Squirrel Release Notes
Version 1.14
Performance improvements – Faster loading projects
We’ve improved runtime load performance (the time it takes to load the published project) and reduced the length of time taken to open large projects in the designer. We’ve seen files open up to 14x quicker and published projects load up to 19x faster in the browser.
The spreadsheet is getting quicker too. We’ve optimised how the calculation engine runs to get the same results with less processing.
Scrollbars on containers
Make your projects more versatile with scrolling containers. The container component now includes an option to enable scrollbars. Turn this on to get scrollbars appearing.
Conditional logic for Dynamic Visibility
You can now choose to show or hide components based on more than just matching a value. Conditions include:
- equal / not equal
- gtr than / gtr than equal to
- less than / less than equal to
- is empty / is not empty
We’ve also added the option to ignore the case
Tableau Parameters
It’s now easier to set up and configure parameters for integrating with Tableau. The new Tableau Parameter function makes passing data into your embedded Squirrel projects a cinch.
We also squashed a bunch of bugs including:
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- Tooltips are back on the slider component
- Clicking on the binding tooltip now changes the active sheet and scrolls the sheet to bring the active cell/range into view
- Changed the abbreviation for values in charts to use B, rather than G, for billions
- Fixed a scenario where the designer would crash when using Data Insertion on Bar Chart with sorting applied.
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Learn more about the changes in 1.14 here.
Version 1.11
Scenarios – Save and retrieve snapshots of your published model
The new scenario component lets you define ranges in the spreadsheet that can be saved and restored by the end-user. Choose whether this should be saved locally (on the end-users machine) or in the cloud for all viewers of the published project to access.
New Help Centre – In product help…
Get access to help articles, tutorials and guides from within the Squirrel designer. Complete with a nifty search feature that lets you find the help you need.
Installer improvements – non-admin install and notarized mac installer
The Mac version is now fully notarized (great news for all the mac users out there!) and we’ve made it possible to install on windows without needing admin privileges.
Chart enhancements – Messy tooltips are a thing of the past
Our new single tooltip cleans up your charts so that you don’t need a separate tooltip for every series. And we’ve added vertical gridlines too, giving you more control over how you style your charts.
70+ bugs fixed including:
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- Delete and duplicate items went missing from the right-click menu after a datasheet was added
- Spreadsheet export fails with an off-screen error when functions have the wrong number of arguments
- Chart alerting colours not updating properly when bound to the spreadsheet
- Date picker rendering issues
- INT function does not treat Boolean values like Excel
- Crash when data mover is bound to a single cell
- Default setting not always working on Toggle switch
- Value input does not display its value when selected and text colour bound to a cell.
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Version 1.10
Datasheets – A better way to load data from Excel Online and Google Sheets.
We’ve been working on a new way to load data from your connectors. Datasheets are a new type of sheet that grow with your data — you no longer need to guess the size of your destination range. Making it quicker and easier to design and build projects. The datasheet option has been added to the Google Sheets and Excel Online connectors.
Load data at design time – Sync datasheets
Connectors that use Datasheets can be synced with their data source at design time. The sync option will grab the latest data and allow you to use it when designing your project. So there is no need to enter dummy/mock data when Datasheets are used.
Drop shadow
Get ‘arty’ with drop shadows.
Project Manager improvements
When working with large numbers of published projects you could find yourself waiting for the page to load. No one ikes to wait so we’ve sorted this out. Your project manager should now load superfast!!
70+ bugs fixed including:
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- Sliders not working on touch devices
- Added a missing property for the background colour of the date picker input box
- Backgrounds colours set at publish time were not extending to the full browser window size
- Fixed an issue where the web view was not always loading properly if it was hidden initially.
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Version 1.9
Account-based licensing and improved billing/subscription management
We’ve been hard at work improving some of our back end systems to bring you a better experience. After updating to 1.9, when you launch Squirrel you will be prompted to complete your account registration. Follow the steps on-screen and log in to Squirrel to carry on as normal.
All new account management area
We’ve added a new account management portal that allows you to:
- Easily manage your payment card details
- Access to billing history to download invoices
- Manage your profile online
In-app help and resources
We’ve added the ability to make help available from right there in the Squirrel Designer. Look out for in-app guides for new features and functionality.
