This is a maintenance and update release with some exciting and long awaited new features.

New Features

  1. Xill now supports qualified includes. This is an amazingly useful way to specify under what name you want to include a certain library using the as keyword. For example you might write include lib.util.DateUtil as DateUtil and then you could use the functions from that library in your robot using DateUtil->parseTimestamp(timestamp). This makes code more readable and it greatly simplifies usage of the Xill Project Convention. 

  2. Function overloading based on parameters. So you are now able to declare two different versions of a function, as long as they have a different number of parameters. You will also be able to implement default parameters this way by using something like this:

    function log(message) {
  log(message, "info");
}

function log(message, level) {
  System.print(message, level);
}
  3. An all new Template plugin for generating XML, JSON, xill and other files based on templates.
  4. A Progress bar dialog and System.setProgress() construct for overview of robot progress.
  5. Collection.range() construct to easily create oprdered iterators for loops.
  6. Excel.recalculate() construct to recalculate a previously saved workbook.


Some other small additions, please find them in the list below.

Deprecations

These constructs and keywords will be removed in the next major release of Xill IDE. Please change your bots accordingly.

  1. Excel.setCell() has been superseded by Excel.setCellValue() and Excel.setCellFormula().
  2. Since the as keyword is now used with the include statement, we will remove it from the use statement. So use Plugin as Name will become illegal.
  3. File.getText() has been superseded by Stream.getText(), which should be more efficient and safer for larger files.

Upgrading from Xill IDE 3.4

Evaluation of strings to booleans

We rectified the way that strings evaluate. Unless you are doing very specific string with boolean comparisons, you probably do not need to update your robots.

These are the changes:

  • We corrected some typing inconsistencies for booleans: now the strings "false" and "0" evaluate to false
  • We made strings conform to specification: a non-empty string will now evaluate to true, unless it contains any of the values "false", "0" or "null" (in those cases it evaluates to false)

Other changes and bugfixes might impact your code, for example if your code uses a workaround for a solved bug. Check the list of changes and fixes below.

Querying for attributes using XPath

If you are using any XPath query with @* in it then please check the updated help file. The result of XML.xPath() will now be an OBJECT containing the name(s) of the attributes and their values. If you use a query that matches multiple XML nodes, a LIST containting OBJECTs will be returned.

Known Issues

  • When using the latest version of Concurrency (1.0.4), then you cannot pass anything other than an ATOMIC, LIST or OBJECT, date or MongoId to the next stage using Concurrency.push(). You will need to serialize everything you want to pass to a string.
  • Under exceptional circumstances after starting Xill IDE the editor might fail to show code highlighting. In this case we recommend closing and re-opening the affected tab to resolve the problem.

  • In OS X and Linux Java 8 can sometimes return very strange time offsets (based on physical location instead of timezone), for example Amsterdam might have an ofset of +00:19:32 instead of +01:00:00. If you run into problems because of this, please add the following line to your app/Xill IDE.cfg file under the [JVMOptions] header: 

    Duser.timezone=GMT+2
    (Replace +2 by the respective offset of your  timezone)
  • On a Mac, some keyboard-shortcuts may not work, because they are used to type special characters
  • The constructs Math.floor(), Math.ceiling(), and Math.round() do not work with numbers larger than 9223372036854775807 or smaller than -9223372036854775808 while other Math constructs do not have this limitation

Xill Platform - Change Log

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

[3.5.0] - 2017-02-16

Add

  • Qualified includes for xill libraries using the new as keyword [CTC-1946]
  • Function overloading based on parameters [CTC-1613]
  • Template plugin [CTC-1799]
  • System.parseJSON() now parses LIST [CTC-1769]
  • Warn users about invalid asset names [CTC-1798]
  • Support external logging by adding logging handler that exposes all logging events and exceptions [CTC-2031]
  • Progress bar dialog and System.setProgress() construct for overview of robot progress [CTC-1101]
  • Collection.range() construct to easily create oprderediterators for loops [CTC-1592]
  • Excel.recalculate() construct to recalculate a previously saved workbook [CTC-1940]

Change

  • Make System.print automatically pretty print LISTs and OBJECTs [CTC-1675]
  • Math.HungarianAlgorithm() now returns an object [CTC-1732]
  • Correct typing inconsistencies for booleans: now the strings "false" and "0" evaluate to false [CTC-1733]
  • Make StringBehavior conform to type conversion specification: a non-empty string will now evaluate to true, unless it contains any of the values "false", "0" or "null" [CTC-1865]
  • Deprecate File.getText() [CTC-1860]
  • Update File and Stream help files [CTC-1869]
  • Improve layout for help files. Add a parameter description to all help files [CTC-1511]
  • Using XML.xPath() with @* now returns an OBJECT that includes the attribute names [CTC-2054]
  • Using XML.xPath() with //@* now returns a LIST of OBJECTs that includes the attribute names [CTC-2083]

