New Features in Mist 3.3

• ODBC

  • ODBC connections are now supported, including modeling the connections and using them to import tables
  • SSIS 2012 ODBC Source and ODBC Destination are now fully supported with native language tags (no more custom component tags)

• Attunity Oracle support

  • Oracle connections are now supported, including modeling the connections and using them to import tables
  • The Attunity Oracle Source and Oracle Destination components are now fully supported with native language tags (no more custom component tags)
  • Just like the Attunity components in BIDS/SSDT, Mist will dynamically check for the presence of the Oracle Data Access Components, and build only if they are present.

• BalancedDataDistributor

  • This is a component that is shipped by Microsoft as a separate download. It is now fully supported with native language tags

• MultiFile and MultiFlatFile Connections

  • The HasMultipleFiles boolean property has been added to the existing FileConnection and FlatFileConnection nodes. When present, the FilePath property will automatically accept wildcard syntax

• Extension Methods

  • An overload of the AstNode.GetTag method was added to support case insensitive searching for tag annotations.
  • The GetBiml() extension method has been improved for use with AllMergedColumns in CloneTables.
  • The following Column and Table properties have been enhanced to provide more accurate results: Column.IsUsedInPrimaryKey, Table.HasIdentity, Table.PreferredKey.

• Miscellaneous

  • A new comment delimiter has been added to the BimlScript language. Use <#* ... *#>. This will prevent the enclosed code from being processed in any way.
  • Execute Package task can now specify Parameter Bindings
  • Script project assembly references can now include environment variables

New UI Functionality

• Backstage Splash

  • When Mist first opens, it presents a custom screen that is optimized for new and returning users. Either select from an extensive list of recent files, or choose a new project template. The more traditional Backstage menu options are just a click away.

  • Backstage

    • New
      • Beautifully rendered and extensible project template interface
      • Project Templates are now updated via RSS feed, which can be managed by Varigence or by the customer
      • Project Templates are now zip files instead of copied folders. This enables easier deployment.
    • Open
      • Provides a variety of options for finding projects and files, including extensive history tracking
      • History is easily manageable and common files can be pinned for quick selection
    • Save
      • Files with unsaved changes are listed with options to save, discard changes, or review changes
      • Mist will work with your favorite change differencing tool to see the changes in unsaved files
    • Help
      • Provides a variety of options to get more information about Mist for solving your problems including: Get Started, Tutorials, Community Forums, and Latest News
    • Account
      • One location to get all of the information about your Mist version, plugins, product key, EULA, and more.
    • Customizability
      • All of our dynamically updating content is now based off of RSS, with a unified, multi-tier caching RSS Feed Manager. Advanced users to override the feeds to support custom content for corporate deployments.

Improved UI Functionality

• General

  • Updated almost all Mist icons to be sharper and more Modern-UI friendly.
  • When no items are present in a tree or grid control, the message now identifies the parent by name for clarity
  • When no items are present in a tree or grid control, there is now an add button with a tooltip detailing the ways to add new items
  • Mist now starts in Logical View by default. It will subsequently remember window layout of the last run.
  • Added 32-bit to the title bar when running Mist in 32-bit mode. This parallels the 64-bit label.
  • Made it so that Execute Transformers context menu is hidden on script-generated assets.
  • Visibility of the grid details pane is now collapsed when multiple items in a datagrid are selected.
  • DataGrid row highlight style is grey instead of blue when the control is not active. This should clarify which controls have focus.
  • Dotted line around the perimeter of the control when you delete the last item is now removed.

• Treeviews

  • When you single-click an already focused tree item, it enters edit mode.
  • Expanding/collapsing a node will now ensure move it to the appropriate place within the scroll window.
  • Focus now remains consistent on expand/collapse.
  • Deleting an item now appropriately focuses the next item.
  • All trees that should be multi-select are now multi-select

• Designers

  • Package Designer
  • Breadcrumb zoom out no longer breaks node sizing
  • The package details area now contains a datagrid for package parameters, with appropriate context menus
  • When dropping a node into a package or container, the node will now always be on top (not placed underneath another node) and the obfuscation border should appear when appropriate
  • Resizing a nested node now triggers scrollbars in the package editor
  • Visual flickering when trying to move large containers and tasks is eliminated
  • Disabled nodes and containers now display a gray, partially opaque overlay.
  • Fixed minor margin and spacing issues with package details controls
  • Fixed issue where sometimes tasks would not appear on design surface until the breadcrumb root is pressed
  • Made resize handle for t-sql editor more easily visible
  • Buttons in the task dashboard in the package editor are now always clickable and always offer the option to create new items.
  • Fixed a Mist crash when setting the aggregate column operation in the aggregate component details editor.

