One of the benefits of attending the Masters Summit for Qlik is networking and the things you can learn from discussions with peers.

At the Boston Summit, I was fortunate to meet Erik Wetterberg, formerly of Qlik R&D and known to me as the author of the qsVariable and DevTool extensions.  I’ve been a fan of the DevTool extension for some time and had a nice chat with Erik about potential enhancements to DevTool.   Since the summit Erik has made some updates and accepted new function I’ve added to the tool.

DevTool provides some functions that are useful during Qlik Sense app development and debugging.  Download the DevTool zip from the dist folder here https://github.com/erikwett/DevTool and install as you would any other extension.

Add  the extension to any sheet and it will create an Action Button (AB) to the lower right corner of the sheet.

You don’t have to leave the extension in the app, the AB will remain until you close the app.  I usually don’t leave it in the app, I just add it and then remove by double clicking DevTool in the assets panel and follow that with a Ctrl-z undo.

You can leave it in the app if you wish.  There are some considerations discussed below for leaving it in a published app.

Clicking the AB will toggle a tooltip above each sheet object that initially displays the objectid.  The objectid is useful when building mashups or reviewing diagnostic data.   As selections are made and the objects are recalculated, the tooltip will add a line showing the time in milliseconds for the current calculation as well as the max calculation time for this object.

 

Click the “properties” button on the tooltip and this object’s json formatted properties will display in a popup.  Use the copy-to-clipboard button to copy all or selected property lines to the clipboard.

Right-Click the AB to open a context menu that provides for:

• Exporting script to a text file.
• Importing (replacing) script from a text file.
• Exporting variables in script or json format.

The extension works equally well in desktop or server.  Some things to think about before including it in a published app.

• Users normally can’t see the load script and variables in a published app, but they can with this extension.
• Although the script import works without error in a published app, the change to script is not saved so effectively nothing has been updated.

For myself, I’ve been thinking of this as a tool to use during development only and have not been including it in published apps.  I’d be curious to hear if someone has made a different decision.

The extension buttons use a google font. I note that many servers are blocked from the internet. If this is your case, you will see red dots for the buttons instead of proper symbols.  The buttons are still fully functional.

Maybe I’ll see you at the Masters Summit in Prague  where you might find your own interesting collaboration.

-Rob