When a model is saved as file it is encoded as UTF-8 with a ByteOrderMark (BOM). In Java UTF-8 file is expected to not have a BOM.

Although the ARE is now capable of dealing with both variants, it would be better to use the identical encoding in all locations of AsTeRICS (ARE, ACS, WebACS).

It would be desireable to use the currently installed components of the ARE as the default Component Collection if the WebACS is hosted from the ARE webserver - so that updating the collection becomes obsolete in this case.

While testing for asterics/AsTeRICS#269 I noticed that WebACS sometimes seems to generate an invalid model.

My testing model consists of instances of AutostartEvent and and ApplicationLauncher. The property "execution mode" is set to OPEN_URL.

Problem

Building the same model and saving (or uploading it to ARE) results in the ApplicationLauncher instance to have the following property:

ACS:
<property name="executionMode" value="OPEN_URL" />

WebACS
<property name="executionMode" value="1" />

The WebACS model causes an IllegalArgumentException in ARE:
https://github.com/asterics/AsTeRICS/blob/master/ARE/components/actuator.applicationlauncher/src/main/java/eu/asterics/component/actuator/applicationlauncher/ApplicationLauncherInstance.java#L311

Expected Behavior

The model generated by WebACS should correclty generate the model an contain:
<property name="executionMode" value="OPEN_URL" />

Testmodels generated by ACS and WebACS
testmodels.zip

If there is no model loaded (especially in an error case, see asterics/AsTeRICS#153 ) in the ARE, the WebACS repeats to show:

"No model available for download"

It is not very usable afterwards, because this window shows every ~10s for 5 times at once.

No further error is shown by the ARE console.

Platform: Debian Testing, x64

If the WebACS is hosted by the ARE and loaded from that it would be handy, if the user could specify a URL to automatically connect to the ARE when loading the page.

This way, the ARE GUI could provide a feature to open and autoconnect the WebACS by a gui button and shortcut.

e.g. http://localhost:8081/webapps/WebACS/?autoConnect=true

If the WebACS is hosted by the ARE and loaded from that it would be handy, if the user could specify a URL to automatically download the component collection from the ARE when connecting to the ARE.

This way, the ARE GUI could provide a feature to open and autoconnect the WebACS by a gui button and shortcut.

e.g. http://localhost:8081/webapps/WebACS/?autoConnect=true&autoDownloadComponentCollection=true

if the option is not specified, default should be true.

Properties of elements that are created via CTRL+C, CTRL+V are not displayed correctly.

To reproduce this issue, perform following steps:

1. Select a component already placed inside ACS (Model Designer).
2. Enter CTRL+C, CTRL+V
3. Select the newly created element.
4. Properties are not displayed

Workaround: Don't use CTRL+C, CTRL+V for components creation/placement.

Tested ArduinoDigitalOutput on my Ubuntu 16.04.3 (virtualbox 5.2.6 r120293, VBoxGuestAdditions_5.2.7-120528).

When connecting event output of Arduino Microcontroller, no events are displayed in the EventVisualizer.

The events from ButtonGrid are displayed correctly, and the connected LED on Digital Output 2 is lighting (-> Pin2 is set, and reset correctly).

I've tried also to connect only events from Arduino and removed the connection with the ButtonGrid.

But still, the LED is lighting/not lighting as desired, but no output in the EventVisualizer.

when a model is saved, the standard downlaod dialog for files appears.
if would be great if a file chooser would allow to store the model to a desired local directory (defaulting to the model folder)

If the WebACS is hosted by the ARE and loaded from that it would be handy, if the user could specify a URL to automatically download the model from the ARE when connecting to the ARE. This is related to #12 and #13 . #12 must and #13 should be done before.

This way, the ARE GUI could provide a feature to automatically open the currently deployed model in the WebACS by a gui button and shortcut.

e.g. http://localhost:8081/webapps/WebACS/?autoConnect=true&autoDownloadComponentCollection=true&autoDownloadModel=true

if the option is not specified, default should be false.