‘Click to follow’ property bindings
The binding tooltip has been enhanced to jump you to the cell/range in your spreadsheet that the property is bound to. This should make it a lot easier to navigate around your projects and work out what is linked to what.
Version 1.8
Deprecation of support for Internet Explorer
Squirrel 1.8 will be the last version that supports Internet Explorer (IE). From 1.9 the output from Squirrel will only be viewable in a modern browser such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge (chromium version) and Apple Safari.
This is in line with Microsoft’s own policy which dropped Teams support for IE late in 2020 and plans to drop IE support for 365 Apps (including Excel, Outlook and OneDrive) from 17th August 2021. You can read more about Microsofts plans to end support for apps and services here
Deprecation of experimental xlf migration utility
Some customers have tried out an experimental feature added to Squirrel for Migrating XLF’s. This migration wizard has been deprecated and will be unavailable from builds 1.9 and beyond.
New Components
We’ve added a bumper crop of new components to Squirrel to make building apps even easier:
- Date Picker
- Toggle Switch
- Progress Bar
- Icon
- Metric Tile
New connections
Ninox
Read data from and create, update records in this popular no-code database.
Zapier trigger
You can now use Squirrel to trigger workflows in Zapier meaning you can send data from Squirrel to over 3,700 other systems.
Component Enhancements
Scorecard
We’ve added a property to let you fix the height of rows in the body of the scorecard. You’ll find it under BODY ROW STYLING. Turning on the option to ‘Enable fixed row height’ allows you to enter the row height in pixels.
This is useful if you want to display more rows in a set table size or to ensure that the scorecard rows line up exactly up with other components consistently across browsers.
Image
Unsplash integration
The image component has a new option to search for and add images from Unsplash. No more trawling the internet to find a suitable image you can do it directly from within Squirrel.
Maintain aspect ratio
The aspect ratio of an image is now locked by default. You can override this by disabling this setting in the properties panel for the image.
Designer workflow improvements
Binding Tooltips
A tooltip now displays the full cell reference when the mouse hovers over a bound property.
New spreadsheet number format
It is now possible to select a number format that shows a comma as the thousand separator in the spreadsheet
Publishing workflow enhancements
We now carry forward the project name from the canvas properties meaning you don’t have to keep entering the name for your project each time you publish.
NB: for older projects, you will need to go and set the name in the canvas properties before publishing as it will override the name you specify in the project name field during the publish dialog.
44+ bugs fixed including:
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- Open recent file does not always work if the current project has unsaved changes
- Some range references get wrongly stripped of quotes if sheet names have spaces in them
- Clearing the undo/redo stack on re-import of spreadsheet
- Data mover getting stuck in a loop under certain circumstances and causing Squirrel to crash.
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Version 1.7.13
Hotfix for an issue with sliders
As part of the work done on the slider component in 1.7, .sqrl files containing sliders that were created in earlier versions of Squirrel were automatically converted. In some cases, this conversion process caused problems in the file. This hotfix addresses that issue by correcting the file (if it contains the problem) and ensuring that the conversions are correct going forward.
Version 1.7.12
Hotfix for a few issues in 1.7
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- Added dynamic visibility to labels automatically created for older spinner and slider components.
- Fixed an issue we introduced in 1.7 where absolute references ($) were not being preserved in conjunction with cut/paste operations or deleting columns/rows.
- Squished a bug where chart data that was bound to a range beyond column Z (AA onwards) caused a crash.
- Undoing an action to add a new series caused a crash.
- Local publishing was crashing for users on a trial license. We’ve fixed that!!
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Version 1.7
Important information relating to the Slider component
In 1.7 support for the ‘enable range’ option to turn a single slider into a dual slider has been temporarily removed. This capability will be re-introduced in a later version. If this is a requirement for you please let us know and stay on version 1.6 for the time being.
Also, in this release, we have fixed a number of issues that were causing issues with the sizing and alignment of sliders. The result of this is that when a project saved from an earlier version of Squirrel is opened in 1.7 positions of sliders may have changed slightly and may need to be manually repositioned.
Additionally in 1.7 support for “end values” has changed. In previous releases the “end value” option for a slider would add a text label outside the bounds on the slider to indicate the currently selected value, as in the image below:
As a result, 1.7 no longer has the option for the slider to display an integrated end value. If you need to display an end value for a slider this can be done by adding a separate text label and binding it to the same cell as the slider.
