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What’s New on Kelp?

April 17, 2024​

We are excited to announce a major new release of Kelp that has been in the works for quite a while. This update brings significant improvements and new capabilities that will enhance your application development experience. We can't wait to hear your feedback on the new features and see the incredible creations you build using them.

Layout System Redesign​

The main focus of this release is a comprehensive redesign of the Kelp layout system. We have refactored the existing layout editor, making it faster and more efficient. Highlights include:

  • Grid Layout: The existing layout system has been refactored for enhanced performance and flexibility. We've introduced absolute widget positioning and an improved widget styles panel.
  • New Flex Layout: We have introduced a powerful new layout called Flex layout. Flex layout closely implement the CSS Flexbox model, enabling you to create advanced, scrollable application views with greater flexibility and control over layout elements.
  • Both Grid and Flex layouts can now be used within the same application, giving you the freedom to choose the best layout type for each view.

We will follow up with detailed tutorials and guidance on how to effectively utilize the new layout systems.

Application Components​

We have introduced Application Components, a new feature that allows you to create reusable custom application components by composing existing Kelp functionality. To support this, we have also launched the first version of a component repository for distributing custom components. At this moment, the components will be curated by the Kelp team. In future versions, we will open it for user contributions.

Dataflow Graph Outline​

Another notable improvement in this release is the introduction of the Dataflow Graph Outline panel. This panel provides an alternative way to navigate and interact with your application's dataflow graph, significantly improving the development experience for complex, multi-layered applications.

Other Improvements​

  • Simplified the Entity Browser widget by removing the multi-column layout.
  • Collapsed multiple similar error signals into a single error message in the Error panel.
  • Enhanced the timeout management for external Data Gateway requests.
  • Updated the URL encoding logic to align with changes in Chromium (v114 - v120).
  • Improved the search functionality in the components library.
  • Introduced readability options to the Text widget.

Bug Fixes​

  • Resolved the reordering issue of events from the SSE stream
  • Resolved vertical space rendering issues in the Form widget for a group of fields
  • Fixed unintentional copying of transformations from wires connected to one port
  • Addressed various style issues on the List widget
  • Solved the blinking wire issue while pulling it from a port
  • Resolved an issue where transformations were not saved if the component dialog was closed too quickly
  • Fixed a problem where the SSE component unsubscribed before receiving all messages
  • Resolved various rendering problems with the Calendar, Property List, and Metric Card widgets, including a broken sparkline
  • Addressed the issue of range slider labels rendering on the Form widget
  • Solved the problem of continuous refresh in Safari for the Kelp app
  • Fixed an issue where the settings dialog was not maximized on double click

For more details and assistance with upgrading, please contact support.

November 9, 2023​

Features​

  • Introduced an option to invite new members to the workspace via email.
  • The logic of signal handling for the Sampled By stream operator has been improved. It now permits AFTER_LOAD signals to pass when the operator is in the flushed state.

Bugfixes​

  • The Form component has been refactored to fully support native browser scrollbars and related rendering issues.
  • Enhancements to the progress bar animation on widgets
  • Resolved the synchronization problem between the Transformation Editor and Event Listener panel that sometimes prevents the display of events when event listening is enabled.
  • Resolved the issue of visualization resizing in Vega widgets when transitioning between app views.
  • Adjusted the styles of the presets selector in the Flow Diagram.

September 26, 2023​

The main theme of this release was performance improvements, including optimized network resource loading, optimized streaming pipeline, batching security requests, and various other fine-tunings. These enhancements will make Kelp faster and more efficient, providing you with a smoother and more seamless experience.

Other notable features and improvements:​

  • Upgraded Vega and Vega-Lite widgets to the latest versions, 5.25.0 and 5.11.1
  • Improved the performance of the Log Widget to enable fast rendering of streaming events.
  • Added a new set of signal components, including ERROR, PROGRESS, RESET, and SCOPE CHANGED.
  • The new way to control the progress bar on tiles using PROGRESS signal.
  • Improved error reporting in Vega and Vega-Lite widgets
  • Support the ClickHouse JDBC driver for the DB connector.
  • Improved support for parameters in the request URL of the HTTP connector is now available. You can learn more about this feature in the "HTTP Request Parameters" doc.
  • Added support for arrays in parameter values in the request URL of the HTTP connector.

