Introducing Perspectives 10.2

We are thrilled to announce yet another ambitious release of Perspectives! Just released on February 22, 2023, version 10.2 continues the work started in 10.0 to make building and deploying applications with Perspectives faster and easier than ever. 

Get ready to be wowed!

WYSIWYG Dashboard Creator

Perspectives Designer now includes the new View Layout feature for creating a custom dashboard arrangement of your views in minutes. Using the intuitive drag-and-drop interface and context menus, you can quickly assemble a dashboard of your drawing, tree, table, chart, map, and other views into an attractive arrangement for your end-user Perspectives application. 

With the WYSIWYG View Layout editor, you can:

• Add split panels in almost any arrangement, and drag the borders to adjust the sizes of the panels
• Add your defined views to panels, and easily drag and drop or copy and paste views to rearrange them as you like
• Add tabs to panels and define the tab names

As you add to and adjust your view layout, you can use the Web Previewer to quickly preview how your resulting Perspectives application will look in real time without the need to build and deploy the application.

Before: Create a custom dashboard of your views in minutes with the intuitive View Layout feature.  

After: Use the Previewer to see the resulting dashboard layout in real time, just as your end users will experience it.

Support Authentication

Continuing our theme of even easier application development, Perspectives now supports OAuth 2.0 user authorization for the Designer and applications created with the Perspectives platform. Tom Sawyer Licensing administrators can use this feature to require a login for the Designer or enable Perspectives application developers to configure authentication for the applications they build. 

When enabled, developers using the Designer can configure authentication for applications, use authentication expression functions, and use Tom Sawyer Authentication API classes in their Java code.

All this adds up to faster development, saving hours of time. 

Push-Button Generation of Web Application Code

Once your Perspectives web application is ready for prime time, Perspectives 10.2 takes the pain out of readying your application for deployment. With the click of a button, the Generate Web Application Code feature creates an output folder with the files needed to build and deploy your web application.

The output folder also includes a detailed Readme with instructions about how to build the application with Maven, and run the application locally with a Java command.

You can also copy the generated files to:

• A local server or cloud environment where you can deploy an instance of the application
• Any Java IDE to further enhance the application with custom code

In Perspectives 10.2, quickly generate the files you need to build and run your web application.

The generated folders and files bring you one step closer to deploying your application.

But Wait, There's More!

Perspectives 10.2 is jam-packed with more features than we can cover in a single blog post. But here's a quick rundown. 

• Support for openCypher query language for the Amazon Neptune integrator
• Support for commit functionality for graph database integrators that use automatic bindings
• Reduced crossings in Hierarchical layout with orthogonal routing
• Improved placement of nodes, edge routing, and placement of nodes in nested drawings for Bundle layout
• A simplified framework for map, chart, and timeline view actions and generic actions that are not view-specific
• Performance improvements for node labeling, image node UIs, and schema lookups

Upgrade to Perspectives 10.2 Now

Existing users can check their e-mail and use the provided link to access our Download Products page. After signing in, follow the prompts to download the latest version. You can find additional information in the Upgrading section of the documentation.

New users can request a free trial. You’ll receive our software and complete product documentation.

We hope you enjoy the release! Reach out to us with any questions or feedback—we’re always happy to hear from you.

About the Author

Janet Six, Ph.D. is Senior Product Manager at Tom Sawyer Software, where she works with business, technical, and design teams to help create effective data visualization and analysis solutions within technical, time, and financial constraints. She has been in the graph field for almost 30 years. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Discrete Algorithms, Journal of Graph Algorithms and Applications, and the Kluwer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science. The proceedings of conferences on Graph Drawing, IEEE Information Visualization, and Algorithm Engineering and Experiments have also included the results of her research. Her interests include graph visualization, analysis, and artificial intelligence.