• Table/Dimension/Fact Designers

  • Fixed broken drag/drop scenarios with snowflake columns from dimension columns to attributes.
  • Added multiselect support to all drag/drop operations
  • Whitespace padding has been added to the bottom of the Table Editor treeviews to create an unambiguous drop zone for drag/drop operations
  • The focus is now set to the object created when a column is dropped. This reduces confusion, especially when that item needs to be immediately deleted.

• Script Project Designer

  • Improved the naming of some script project context menu items.
  • Fixed the Add Connection Reference context menu in the Script Component Project Designer to always fire the necessary commands
  • Eliminated an intermittent Mist crashing issue with the script project worker thread. This could only happen when Mist was already in the final stages of shutdown, but it was a bad experience.

• BimlCode Editor

  • Made it so that we don't list attributes in Biml intellisense that have already been used.
  • Improved autocomplete behavior around delimiters.
  • Added code highlighting for directive and .NET code blocks.
  • The BimlEditor now displays line numbers in the left margin. There's a user setting in the project designer to toggle the line numbers.
  • QuickInfo popup now is closed if you switch focus to a different application
  • A syntax editor's zoom percentage is now displayed in the right side of the status bar, past the line and column information.
  • Fixed a corner case that can produce a crash in QuickInfo tooltip generation.
  • Fixed an intermittent crash when pasting code in the BimlScript editor when clipboard has object data.

• BimlScript/Template Designer

  • Add the ability to cancel the preview.
  • Added a ribbon icon to toggle auto expansion of BimlScript in the Preview Expanded Biml.
  • TargetNode dropdown in template editor is now sorted
  • Fixed an intermittent crash in the BimlScript designer background thread when closing the project.
  • Fixed an issue where intelliprompt for Directives would sometimes offer the auto-complete options for the previous directive.

• Package Project Designer

  • Add Project Parameter context menu now works like Add Variable context menu, along with inline type selection.

• Tool Windows

  • Output Window
    • Keyboard can now be used to navigate the Output window.
    • Output window now scrolls as build output is produced (provided that the window is already scrolled to the bottom).
    • Output window now is selectable and has full context menu support.
  • Expressions Window
    • Added a scrollbar to the results pane on the Expression Builder dialog.

• Project View

  • Multi-selection keyboard and mouse interaction significantly improved
  • All Project View tree item properties now have descriptions in property grid.
  • Fixed over-aggressive treeview autoscrolling behavior.
  • Build and Duplicate commands are now multiselect with detailed options in context sub-menus.
  • Mist build actions can now be set via multi-select in property grid.
  • A setting has been provided to make the source control window stay open after using the source control functionality (such as an Update).
  • Root Folder Improvements
    • Added support for labels to Root folders in project view.
    • Renaming root folders is now fully supported.
    • Root Folders are now prevented from being moved into other root folders.
    • Add Existing, Copy/Paste, Include, and Include Descendants of Biml Files will now set BuildAction to Live for standard Biml files and to Reference for BimlScripts

• Logical View

  • Logical View now fully supports multi-select
  • Added Properties context menu item for all object types in LogicalTreeView.
  • Expanded Context Menu items that are active for BimlScript generated connections
  • Script projects can now be duplicated.
  • Logical view is now sorted by ScopedName and/or LogicalName where appropriate. This is particularly useful for tables, dimensions, and facts.
  • Fixed an issue with project view and logical view scrolling so that a drag doesn't get initiated in the middle of a scroll.
  • Fixed rename button in context menu for Biml Files in library.
  • Added 'Build' and 'Build and Open' for PackageProject nodes

Build Engine

• Performance

  • Massively improved performance of escape character handling in the literal strings for SSIS expressions.
  • Massive improvement to script project compilation by batching and precompiling all of the scripts used to generate the code behind files.

