize and then immediately reopen its window.
  • Fixed: On every save of a designer the mapping Target TypeReference's id was being overwritten and causing unnecessary noise in the SCM commit change logs. The id is no longer persisted.
  • Fixed: Deleting a mapping in the Advanced Mapping dialog would sometimes just recreate it.
  • Fixed: Advanced Mappings would show errors when moving components around in the tree view.

Version 4.4.0

Intent Architect v4.4.0 primarily brings features and functionality to improve product usability and feature discoverability. Some examples of this would include new Help system, and a new suggestion system. This version is fully backwards compatible.

The 4.4 beta is available as a side-by-side install, so you can keep your current version of Intent Architect running alongside the beta. The beta can be acquired from our downloads page in the Pre-Release(s) section.

Highlights in 4.4.0

Help Topics, in product

Intent Architect now includes built-in Help. Pressing F1 within the context of a designer opens the Help dialog. The dialog provides help topics that can be further filtered using the search bar.

Help Topics Sample

The Help dialog is context-aware. For example:

  • Pressing F1 in a designer displays help topics specific to that designer.
  • Selecting an Element such as a domain Class or CQRS Command filters help topics relevant to the selected element.

Suggestions

Suggestions are a new feature intended to give context-specific assistance to modelers. When hovering your mouse over an Element that has suggestions, you will see a Light Bulb icon, indicating that suggestions are available.

Suggestions Sample

Suggestions aim to assist with the following:

  • Quickly model common scenarios, for example:
    • Publishing an Integration Event from a CQRS Command.
    • Subscribing to an Integration Event.
    • Publishing a Domain Event from a domain behavior.
  • Add related Elements/Associations for existing Diagram Elements.
  • Discover modeling options.

Search Everywhere

The Search Everywhere dialog allows you to quickly find aspects of your design using a unified, incremental search box that also supports abbreviation matching.
The search is performed across applications, and the search results provide full context to make it easy to identify the desired result.

Search Everywhere Sample

You can access the Search Everywhere dialog using its shortcut (Ctrl+T).

Find Usages

The Find Usages (Shift+F12) feature has been vastly improved, leveraging the new Search Everywhere feature.

Find Usages Sample

Find usages will present you with a list of all references to the modeled element, including across applications.

Example use cases for this feature:

  • Who is subscribing to this Integration Event?
  • What would be affected if I change this domain attribute?

Filtered searching

When searching in the Solution Explorer and designer tree-view, these trees now filter to only show matching search results.

Filtered Search Sample

Solution folders

You can now group applications together by adding folders to the solution explorer. This is particularly useful if you have:

  • Many Microservices.
  • Logically similar applications you'd like to group together.

Solution explorer folders

Improvements in 4.4.0

  • "Options" on the details pane of "Module Management" screen has been replaced with "Installation Settings" which allows more granular control of which features of a module are installed.

Issues fixed in 4.4.0

  • "Too many changes at once in directory" errors which might occur during Software Factory execution when running multiple Software Factories at once will now show an informative warning instead.
  • Made Module Tasks more robust by ensuring processes complete properly after each execution under Linux.