Release Notes

Learn what is new in each release of Evothings Studio.

EvothingsStudio 2.1.0

This is the stable release of Evothings Studio 2.1.0.

New in EvothingsStudio 2.1.0 compared to 2.1.0-beta2:

• Upgraded Electron to version 1.2.1 and also upgraded various other components.
• Improved look and feel of main Workbench window using Bootstrap tabs.
• Added support for commercial Evothings subscription licenses associated with the user cloud token.
• Added Libraries list with Evothings packaged libraries that one can easily add to apps.
• Improved offline handling with better detection and refresh behavior for Example and Libraries lists.
• Added Edit button for My Apps so that App metadata can be easily modified.
• Added a library section in the Edit App dialog so that Libraries can easily be added to and removed from Apps.
• The Code button for Apps now opens the app folder itself instead of its parent.
• Added a libraries metadata section to evothings.json for Apps.
• Added short name, description and version metadata fields in evothings.json for both Apps and Examples.
• Added new Support sub menu under Help with several entry points into the Evothings support portal.
• Added metadata tags for both Examples and Libraries.
• Added one initial Library, jQuery.
• Added settings field "Repository URLs" for extra alternative sources of examples and libraries.
• Disabled electron http disk cache to prevent stale example and library lists.
• About dialog now shows build timestamp and subscription license including limits associated with that license.
• Various bug fixes and cosmetic improvements.

Download and follow on-screen instructions: evothings.com/download

EvothingsStudio 2.1.0-beta2

New in EvothingsStudio 2.1.0-beta2:

• Improved texts inside the Workbench.
• Improved error handling and better defaults in New App and Copy App dialogs.
• Various small fixes.

EvothingsStudio 2.1.0-beta1

New in EvothingsStudio 2.1.0-beta1:

• New cloud token tracking making it easier for us to handle new advanced features like instrumentation and OTA file uploads.
• Moved to Electron which gives us native menus, better file dialogs and much more!
• Switched to material design lite for some of the UI parts.
• New proper installers, dmg for OSX, Squirrel for Windows and Debian packages for Linux.
• New instrumentation features have evolved (note that these features will probably only be available to paying customers in the future).
• Three new Dialog examples.
• One new MediaTek LinkIt Smart 7688 Duo example.
• One new Raspberry Pi 3 example.
• All examples are now hosted and loaded online from Evothings.com making it easy to publish new examples.
• Examples sorted alphabetically with all Hello World examples at the top.
• Various bug fixes.

EvothingsStudio 2.1.0-alpha2

New in EvothingsStudio 2.1.0-alpha2:

• Three new Microbit examples.
• Two new Bluefruit LE UART examples.
• One new Arduino101 example.
• New experimental Instrumentation window reachable by clicking the "Viewers" status text at bottom right corner.
• Added Disconnect all viewers function in More menu.
• Added Doc button for apps that opens a documentation URL in the external browser.
• Added entry in More menu to reach an FAQ documentation page.
• Added entry in More menu to reach our Gitter chat.
• Various bug fixes.

EvothingsStudio 2.1.0-alpha1

This version of Evothings Studio adds supports for:

• Web Bluetooth
• ECMAScript 6
• Preliminary support for CoffeeScript (name your files with extension .coffee, remember to include them using extension .js)

New example apps:

• Hello ECMAScript 6
• mbed Evothings GATT Web Bluetooth
• TI SensorTag CC2541 Accelerometer Web Bluetooth

Evothings Studio 2.0.0

Evothings Studio 2.0 comes with bug fixes and improved documentation.

Evothings Workbench

• Works with Evothings Viewer 1.3.
• Supported platforms for Evothings Workbench are OS X, Windows and Linux.
• Bug fixes.

Documentation and tutorials

• Updated API documentation for the EasyBLE library.
• API documentation for the Cordova BLE plugin.

Evothings Studio 2.0.0 Beta 3

Evothings Studio 2.0 Beta 3 features Workbench UI improvements and easy-to-follow instructions.

Evothings Workbench

• Works with Evothings Viewer.
• Supported platforms for Evothings Workbench are OS X, Windows and Linux.
• Overall improved UI of the Workbench with clearer instructions and new functionality for an improved workflow.
• Improved documentation, guides and help texts.
• Improved getting started instructions.
• Improved UI and help texts for Connect and Login.
• Highlight of the active app. When clicking RUN the app becomes the active app and is monitored for automatic live reload when files in the app are saved.

