New GUI for Cloverleaf 6.1

[Steve Williams]

As if Microsoft’s Office 2013 hasn’t disrupted enough desktops with it’s bland monochrome style interface, it would seem Infor has cast the Cloverleaf 6.1 GUI from the same mold.

Gone is the pleasant and familiar GUI of 5.x/6.0. The new GUI is while and white and white. What little color is left only highlights the artic look and feel of the graphical interface. Needless to say, I am not pleased.

No where in the Release Notes are we warned that a whole overhaul of the GUI is awaiting us in this new version.

Perhaps it’s time for Infor to explore the concept of skins for the Cloverleaf GUI. That way, we can have almost any look we prefer, whether it be the old 3.x look, the 5.x look, the new 6.1 look, or even an custom designed Midnight Obsidian look.

Does anyone know of a way to revert to the 6.0 look without reverting back to 6.0?

Topic

[Bob Richardson]

Greetings,

Yes, we just installed 6.1 and the GUI is pure as snow which in this part of the country (Minnesota) may or may not be a blessing.  

Suggestion:  as a patch is in the works 6.1.1 to fix among other things an Xlate name limitation problem (44 characters) how about posting an enhancement request on INFOR’s website to add the skins feature?

Thanks.

[Bob Richardson]

Greetings,

I have submitted an enhancement request on the INFOR support website to add skins to the 6.1 IDE NetConfig and Netmonitor tools.

Yes, I agree: the bleached white reminds me of a total Minnesota blizzard white out!

Maybe make it for the 6.1.1 patch?

We will see.

Enjoy.

[James Cobane]

Well, we just had Infor on-site to review some of the other offerings (Global Monitor, Security Server, etc.) as well as an overview of 6.1.  While I’ll admit it is a fairly drastic change to the user interface, I haven’t yet formed an opinion of whether I like it more or less.  One of the things they were touting was that they engaged with Hook & Loop (a prestigious design firm) to re-design the GUI.  I think it will take a little getting used to (much like the jump from the 3.x to Platform V days), but time will tell.  However, I do like the idea of ‘skins’, but then I’ll get too distracted trying to figure out what ‘skin’ I like best 🙂

Jim Cobane

Henry Ford Health

[Travis Farrar]

We are in the process of upgrading from 5.8 to 6.1. Comparing to what we are used to, the monochrome style does make it difficult to view certain things. One example in particular that I noticed was in the Translation Configurator where you have the option to Deactivate/Activate a statement. It’s harder to tell now at a glance which statements have been deactivated since they are all in gray. Deactivated statements now are just slightly less gray than the other statements whereas before you had that nice contrast against the other colors. I’m sure there’s other things I will run across as I use it more. In short, I would also welcome a “skins” feature.

[Mark Brown]

Can someone post a screen shot of the GUI?

[James Cobane]

Here you go.  We aren’t actually on 6.1 yet, but I installed it to my workstation to poke around and play with.

Jim Cobane

Henry Ford Health

[Mark Brown]

Thanks…

I’m snow blind now…

Seriously, I really don’t much care for that either.  I don’t care for the flat, colorless GUI’s that every software company thinks is hot at the moment anyway.

[James Cobane]

I do agree that some of the things (like de-activated statements in an Xlate) are harder to see at a glance.

[Bob Richardson]

Greetings,

One and All,  a colleague (Shane Farney) discovered the following to at least help make the NetConfig background look like the old 5.8 color:

(1) NetConfig configurator

(2) Select client preferences

(3) Uncheck option = Use uniform colored background

Note: “colored” here is a bit oxymoron IMO.

(4) OK

You now get the old 5.8 gradiant background.

Enjoy.

[Mary Kobis]

Can you run the 6.1 GUIs on XP? The docs say Win7, but that will require us to get new work stations… They are on order, but I can’t wait!!!…

Thanks, Mary.

[James Cobane]

Mary,

I installed 6.1 (both Server and client) on an XP workstation just to play around with.  It’s not licensed, so I can’t run the tester or any actual processes, but I can mess around with building configurations and also see what my existing configurations look like under 6.1 (i.e. I tar’d up my production sites and then untar’d them [with 7-zip] onto the XP workstation).  Using the configuration tools seems to work fine, so I would assume that when/if I connect to an actual licensed server, things should run with no problem.

Jim Cobane

Henry Ford Health

[Mike Strout]

Other than the extremely hard on the eyes all white color scheme, are there any significant usability features added? The release notes are very sparse.

For example, I would love to see some of the following…

[James Cobane]

There are several new features in 6.1 that make it more than just a visual upgrade.  Site documentation, SMAT encryption/SQlite database option, ability to enable/disable a route, adding shortcuts to the GUI for external tools, enhanced database connectivity options, to name a few.  We are planning to migrate to 6.1 next year after our Epic 2014 upgrade.

Jim Cobane

Henry Ford Health

[Mike Strout]

We are in the same boat when it comes to upgrading. We upgrade to Epic 2014 in 3 weeks, “coast” through the holidays, and then start planning the 6.1 upgrade in January.

[Max Drown (Infor)]

Hello, everyone. We have received a lot of feedback on the color scheme in CIS 6.1. There will be improvements in CIS 6.1.1. I have also sent this thread to R&D.

Please, when you have feedback and requests, submit a ticket on Infor Xtreme. We are listening!

-- Max Drown (Infor)

[James Cobane]

Mike,

Good luck with your 2014 uprade.  We are scheduled for March and then can hopefully get into our Cloverleaf upgrade shortly thereafter.

Jim Cobane

Henry Ford Health

[David Teh]

And can you choose to enclose the thread name within the bitmap?