Projects which were created in previous versions of Squirrel will be automatically updated when opened in 1.7 to split the end value into a separate text label. You may need to make small adjustments to the position of this label to make the project look exactly as it appeared in the previous release.
Important information relating to the Value Input component
We have added the ability to style the numbers in the input field.
However, support for “labels” has changed. In previous releases, the “label” option for a value input would add a text label to the left of the main component.
However, similar to sliders (above), this caused issues for sizing and alignment of components. As a result 1.7 no longer has the option to add an integrated label. If you need to display a label for a slider this can be done by adding a separate text label and positioning it appropriately.
Projects which were created in previous versions of Squirrel will be automatically updated when opened in 1.7 to split any value input labels which were present into a separate text label. You may need to make small adjustments to the position of this label to make the project look exactly as it appeared in the previous release.
Add-on Components and Functions
We’ve introduced the framework for add-on components and functions for Squirrel. You’ll see this in the designer in the form of both a new icon in the component library and a new function. For now, it’s just the plumbing required to make these things work, but watch this space as we further roll this capability out over the coming weeks and months.
Let us know If there is a particular component you would like to see as an add-on or if you are interested in joining our component developer program.
Designer workflow improvements
Undo/redo extended to bindings and the spreadsheet
Undo and redo (both from the edit menu options and the keystrokes ctrl-z, ctrl-y) have been extended to cover bindings and spreadsheet activity.
Note: all actions are managed in a single list. So whether actions take place on the canvas, in the property sheets or the spreadsheet they are all undone in turn in the reverse order to originally taking place.
Size matching actions available from the “align” toolbar
The “Make same width”, “Make same height” and “Make same size” actions are now available from the rightmost icon on the toolbar at the top of the property sheet as well as from the “Arrange” menu.
Component Enhancements
- Added styling and formatting for the Value Input (spinner)
- We’ve made it possible to change the orientation of the X-Axis labels on a bar chart.
- All charts (except pie charts) now have animation options to control if, when and for how long animation occurs. The options are available via a new ANIMATION sub-section of the GENERAL settings
- There’s a new option to “Update value real-time” on Text Input controls. Turning this on will cause the spreadsheet cell to be updated with each keystroke, not just when the whole entry is complete or the field loses focus. The setting is available in the DATA INSERTION section of the property sheet.
Function Enhancements
Data Mover
Trigger a data mover when a spreadsheet cell changes (previously it was only possible when a cell was set to a particular value)
PDF export
We’ve added support for removing and changing password protection on generated PDF’s these include:
- Password to open
- Password to edit
- Allowing editing
- Allowing copying
Spreadsheet workflow enhancements
To make working with the Squirrel spreadsheet easier we’ve been fine-tuning added a number of enhancements and new features including:
- Improved Rebind workflow (get straight to the bind screen to rebind or clear the input field and confirm to remove)
- Added support for Page Up, Page Down and Ctrl+Home navigation keystrokes in the spreadsheet
- Delete sheet warning
Copy spreadsheet data from Debug mode
You can now copy (ctrl+c) data from the spreadsheet to the clipboard during debug.
Copied values can then be pasted (ctrl+v) into the spreadsheet in design view (useful for grabbing sample data from a connector).
Spreadsheet Formula helper
Typing in the formula bar now pops up a list of matching functions.Use the cursor keys or a single click to select an item in the dropdown to see a description
With the required function highlighted you can double click or press “tab” or “return” to insert it and display the syntax/arguments. No more popping back into excel to remind yourself how to structure a VLOOKUP!!
New connectors
This new connector lets you retrieve data from your SAP BusinessObjects system using “Query as a web Service” (QaaWS).
Templates
Revised start page and improved onboarding
An all-new start page experience. From here you can access recent files, browse a list of available templates, select from popular pre-canned sizes for your project or app. Get easy access to help and tutorials and discover what’s new in Squirrel365.
We squished over 190 bugs including:
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- Column and bar charts scale truncated with negative numbers
- Scorecard – editing cells with thousand separators enters a bad number
- Listbox selected item does not work if the items are numbers
- Listbox selected item not working if “Include ALL item” selected
- ROW and COLUMN functions not working
- EOMONTH function not working properly
- Data table not inheriting some formatting in the first row of the table
- Line component does not always update its position when x and y are dynamically bound
- Dropdown near bottom of a project (not in container) scrolls the whole canvas
- Bar/Column Chart series opacity doesn’t work
- BIWS crashes when invalid WSDL entered
- Unable to Export Spreadsheet due to colour formatting
- Crosshairs remain visible when the “Chart cursor” option is disabled
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Version 1.6.11
Hotfix for a few issues including a problem where the app would sometimes crash on startup
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- Updated the order of stuff when Squirrel fires up. It should now be much more robust on startup.
