Hi team,
please I hope that in the next release the engineer team will add again the selection of the process variable, task properties and activities class in the new expression editor because for designer is very useful to select instead of writing them and in addition this behaviour go in the opposite direction of the low-code and drag-and-drop message.
As an example selecting the pv name directly instead of writing pv! and try to remember the correct pv name is more faster and easy
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+1 Supporting this
I too initially missed this when I realized it had gone...but I think the thinking is that you are provided with sufficient contextual help for it to not be missed AND that brings it into parity with the way the Expression Editor works outside of the Process Modeler.
For example, when you're working with MNI you'll already be aware of the tp! domain. Once you've picked the domain Appian auto-suggests the options within that domain like so:
...and then when you pick an option Appian auto-completes it for you.
I'd be curious as to what you think this doesn't give you and/or what the old tabbed version does give you that would warrant bringing it back again? (note that I am agnostic on this point and don't have a party line to defend, I genuinely am curious)
To me it's not an either/or. The enhancements to the expression editor in the modeller are great and necessary, but do not fully replace the convenience of seeing *at least* the PV list that we used to have on the left, to provide a quick visual reference to our available PVs (and/or their sub components in the case of CDTs). The enhanced editor shouldn't necessarily require the removal of the left-hand pane, either.
Agreed, and I'd been considering writing my own post to the same effect for some time now, but was putting it off. There was too great a value in having a handy (and clickable) PV reference on the left pane for it to just disappear. I do love the expanded editor window but I'd hope to have that but keep a left pane (to whatever extent possible) at least showing our PVs - especially handy when needing a quick reference for CDT types and their sub elements. These are available at least to some extent in auto-complete suggestions but sometimes I just need a quick reference and don't feel like "hunting" by typing various things just to see what the autocomplete suggests.
As an aside: is anyone else sorely disappointed that "single row" expressions still collapse down to flattened single-row text when saved&closed, in spite of the enhanced expression editor? It seems like that should have been updated years ago, by now.
Mike Schmitt Appian could do with a stand-up comic! It's a great way to get a serious point across! Yes, I'd also love to see Expression formatting retained in Process Models.
Mike, I agree. For me this is is pretty simple. In expressions and interfaces I can see all my variables at any given time. We had that in processes and now it is gone and I need to keep them in mind.
While I like the new editor a lot, I am annoyed by the collapsing lines and I wish we could get the list of variables back.
Even I agree, the earlier editor version was way more helpful for developers. In the new one it becomes lil annoying when at any point in time you forget the variable declared then you have to go back to the properties to have a look.
Hi stewart me too like the new expression editor I only hope that in future release Appian will implement a functionality more similar to the expression editor of rules with the list of tp,pv and ac on the left like what happen for ri and local variables and it would be possible to define new pv directly with a + add button