Fix

  • Settings file not found for paths with whitespaces [CTC-1887]
  • Upload project throws 'already exists' after 'invalid names' popup [CTC-1871]
  • Name of included robot not shown during debugging [CTC-1885]
  • Multiple changed robots dialogs and robot tab selection issue [CTC-1441]
  • On server threads are not closed when tasks finishes [XSVR-139]
  • Renaming of robot does not work properly on Linux [CTC-1787]
  • Web.xPath() result in variable preview is incorrect [CTC-1802]
  • Incorrect error handling in function parameter [CTC-1811]
  • Excel plugin has an integer limit [CTC-1590]
  • Under Linux reassigning key bindings to Ctrl + letter does not work [CTC-1758]
  • Exiftool plugin does not check if process was started [CTC-1587]
  • String.regexEscape() can result in invalid regular expressions [CTC-1807]
  • Calling Excel.setCellValue() on a formula cell only sets cached value [CTC-1814]
  • String.absoluteUrl does not allow protocols other than http(s) [CTC-1806]
  • Dialogs do not render on (very) fast machines [CTC-1850]
  • Concurrency pipeline changes dates and ObjectIds to strings [CTC-1833]
  • Parsing String list results from xpath query floods log and is slow [CTC-1885]
  • Excel.setCellFormula() throws caught error: "Cannot get a numeric value from a text formula cell [CTC-1528]
  • Order of package names in help file is off in Linux [CTC-1937]
  • Formatting in Usage headers in help file [CTC-1709]
  • Excel.setCellFormula() does not create formula in Excel sheet [CTC-1930]
  • Pipeline functions do not support qualified includes [CTC-2001]
  • Unable to use multibyte characters in Properties package [CTC-1846]
  • Autocomplete shows only local results [CTC-2056]
  • Debugger unreliable [CTC-1892]

[3.4.1] - 2016-10-28

Fix

  • Concurrency pipeline changes dates and ObjectIds

[3.4.0] - 2016-10-07

Add

  • Send selected xill script standard printer by pressing Ctrl+Shift+P [CTC-1645][CTC-1752]
  • New option enableRedirect on constructs of XURL plugin [CTC-1710][CTC-1753]
  • Upload resources to server [CTC-1651]
  • Add an overview of all active plugins in the settings about section [CTC-1667]
  • Add an archetype for xill plugins [CTC-1284]
  • Make non-robot files visible in the Xill IDE project pane [CTC-1652]
  • Make non-robot files editable in Xill IDE [CTC-1617]
  • Add File.move() construct [CTC-1643]
  • Validate Xill robot when uploading to Xill Server [XSVR-21]
  • Add Date.isBefore() and Date.isAfter() constructs [CTC-1672]
  • Add Date.fromTimestamp() construct [CTC-1616]
  • Add Properties plugin package [CTC-1663]
  • Add "new folder" and "new file" options to project pane context menu [CTC-1739]

Change

  • Removed easter egg [CTC-1708]
  • Show the full path to the document on mouse-over on tabs in Xill IDE [CTC-1669]
  • MySQL no longer has to be installed manually [CTC-1676]
  • Remove paging from the Xill IDE Console [CTC-1593]
  • Add py, xill, xillt extensions to the mimetype library [CTC-1626]
  • Move cookies in XURL responses to a separate field [CTC-1687]
  • Split the "New project" menu option into "New project..." and "New project from existing sources..." [CTC-1691]
  • System.exec() outputs one string including EOL charactedrs, instead of a list of lines [CTC-1466]
  • Warn user when uploading .xill file with illegal name [CTC-1723]
  • Add whitelisted filetypes which can be edited without warning: "xill", "txt", "properties", "html", "htm", "css", "xslt", "xml", "json", "js", "md", "cfg", "ini", "bat", "sh", "sbot" [CTC-1755]
  • Remove non-functional infor (i) button above help pane [CTC-1379]

Fix

  • Corrected documentation on query construct on JDBC plugin [CTC-1690]
  • Error handling on getting next element in ResultSet is only visible in console [CTC-1685]
  • Callbot displays unspecific error: "Exception in Robot" [CTC-1646]
  • Expression is already closed with nested list [CTC-1679]
  • Clicking on link in settings panel crashes IDE in Linux [CTC-1704]
  • Exiftool plugin will scan the path variable for executable [CTC-1585]
  • Robot Freezes when hitting cancel on auto-save dialog [CTC-1636]
  • Change timeouts to milliseconds for all regex related constructs [CTC-1629]
  • Web.download() now creates all required folders [CTC-1532]
  • Allow custom character sets in Stream.write [CTC-1628]
  • Display a descriptive error when a concurrent modification occurs [CTC-1650]
  • File exists dialog does not overwrite file [CTC-1647]
  • Enable change of casing in robot name [CTC-1444]
  • Collection.sort() onKeys parameter is now ignored for lists [CTC-1700]
  • Hotkey input fields can contain illegal keywords [CTC-1696]
  • Divide by zero java error for modulo [CTC-1147]
  • OutOfMemoryError when trying to preview large XML-files [CTC-1267]
  • Add resolution parameter to Web.screenshot() [CTC-1043]
  • Display of CHANGELOG.md after new install [CTC-1713]
  • Certain exceptions are logged twice [CTC-1699]
  • Clicking open containing folder crashes Linux [CTC-1698]
  • Alert windows do not automatically get scaled in linux, which causes text to disappear [CTC-1742]
  • Error messages for errors in (transitive) includes [CTC-1514]
  • Auto-save does not work for non-robot files [CTC-1754]
  • HttpResponseException on upload of large project [CTC-1751]
  • Expression is evaluated even after an exception happens [CTC-1721]
  • String.absoluteUrl does not allow reusing protocol [CTC-1792]
  • MySQL Error: The server time zone value 'W. Europe Daylight Time' is unrecognized or represents more than one time zone. [CTC-1796]
  • XURL login via cookie authentication fails [CTC-1804]
  • Console does not autoscroll to latest entry [CTC-1794]