Bugfixes​

  • Widgets now show multiple instances of an error if it occurs.
  • Fixed the issue with infinite loop between two Vega-Lite charts that are connected to each other.
  • Improved the display of error messages in the Errors panel.
  • Updated documentation for Router Service.
  • Fixed the issue with renaming the port for composite components.
  • Fixed an issue with data updates for specifications that include a cartographic projection in a Vega chart.
  • Fixed a bug where the HTTP Connector may un-escape the URL, causing URI validation to fail.
  • Fixed an issue where components sometimes cannot be deleted from the canvas.
  • Minor style improvements for the Form widget.
  • Minor bugfixes for Message Input widget
  • Fixed a bug where an invalid changeset could corrupt the dataset in the Vega widget.
  • Fixed an issue where the Vega-Lite chart could emit an invalid selection object.
  • Style improvements for the scrollbar in the Form widget.
  • Added the "Open" action to the app context menu.
  • Improved error messages for the Router service.

August 28, 2023​

Features and improvements:

  • Support for incremental data updates is now available in Vega-Lite and Vega widgets.
  • Now, all Vega-Lite spec composition types support select/selection events.
  • Added an auto-scroll feature to the Text widget. This allows you to switch the widget to a mode where it will automatically scroll to the bottom.
  • Added a new Message Input widget. This is a useful tool for entering text messages in various chat use cases.
  • Style improvements to a scrollbar in all widgets.
  • Updates have been made to the Fork action on the app top bar.
  • Clean up dead links from the workspace help menu.
  • Various documentation updates, including new Quickstart Guide

Bugfixes:

  • Fixed an issue where wires temporarily turned red when drilling down inside a composite component.
  • Widget preview would flicker in Dataflow mode after changes were made to component attributes.
  • Change the label of the top-level navigation item in dataflow mode.
  • Fixed the issue of the Vega-Lite widget not stretching to the size of its container.
  • Fixed a problem where the Text widget was not resetting when receiving a RESET signal.
  • Fixed the rendering of tooltips in the Entity Browser widget.
  • Minor updates to rendering of Markdown code blocks

June 22, 2023​

Streamlining the Streams: Introducing New Stream Operators!​

The components library has been updated with 25 new stream operators. In addition to the basic Combine and Zip operators, you can now enjoy the whole family of Buffer, Filter, Skip, Take, and more. Many new operators support a dynamic config port that can be used to update the component's settings at runtime. Learn more about Stream Operators.

May 17, 2023​

We have improved the mechanism for forking apps and templates. You can now select the target workspace where you want the template to be forked. You can search and preview templates on the Kelp.app website and fork them directly into your workspace.

April 4, 2023​

Features and improvements:

  • AWS S3 Connector
  • New Base64 functions in KelpQL
  • Improved error reporting for OAuth token creation in the App Connections dialog.
  • Highlight the dataflow where a stack overflow may occur or is likely to occur.
  • Support PKCE for Kelp OAuth2 code flow authentication.
  • Support the copying of connector credentials when copying a part of the app graph.
  • Display details for router service errors.
  • New version of Vega widget
  • Improved error message when pasting a large object to the canvas.
  • Add support for independent SSE connections to the server.
  • Support for request payload in SSE connector.
  • Support for independent Kafka connections to the server.
  • Support reconnection strategies for SSE connector.
  • Improve DGW's streaming throttling strategy.
  • Added a shortcut from the released app view to the dataflow editor.
  • Upgrade Vega package to the latest v5 version
  • Updated widgets preview on the Dataflow editor.
  • Redesign of the Comment component.
  • Adding support for multipart form body in HTTP requests through DGW.

Bugfixes​

  • Title and description for the credentials section are missing in the "Add new integration" dialog.
  • Style Issues with Markdown headers
  • The back button is not navigating back to the app after being redirected from the edit page to the main page.
  • Issues with SSE connection to the Ably service.
  • The error icon on widgets will flash if the input error rate exceeds a certain threshold.
  • The HTTP connector fails when the URL has an incorrect format.

February 27, 2023​

Support of Selection Events for Vega-Lite Widget​

Vega-Lite widget now support input and output selection events triggered by user interactions. We support both point and interval types of Vega-Lite selection events.

Another notable improvement is the optimization of Kelp account page performance.

For older release notes please see Kelp Release Notes Archive