- Squished a bug where some cell references weren’t updated at design time, after copying and pasting in the spreadsheet.
- Fixed an issue with the list box where binding the selected item to multiple cells was causing an ‘Ooops screen’.
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Version 1.6.5
Hotfix for issues when publishing locally
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- We’ve restored the ability to double click on index.html and launch the project locally
- Fixed an issue where the exported projects wouldn’t run on Linux webservers
- EULA updated.
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Version 1.6
Important
For the initial release of Squirrel 1.6 exported projects will only work when they are accessed via a web server. This means that unlike previous version it will not be possible to run a Squirrel project exported from 1.6 by double clicking on “index.html” of a project stored on a file store. We plan to release an update in the near future which will restore this capability.
New and enhanced components
We’ve added 2 new components; Data Table and Hotspot.
Data Table lets you pull the formatting from your spreadsheet through into the table component on the canvas. That means cell-based formatting!!
Hotpsot is an invisible component that allows your project to respond to “mouse over” and “mouse out” events. This means your project can now respond as the user drags their mouse across the screen, perhaps to provide a pop-up help bubble or to change a related aspect of the project elsewhere on the screen.
We’ve also made significant improvements to the line component which now easily allows horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines to be added to a project.
Enhancements to other components
- added the ability to optionally turn off the tooltip on a slider
- added number formatting for the slider
- added an “ALL” option to a multi-select listbox
- stopped containers from blocking mouse interaction with components underneath them.
Autosave and preventing designer restarts
It is very frustrating when Squirrel encounters an issue which means that you have to restart the designer potentially losing work you have done on your project. To counter this we have fixed over 30 issues which lead to this situation and in addition, we have added an autosave feature which will recover your project if the designer needs to be restarted. No action is required on your part, if the designer does need to restart then after it does you will be prompted with a message asking you if you want to recover the latest version of your project.
Spreadsheet functions
We have added support for a couple of new spreadsheet functions, namely, IFERROR, IFS and LOG and overhauled spreadsheet date handling. Additionally, we have made enhancements and fixes to a number of others, including:
TODAY, HOUR, MINUTE, SECOND, DATE
OFFSET
VLOOKUP
IFERROR, ISERR, ISNA, IFNA
SUMIFS
LEN
MID
Spreadsheet workflow enhancements
To make working in the Squirrel spreadsheet more natural and closer in operation to other spreadsheets we have added a number of enhancements which should make things flow more smoothly, including:
- Cursor keys can be used to create formulas
- Cursor keys are now active when binding cells in the spreadsheet
- Hitting the return key now actions a bind operation
- Cut and paste of cells and insertion and deletion of rows and columns updates dependent formulas and component bindings
- Ctrl-r and ctrl-d will respectively copy the first cell across or down a selected range
- Holding down the control key modifies the cursor keys to move the selected cell to the beginning or end of the next block of data (this also works whilst holding down the shift key to extend the selected range)
Designer Workflow Enhancements
To help save you time in the designer we have added the following enhancements to streamline your workflow:
- ability to select multiple objects in the canvas using click and drag
- ability to size a component as you place it on the canvas
- shift-click and ctrl-click selects multiple components in the object browser
- multiple objects can be moved together in the object browser
- holding shift when dragging objects on the canvas constrains their movement to horizontally or vertically
- holding shift when re-sizing a component on the canvas maintains the ratio of height and width
- menu items on the “Arrange” menu to move components backwards and forwards on the canvas.
Fullscreen scaling
Prior to 1.6 the fullscreen scaling option when applied to exported project meant that the project would anly scale if the browser window was larger than the original project canvas size. From 1.6 onwards scaling will also happen when the browser window is smaller than the original project
We obliterated 100+ bugs including:
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table columns not sorting correctly
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exporting a spreadsheet could leave #REF references in formulas
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exporting a spreadsheet mapped all named ranges to the first sheet
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number formatting to zero decimal places not working in pie chart labels and tooltips
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