[Max Drown (Infor)]

You can enclose thread name in 6.1

-- Max Drown (Infor)

[Jared Parish]

For those who wish to cure your snow blindness with 6.1.  I just stumbled upon this inforxtreme ticket <a href="https://www.inforxtreme.com/espublic/EN/AnswerLinkDotNet/SoHo/Solutions/SoHoViewSolutionC.aspx?SolutionID=1572837%5D&#8221; class=”bbcode_url”>https://www.inforxtreme.com/espublic/EN/AnswerLinkDotNet/SoHo/Solutions/SoHoViewSolutionC.aspx?SolutionID=1572837%5D.  Which states:

Quote:

please add “-Dhookloop=false” to JVM Arguments field in IDE menu options->client options-> advanced tab. Then reopen IDE.

Should resolve your issue.

Thanks

I much prefer the ‘original’ look and feel.  My apologies if this has already been posted.

- Jared Parish

[Steve Williams]

Nice find Jared!

I did a side by side comparison and the JVM setting does more than just revert the color pattern between white and cream. It changes the appearance of the GUI widgets and buttons in the IDE. I’ve attached an animated GIF to show the differences.

[Steve Williams]

Another note: to get the look and feel like Jared’s screen shot in Win7, you have to also be using the Windows Classic theme. My screen shots were done with the Win7 Aero Theme enabled, which has more white in the global window presentation settings.

[Shane Farney]

I would look even harder at the IDE when using this “fix” to really notice what else may be affected.  For instance, you’ll notice that the status indicators next to the Lock Mgr and Monitor Daemon will be gone within the Network Monitor.  Buttons on the SMAT file routine are also a bit harder to read and use.

…just be wary that some things could change outside of the “white” look and feel from Hook and Loop.

[Sergey Sevastyanov]

We are in the process of upgrading from CL 5.7 to 6.1 and one thing that worries us the most is that new IDE is buggy. Occasionally it just hangs. When it happens multiple tooltips appear as you move your mouse over IDE icons.

We didn’t notice any particular pattern and I can’t tell how to reproduce it. It just happens if you actively use it for a few hours. It can hang on any open tab (Net Config, Translation, Script editor, etc.). If you didn’t save you lose your changes.

This happens in IDE on the Windows 2012 virtual server as well as in the client on Windows 7 workstation.

Anybody is having similar issues?

I loved the “fix” below – but…

Quote:

please add “-Dhookloop=false” to JVM Arguments field in IDE menu options->client options-> advanced tab. Then reopen IDE.

Should resolve your issue.

Thanks

In addition to what Shane noticed the otherwise nice fix above makes it impossible to tell the difference between selected and unselected messages in SMAT tools – the background stays the same as you toggle messages.

To have skins would be great.

Also searching for messages in recovery/error databases still is very limited. I like addition of the date range. It would be great to have regexp search or at least search by MSH-10.

[Sergey Sevastyanov]

Noticed another thing. When using custom bitmaps for threads they displayed fine on the NetConfig screen but get resized and distorted on Network Monitor screen. I created a case with Infor but they claim that this is normal behaviour.

In my opinion it is not normal. It worked well in CL 5.7 but distorted bitmaps in CL 6.1 become quite useless – it’s hard to see them.

I attached an image that displays the same threads on NetConfig and Network Monitor screens. That would be nice if that could be fixed in the future releases.

[Bob Schmid]

Here at Mercy Health:

Regarding the Cloverleaf Translate Configuration tool:

Review of the GUI for IDE 6.1 has serious enough graphical limitations to suspend install and wait for remediation:

The inability to readily identify inactivated command lines and to a lesser extent.. the functional icons as a colored graphic….makes this

[James Cobane]

Bob,

I would recommend adding the -Dhookloop=false argument that others have mentioned to the JVM arguments (under ‘Client Options, Advanced tab) and give that a shot.  It substantially makes the GUI less “white/bright” and improves the contrast greatly between Active/Inactive statements as well as makes it easier on the eyes overall (in my opinion, anyway).

Jim Cobane

Henry Ford Health

[Bob Richardson]

Greetings,

However, other gui features like the NetMonitor Daemon status indicators disappear!   We are running Integrator 6.1.0 and decided NOT to add that “hookloop” jvm arg due to NOT knowing exactly what other widgets may disappear too.

We are living with it – rose tinted glasses help.

Enjoy.

[James Cobane]

Bob,

Good point.  We are in the process of testing 6.1 now, so I’m sure we will run into some more of these nuances.  I will be sure to post if I run into something that seems “newsworthy”.

Thanks,

Jim Cobane

Henry Ford Health

[Sergey Sevastyanov]

Also adding -Dhookloop=false settings makes it impossible to see if a message is selected (toggled) in SMAT – with that setting the background of selected message doesn’t change.

[James Cobane]

Bummer.  That definitely makes it a bit less appealing….

[Rob Abbott]

Hi all – believe me we are acutely aware of the contrast issues in the new IDE framework.  We put a lot of work into 6.1.1 to make things like active/inactive more visible.  Look for an announcement on 6.1.1 very soon.

All the feedback is much appreciated.  Bear with me while I get it worked into the product.

PS – 6.1.1 has some very cool stuff 🙂

Rob Abbott
Cloverleaf Emeritus

[Bob Schmid]

Robb,

Thank you!….I was planning on implementing 611 before our golive rollout in the summer.

I know not a simple “flip of the switch” but scary how poor the “contrast” is in the xltconfig tool………main thing is deactivated lines need much more “Contracts” whatever that may be…even making font different…or something

Thank you

Bob

[Author]

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