When creating/editing a model it's very annoying that you need several steps for inserting a new plugin (Click on components tab, click into search field, Press Enter, Press Enter).

Why not adding a direct short cut for inserting a plugin via search?
e.g. Ctrl+I opens a popup window with a searchfield already focused, ESC cancels the search and Enter confirms it.
Alternatively the shortcut should at least focus the current search field.

In WebACS the drop-down menu in the DPTEvent fields of the KNX component properties is missing (see screenshot).

Way to reproduce:
add KNX component to the model and take a look at the properties.

When downloading the Component Collection from the connected ARE, it seems that the new component descriptions are not fully applied. For example there is still a mismatch detected in the Cellboard plugin when the default (autostart) model is loaded from the ARE right after the Component Collection has been updated.

(however the other components like the LipMouse plugin show updates correctly)

It would be desireable to use the currently installed components of the ARE as the default Component Collection if the WebACS is hosted from the ARE webserver - so that updating the collection becomes obsolete in this case.

Testing environment:
platform: RaspberryPi 3
OS: Ubuntu Mate 16.04
browser: Mozilla Firefox 52.02

The C# ACS supports showing tooltips with useful information about a certain plugin, port, property,...
The WebACS does not provide this feature yet.

Zoom level not adjustable

Changing the position of zoom level slide (see screenshot) has no effect on percent value (100%) or actual zoom level of WebACS.

Low zoom level	High zoom level

When creating an event connection, the user must click onto the event trigger icon and the event listener icon.
Unfortunately the elements can't be clicked easily. The same problem exists for port icons.

Solution

Add mouse snapping functionality if the mouse click is within a range of x pixels.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Start ARE locally
2. open webacs.asterics.eu in Chrome
3. click on "connect to ARE"

See the following screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/7LsBxKD.png
Problem: requests to local addresses like localhost/127.0.0.1 are not allowed on insecure context (http) in current Chrome browsers. Firefox seems to be working.
Solution: switch to secure context / https

Currently a delete will also work when a port is focussed - since ports cannot be deleted, the whole component will be deleted. This is rather confusing for the user.

Hi @asterics
I want to create my portfolio and therefore I am contributing with open source repositories.
I can Present a logo that represents your project.
Thanks for your time
Cheers!

when pressing Ctrl+X in the property editor, a currently selected plugin is deleted (instead of the selected text) - same issue with the other editing shortcuts

The keyboard shortcuts in the top bar of the WebACS don't work any more:

Additionally, the typical keyboard shortcuts for copy, paste, duplicate, delete don't work.

Solution

Use new event.key notation: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/35394937/keyboardevent-keycode-deprecated-what-does-this-mean-in-practice

Description

Just tried the asterics-camerainput-cameramouse and asterics-microcontroller-arduino demo.

When I open use Edit Model -> Open in WebACS the model is opened successfully.
Even connection and interaction with (locally) running ARE works fine.

But when I select one of the components in the model in the WebACS, there is no reaction of the property editor. I've tried it several times, both with FireFox and Chrome. And I'm able to reproduce this behavior.

How to reproduce

1. Start the any demo by opening index.html of the respective demo repository
2. Click on Open in WebACS
3. Select any component
4. No reaction of the property editor. Configuration is not possible.

I've tried those examples on a Ubuntu 16.4.3 inside a virtualbox (v: 5.2.8 r121009 (Qt5.6.1)).

Workaround

The only way I was able to force the property editor to react was when performing following steps:

1. Select a component of the model.
2. Click on Download Model

A new tab is opened with the model, currently running in the ARE.
When switching back to the previous tab, the properties of the component selected (at step 1) are now displayed in the property editor.

I'll test different setup/scenarios in future an report it here, so that problem can be localized and removed in future.

Name (property) is not synchronized between Model and GUI Designer.

