We’re pleased to announce that 9.1.0 has been released.
We’ve made an important change to the Design Screen. We had been using IE11 to drive it: we are now using the latest version of Edge. This required rewriting a lot of code in our Design Screen module - but has the benefit that it now uses the latest developments in HTML and JavaScript.
This benefits frameworks like Bootstrap 5, which are no longer compatible with IE 11.
Here’s the complete list of changes:
AppStudio: Icon in top left corner now appears properly.
AppStudio: Save As now copies all the files in the project directory.
BS4, BS5: added disabled property to several controls
BS4, BS5: added name property to several controls.
BS4, BS5: Label: added blank appearance property for no styling
BS5: Dropdown: added index property.
BS5: Input-group: button has been added as an itemType: Buttons can be part of a group.
Design Screen: Now uses Edge instead of IE to render. Should fix some BS5 issues.
Not sure if it’s just me, but after upgrading there is now no ‘GUI’ screen for design.
I can see the code but the visual screen isn’t working.
Do i need to uninstall / delete the original to transition from the IE version to Edge or something?
(i just installed over the existing)
Thanks,
Neil
And here is the NSB/Appstudio Log (when opening the HelloWorld.project)
2024-09-25 09:37:56,936 - appstudio.editor.design - ERROR - wx.html2.WebViewBackendEdge: False
2024-09-25 09:37:56,947 - root - ERROR - An exception has occurred!
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “MainFrame.py”, line 1062, in OnStart
File “IDEController.py”, line 69, in wrapper
File “IDEController.py”, line 2389, in OpenProject
File “IDEController.py”, line 428, in AddProject
File “IDEController.py”, line 2785, in select
File “WorkPanel.py”, line 499, in do_select
File “TabbedEditor.py”, line 176, in FormEditor
File “TabbedEditor.py”, line 77, in init
File “TabbedEditor.py”, line 61, in _init_ctrls
File “appstudio\editor\design.py”, line 415, in init
File “appstudio\editor\design.py”, line 403, in _init_ctrls
wx._core.wxAssertionError: C++ assertion ““hWnd”” failed at C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-req-build-xt0qxd7c\ext\wxWidgets\include\wx/msw/private.h(1069) in wxUpdateExStyleForLayoutDirection(): Can’t set layout direction for invalid window
Right, well you led the horse to water…and I drank!
Like any self respecting developer I googled the error message
( ERROR - wx.html2.WebViewBackendEdge: False), googled it and came across a solution which involved installing this :
Once installed, i fired up Appstudio and everything is now working.
So…simply put Edge needs WebViewBackend to be installed. Not sure if it comes packaged with the Windows 11 version but not the Windows Server editions, but all now good again!
Thanks,
Neil
One thing I have noted is that the Microsoft Edge Webview2 processes aren’t clearing when forms are being closed on the IDE. e.g. if I’m working on an app with 15 forms and I’m moving between them (sometimes leaving them open, sometimes closing them after me,) those processes are created for each form, but don’t close when I close the form on the IDE. This results in memory usage and also (it seems) high(ish) cpu usage and ultimately the IDE grinds to a halt for a minute or 2 or 3 just to catch up.
I think this used to be an issue a long time ago, but you guys managed to resolve the performance issues. Obviously with this using a new platform (Edge Webview) there may be tweaks you need to implement to get back to the smooth platform of before!
Each time I open a new tab with a Design Screen, another WebView2 process shows up in the Task Manager. However, when I close the tab, it goes away again.