Evothings Viewer 1.3.0

• Available for iOS and Android on the app stores.
• New functionality for running apps hosted on a web server, using the evo: and evos: protocols. Read more about how to share apps.
• Plugins for iBeacon and local notifications have been updated.

Documentation and tutorials

• The documentation web site has been reworked.
• Several new Starter Guides and tutorials are available.
• New Eddystone Starter Guide.
• New iBeacon Starter Guide.
• New BLE Starter Guide.

Evothings Studio 2.0.0 Beta 2

Evothings Studio 2.0 Beta 2 features an improved Workbench UI with new functionality and easy-to-follow instructions. Reload performance and stability in the workflow have also been improved.

Evothings Studio Workbench

• Works with Evothings Viewer.
• Supported platforms for Evothings Workbench are OS X, Windows and Linux.
• Overall improved UI of the Workbench with clearer instructions and new functionality for an improved workflow.
• Improved documentation, guides and help texts.
• Improved getting started instructions.
• Improved UI and help texts for Connect and Login.
• Improved stability for live reloading of apps on iOS 9.
• New function to copy example apps to the “My Apps” tab.
• New function to create a new project based on a basic application template.
• A warning is displayed when clicking the delete (x) icon on an app in the “My Apps” tab (note that removing apps from “My Apps” list does not remove the actual files on disk).
• Instructions for how to change the name of an app displayed under the “My Apps” tab.
• Added icons for the example apps listing and an option to create your own icons for apps in the “My Apps” tab.
• Improved login/logout function with a checkbox option, allowing the Workbench to remember login credentials for Google+.
• Added menu option in the “More” menu to make it easy to provide feedback. Your feedback is most welcome!

Evothings Viewer

• Available for iOS and Android.
• Bugs related to changed behavior in iOS9 have been fixed.
On iOS 9, to prevent application content from expanding the view when DOM elements move off screen, you’ll want to add the directive shrink-to-fit=no to the meta “viewport” setting in index.html. You don’t need to do any specific platform check when using this setting; it can be used for both iOS and Android (the directive is ignored on Android, which does not have this problem in the first place).
• Reload performance and stability are both improved. On iOS 9, the occasionally experienced problems when loading/reloading the content of the web container has now been fixed.

Examples apps

Two new example apps have been added!

• New example app for the ESP8266 WiFi module.
• New example for the MediaTek LinkIt Connect 7681.

Evothings Studio 2.0.0 Beta 1

Highlights of Evothings Studio version 2.0:

• Connect to Evothings Workbench from any mobile device with Internet access (no need to be on the same WiFi network).
• No need to configure routers or firewalls.
• Easy to connect to Evothings Workbench for users independently of physical location or network. You can now develop mobile IoT apps anywhere as long as you have an Internet connection. Moreover, you can demo apps remotely for users and customers, running your apps directly on their mobile devices.
• Improved caching that results in quicker loading of apps.
• Quicker live reload (automatic reload when saving a file). Speedup is a factor of 3-4 for large applications.

Evothings Studio Workbench

• Works with the new Evothings Viewer app.
• Easy to generate a connect key for connecting from Evothings Viewer.
• For security reasons the connect key expires after some time. Just generate a new key if this happens. You can connect from a new device at any time by generating a new key.
• Already connected devices are not affected when generating a new connect key, they will still be connected.
• Login to get quick-connect functionality (reconnect with one button press when launching the Viewer app).
• Supported platforms for Evothings Workbench are OS X, Windows and Linux.

Evothings Viewer

• Improved loading of apps and faster reload. Speedup is a factor of 3-4 for large applications.
• Easy to connect to Evothings Workbench using a connect key.
• You can connect from any number of devices at any time. Just generate a new connect key if it has timed out. Connected devices stay connected also when you generate a new connect key.
• Quickly connect to the Workbench you are logged in to next time you launch the Viewer. No need to generate and enter a connect key, very quick to connect with just one button press.
• Connect from anywhere on the Internet. Users can connect to remote Workbenches by entering the corresponding connect key, to do testing and remote demos.
• Available for iOS and Android.