This issues has a "funny" side effect, where the GUI Designer has two element with the same name property. -> No reliable configuration is possible anymore.

Following steps are necessary to reproduce it:

1. Place any component, e.g. a ButtonGrid.
2. Change the default name ButtonGrid.1 to any different name, e.g. Button 1.
3. Place a second component of the same type, i.e. ButtonGrid.
4. Because ButtonGrid.1 is not reserved anymore (due to renaming), the second ButtonGrid gets ButtonGrid.1 assigned.

If you switch to GUI Designer again, two element will be visible, with the same name ButtonGrid.1.
There is no straightforward way to figure out, which of them belongs to the first or second, except for trail-and-error approaches.

The WebACS supports editing several model files in seperate tabs (see pic). It would be very handy to if model contents could be copied from one model to another with typical shortcuts and mouse actions.

Button to Play-Pause-Stop are WebACS functional and not in sync with execution state in ARE (see screenshot).

If you have several models opened in the WebACS and click on another model tab within the webacs to switch to the other model, many javascript events are fired, see:

Switching tab

Web console with Javascript events

This also leads to many requests to the ARE, as can be seen in the debugging output of the ARE:

This slows down the switching tremendously!!

Maybe this is also the reason why the webacs is very slow on low-powered PCs?

If you change the Property "Name" of a given plugin, this name does not show up in the model GUI in the WebACS.

When opening a model within plugins layouted at high coordinates (x >= 3000) in the WebACS the respective plugins are not visible any more.

Opening the model file in a text editor shows coordinates for the Comparator.1.2 plugin of

<layout>
        <posX>3169</posX>
        <posY>0</posY>
      </layout>

joystick_simple_ungrouped.txt

The canvas size of the WebACS is 3000x2000, the canvas size of the ACS is 4000x2000

Possible solutions:

• increase (align) WebACS canvas to the same size as ACS
• sanity check plugin positions and boundaries
• sanitize plugin positions

if a model is downloaded from the ARE (in order to make changes using the webACS)
it should be possible to store the changes to the same model file on the ARE.
When "Store Model on ARE" is clicked, a default model filename is suggested "e.g. newFile.acs" - the user has no option to overwrite/update the original file.

It would be good to provide the original path/filename of the downloaded model in order to allow updates of this model via the "store model on ARE" dialog or use the original model name for the "save model" dialog.

When opening a new model tab in the WebACS, about 100 MB of RAM are allocated,
but when closing the tab only a small portion is released. On the RaspberriPi this leads to severe problems and sstem hangs after 4 or 5 tabs have been created/closed.
Apart from finding this leak, it would be desireable reduce RAM requirements for smaller platforms.

Testing environment:
platform: RaspberryPi 3
OS: Ubuntu Mate 16.04 LTS
browser: Mozilla Firefox 52.02

The layout of the menu bar and the captions for the icon-groups look broken on Mozilla / RaspberryPi. (The icons partly occlude the captions). The Icon-bar, designer window and property editor do not respond well to the changes of the window size.

Testing environment:
platform: RaspberryPi 3
OS: Ubuntu Mate 16.04
browser: Mozilla Firefox 52.02

When a component is focussed that is outside the visible area, the WebACS should automatically scroll to show the focussed component.

I'm new in the AsTeRICS world. I guess I'm not all too used to the concept behind asterics.

However, every time I look for new components, I have to look through nearly every group to discover new items but also to find components I used before.

Would be great if we could wrap the currently static group assignment into a more intuitive and flatter hierarchy.

We could add more groups to the components "ribbon", like sensors, user input, visual output, word processing, string processing, etc. and make more use of the great empty space..

If you open a model containing ARE-GUI widgets with coordiniates in a non-visible area the GUI-designer does not sanitize the coordinates. This way it can happen, that the widget is not visible in the ARE GUI windows.

Solution

• Do sanity check, if the coordinates are within the GUI boundaries.
• Additionally the ARE should also check if the widgets are within the screen dimensions.