Composer update Q4 2024

[Jordy]

Introduction

The Composer has been updated with two major features: todo items and integration with the Composer Algorithm. Deployment has also been updated to support the update of the Composer. This article gives an overview of what the changes are and how to use them.

Todo items

Todo items already existed in Deployment but have now been introduced in the Composer application as well. This allows users to take action on todo items that require action during your composition. This saves time as these items would otherwise only be visible after integration and generation of your application.

How does it work?

When you press the button “Check all and send to deployment”, the todo items that are relevant to your composition will be retrieved. If there is one or more todo item(s) that is still ‘open’, you will be prompted to review the item(s).

You have to mark all items with one of the following statuses:

• Done: you have taken action on this item
• Irrelevant: you have considered the action but find it not applicable to your composition
• Handle in deployment: you want to take action on this item in Deployment*

*You will see all todo items that are relevant before the installation of your application. These include both actions on the composition as well as actions that are relevant in Deployment only.

Viewing todo items

You can also retrieve and view relevant todo items on the cart page as can be seen in the screenshot below. The panel can accessed and pinned via “more”. You can retrieve the todo items using the “retrieve” grid button.

Composer Algorithm

The second part of the Composer update is the integration of the Composer Algorithm in the Composer Application. It is available when solving issues on the cart suggestion page and will be used as the default option. The interface has been simplified but all existing and added functionality is available by checking the checkbox: “show advanced settings”.

Limitations

One important limitation of the algorithm is that it looks at a limited number of components in order to find a solution. It will take into account the last 3 revisions that meet the minimum status of your cart. This means that it will not find a solution if you have a dependency on an old component revision.

Advanced settings

The Composer algorithm offers some additional settings that are used to determine a composition. These are the folowing:

• Maximum iterations: determines how long the algorithm can search. A higher number is more likely to find a solution but will take more time. In general the default value is enough to find a solution.
• Use first found composition: determines whether the algorithm should continue to look for a solution with less components. If this option is selected, the first composition is returned immediately. The algorithm will otherwise continue until maximum iterations are reached or all possible solutions have been looked at.
• Allow changes to input cart: determines if the algorithm may propose upgrading components in your cart.
• Allow downgrades: determines if the algorithm may propose downgrading components in your cart.
• Allow deletions: determines if the algorithm may propose removing components in your cart.

The button “reload all fixes and alternatives” and the checkbox “show ignored errors” have been moved under advanced settings as well to clean up the suggestion page.