topic Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense in Integration, Extension & APIs

Playing with Extensions in Sense

Michael_Tarallo — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 05:12:47 GMT

As you know, extensions provide additional functionality that extend the capability of many products. QlikView has this capability, so it only makes sense to have it in Qlik Sense too - no pun intended.

I'd like to point out that Extensions are not limited to just visualizations. You can implement other types of functionality, including those available from the Qlik Sense API. (This will become more relative when the Qlik Sense Server is released later this year. See the ToolBar extension to see a simple example of this.)

If you want to check out the current example extensions that are available with Sense you can perform the following steps:

Go to C:\Users\<user>\Documents\Qlik\Examples\Extensions
Copy the complete folder of the extension you want to C:\Users\<user>\Documents\Qlik\Sense\Extensions
Restart Desktop

So for example - if you want to use the PeopleChart:

Take the complete folder from C:\Users\<user>\Documents\Qlik\Examples\Extensions

Copy to it to:

C:\Users\<user>\Documents\Qlik\Sense\Extensions

After Desktop starts, go to the design interface in an app:

Use as you would by adding measures and dimensions

Enjoy!

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

Tue, 29 Jul 2014 07:22:26 GMT

Thanks for sharing this!

One question: Is there a template for Qlik Sense extensions?

Something like this?Object Extension Templates

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

stephencredmond — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 08:16:02 GMT

Hi Michael,

I have been playing around and am struggling a little if I try to add more than one expression.

I set the measures min and max to 2 and can successfully add 2 expressions, however whatever way I try and access the data, I only get the dimension and the first expression. I have set the qWidth of the qInitialDataFetch to 3, but that hasn't helped. Is there something else that I need to change?

Regards,

Stephen

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

Michael_Tarallo — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 13:07:52 GMT

Hi Stephen - let me see what I can do, stand by.

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

tseebach — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 14:06:08 GMT

Try setting qWidth and qHeight much higher. They basically define the amount of data you will get back in your hybercube. qWidth 3 will give you either 2 Dim + 1 Expr or 1 Dim + 2 Expr. If you have 2 Dimensions enabled.

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

Michael_Tarallo — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 14:09:29 GMT

Thanks Torben - Stephen I also have a few "Gurus" looking at this. Let me know if yous till need assistance.

Mike T

Qlik

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

stephencredmond — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 14:15:38 GMT

I have only 1 dimension and 2 expressions and qWidth set to 3 and qHeight left at 50. There are only 4 rows in my dataset.

If I query backendApi.getDimensionInfos(), I can get the dimension name and if I query on backendApi.getMeasureInfos(), I get both expression titles. However if I use either layout.qHyperCube.qDataPages[0].qMatrix or backendApi.eachDataRow(function(rownum, row) {}, I only get 2 values - the dimension and the first expression.

Regards,

Stephen

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

Brian_Munz — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 14:15:44 GMT

I agree with Torben. qWidth and qHeight is basically defining the height and width of your table. So, for example, a qHeight of 3 will only return 3 rows of data and a qWidth of 3 will return 3 columns.

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

Brian_Munz — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 14:17:23 GMT

There are templates in the workbench editor which you can access locally here:

http://localhost:4848/workbencheditor

EDIT: In more recent versions, you can find it here: http://localhost:4848/workbench

When you click on the "new" button, you'll see a list of templates you can use to get started.

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

stephencredmond — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 15:03:02 GMT

Hi Brian,

I did use the workbench to create the extension.

I have qWidth: 3, qHeight: 50 and only 4 rows of data. Still only getting 2 values returned - the dimension and the expression.

Regards,

Stephen

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

stephencredmond — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 17:58:49 GMT

If it is useful, I get the following values from the layout object:

layout.qHyperCube.qMeasureInfo.length = 2

layout.qHyperCube.qMeasureInfo[0].qFallbackTitle gives me the correct title of expression 1 and layout.qHyperCube.qMeasureInfo[1].qFallbackTitle gives me the correct title of expression 2. (I can also correctly get these from backendApi.getMeasureInfos()).

layout.qHyperCube.qSize.qcx gives me 3 (I expect this, 1 dimension and 2 expressions) and layout.qHyperCube.qSize.qcy gives me 4 (4 rows of data).

However, then layout.qHyperCube.qDataPages[0].qArea.qWidth only gives me 2 while layout.qHyperCube.qDataPages[0].qArea.qHeight correctly gives me 4.

Regards,

Stephen

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

stephencredmond — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 18:02:36 GMT

BTW Tom, if I set the width to 10 and the height to 500, I still only get a 2x4 data cube.

I know if works OK for multiple dimensions because there are examples here, but I just can't get the multiple expressions working. It seems as if I have done what I need to do, but I must be missing something simple.

Regards,

Stephen

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

stephencredmond — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 23:42:47 GMT

OK,

I removed the extension and re-added it - with exactly the same expressions - and now it works.

I am guessing that something was caching somewhere 😞

Good news is that it is working now!

Regards,

Stephen

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

stephencredmond — Wed, 30 Jul 2014 00:31:00 GMT

Blog with link to source code:

Qlik Tips: Extensions in Qlik Sense

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

flipside — Wed, 30 Jul 2014 09:26:31 GMT

That fixed it for me, too! Thanks.

Probably not the cause, but I have noticed that when using IE that although changes do correctly update the underlying files, when clicking reload in workbencheditor (or closing the tab and restarting the editor and opening the file), the original code is returned. You can force the latest file to load by completely closing the browser or get in the habit of hitting F12, clicking cache and 'Always refresh from server'.

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

tseebach — Wed, 30 Jul 2014 09:44:45 GMT

If you're developing extension you might want not to use the Desktop but access from a browser so you can use some developer options (like Firebug) use this url: localhost:4848/hub/

Sense uses the Chromium Framework, so it would make sense to use Chrome for testing and dev.

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

ErikWetterberg — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 07:00:50 GMT

Hi,

since qInitialDatafetch is actually in initialProperties it will be applied when you create a new object. Changing it in the code will not affect already existing objects, so please recreate then if you change the value.

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

justin_morley — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 13:22:20 GMT

Hi,

This didn't work for me.

However, shutting the whole client down and opening again did work, just in case anyone runs into the same problem.

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

Fri, 19 Sep 2014 17:11:40 GMT

Hi,

Has this problem allready been solved?

I'm experiencing the same problem:

I've built an extension, with qWidth = 3 and qHeight = 1.000 and it's working perfectly fine.

When I try to increase my qHeight to 10.000 the length of my qData is still 1.000 when pressing F5 (The length should be 1.500).

As suggested above, I then tried to create a new object, deleting the old object and creating a new one. Then the extension gives me an "unknown error". Even restarting Qlik Sense does not help, I still get the "unknown error".

Does anybody have some suggestions?

Re: Playing with Extensions in Sense

stephencredmond — Sat, 20 Sep 2014 06:55:09 GMT

There is a max of 1000 rows allowed. (Nice error message to let you know what the problem is, eh?)

if you you have more than 1,000 rows, you can fetch more data with the API