• BimlScript Processing

  • Fixed issue where negative tiers were not being handled as file references in live processing engine.
  • Tier 0 references to higher tiers now are fully supported during incremental processing.
  • Fixed issue where higher tier BimlScript couldn't see lower tier assets after equal or lower tier assets are changed in live processing engine.
  • When BimlScript or Biml file is changed from Live Mist Action to Reference it is now correctly removed from the in-memory model in the live processing engine.
  • Fixed a minor issue where setting debug=true in BimlScript would always result in a compiler error.
  • Fixed a Mist crash on Project reload when the project file was updated by subversion.

• Code Generation

  • Fixed an issue with VariableValueChanged event handler emission.
  • OLE DB Source component now has the correct description in documentation.
  • Targeted changes to script project binary code emission to prevent extra binary code elements from being created when roundtripping package through SSDT.
  • Packages with Text columns as source and destination now emit correctly (without an unnecessary NText conversion).
  • SSIS data flow path names are now scrubbed for invalid characters in task/component names
  • Attribute ordering on Package node in SSIS has been changed to avoid confusing SSDT when it tries to upgrade a Biml-generated package to SSIS2012.
  • Fixed underscore and other invalid character removal from automatically generated property names in script component code behind.
  • Added methods to correctly quote identifiers for each database SchemaProvider.
  • Updated command line documentation for hadron.exe for the buildOnly option.

• Name Management

  • Internal improvements to our NameGeneration framework
  • When editing an asset name in the property grid, the Biml file rename dialog no longer triggers unless the name actually changes value.
  • Improved file copy/paste and duplicate naming to put " - Copy" at the end.

• Validation

  • Added a warning validation for when Attribute Relationship name does not match the name of the child attribute. This is to keep BIDS/SSDT from issuing a warning.
  • Fixed bug with over-aggressive Aggregate transformation diagnostic.
  • Fixed validator to prevent it from crashing the validation thread when a package or variable name is not set.
  • Added a build-time diagnostic to validate that input buffer column types in script components match the input columns to which they are wired in the dataflow.
  • Prevented sql parse exceptions from killing the validator thread.

Import

• Package Importer

  • SSIS Importer is now smarter when importing custom properties on custom components that contain lineage IDs
  • PersistFileConnection is now imported correctly for CacheConnections
  • When Importer creates an ImportedProjectConnection, it now sets CreateInProject = true
  • Importer now handles SynchronousInputId correctly for custom components in SSIS 2012
  • OleDbSource parameters are no longer imported when AccessMode doesn't support them, even if they are cached in the dtsx.
  • Importer no longer assumes that referenced project connections are always OLE DB.
  • SSIS script project import no longer assumes that the VSTAProject name does matches the class/csproj name in the script project code. This arises when developers copy/paste code from other script component instances.
  • Package import is now limited during trial

• Table Importer

  • Primary Keys are no longer imported twice (both as a Primary Key and Index)
  • Imported views now have the CREATE VIEW statement trimmed to match view definition expectations in Biml
  • Computed column attribute is no longer added when there are no Computed values.
  • Clustered indexes are no longer imported as non-clustered indexes.
  • Fixed an issue where multiple table imports could be running concurrently by the background services engine.
  • Made schema importer more resilient to errors loading the sql parser

Installer

• Improved support for side-by-side installations with other versions and bitness of Mist.
• No longer installing defunct CHM file. All help is now online.
• Mist installer now advertises MIME type for mist project (mst files).

Misc

• Fix for intermittent crashing caused by Logitech gesture mouse.
• Annotation text within a package node is now trimmed to remove leading/trailing whitespace.
• Annotation data grid context will now add a new annotation rather than adding an annotation to the selected annotation.
• Fixed an issue where script component project template code was trying to be version agnostic, but BIDS/SSDT would reject the code pattern on roundtripping.
• New project dialog now focuses project name textbox by default.
• Added Ctrl+Shift+B keyboard shortcut for build.
• Reduced CPU usage of background services when Mist is idle.