Examples and libraries

• New library for writing Eddystone beacon applications.
• New example app "Eddystone Scan" that scans for Eddystone beacons.
• Eddystone Cordova plugin is available if you wish to build a native app using Cordova, PhoneGap Build, or Ionic.

Evothings Studio 1.2.0

Find all downloads for this version of Evothings Studio at: evothings.com/download

Evothings Workbench

• Supported platforms for Evothings Workbench are OS X, Windows and Linux.
• Updated documentation.
• New example apps.
• Bugfixes.

Example apps

• Several new and updated example apps for the TI SensorTag CC2650 and CC2541.
• New example apps for ARM mbed ("mbed Custom GAP" and "mbed Custom GATT") contributed by the mbed community. Many thanks for this much appreciated contribution!
• New example app for Nordic Semiconductor and ARM mbed ("Nordic Semiconductor nRF51 DK BLE").
• New example app "Cordova Accelerometer" that demonstrates how to read the accelerometer of the mobile device. This example replaces the "Cordova Basic" example.

Libraries

• The JavaScript library for TI SensorTag has been refactored and extended.
• The FastClick library is now included with all examples for a responsive UI experience.
• Bugfixes.

Known issues

During testing, we have experienced the following issues with the current firmware versions (0.89 and 1.01) of the TI SensorTag CC2650:

• The SensorTag has been observed to disconnect when in use.
• Simultaneously enabling movement sensors (Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Magnetometer) and Luxometer sensors has been reported to make sensors stop working.
• The Magnetometer sensor freezes after displaying initial values.
• Calculations of sensor values for Humidity, Accelerometer, and Gyroscope need to be investigated and possibly revised. Calculations for Temperature, Barometer and Luxometer have been tested correct.
• If problems are experienced, try to power cycle the SensorTag as a workaround (remove and insert battery).

We have experienced that the example apps for Nordic Semiconductor nRF51 DK and ARM mbed sometimes don't work reliably on Android (issues observed with LG Flex and Google Nexus 7).

Evothings Workbench may crash when switching network or switching user and logging in again. As a workaround, please quit the Workbench before switching user.

Calls to hyper.log() cause Evothings Workbench to crash when passing in data objects that cannot be cloned by node-webkit function Window.postMessage. Examples are function objects and certain binary encoded data. As a workaround, pass only plain strings or stringified objects to hyper.log().

On OS X, if Evothings Workbench should crash, you need to Force Quit to terminate the application.

Evothings Studio 1.1.3

Find all downloads for this version of Evothings Studio at: evothings.com/download

Evothings Workbench

• Supported platforms for Evothings Workbench are OS X, Windows and Linux.
• Updated documentation.
• New example apps.
• Bugfixes.

Evothings Client

• Supported platforms for Evothings Viewer are Android and iOS.
• Updated support for Estimote Beacons.
• Support for Estimote Nearables (Stickers) has been added on iOS (not available on Android).
• Support for accessing BLE advertisement data using using library easyble.js added to iOS (also available on Android).

Example apps

• New example app for Estimote Nearables.
• Updated example app for Estimote Beacons.
• New example app for MediaTek LinkIt ONE.
• BLE Scan has been updated to remove inactive BLE devices from the display list every ten seconds.

Libraries

• Documentation of libraries and plugin APIs has been added. See the API Overview page.
• Bugfixes.

Evothings Studio 1.1.0

Find all downloads for this version of Evothings Studio at: evothings.com/download

Evothings Workbench

• Supported platforms for Evothings Workbench are OS X, Windows and Linux.
• Evothings Workbench has support for network switching (automatic detection of network switching). However, you will need to reconnect from Evothings Client after a network switch.
• Update of node-webkit to version 0.11.2
• Evothings Workbench now comes in 32- and 64-bit versions for Windows.
• Evothings Workbench supports 64-bit versions of OS X (32-bit Mac computers are currently not supported, but can be added if needed, contact us for further information).
• Updated documentation, including new example apps.

Evothings Client

• Supported platforms for Evothings Viewer are Android and iOS.
• Plugin for Estimote Beacons has been added. Special credits to Konrad Dzwinel who is the original creator of this plugin.
• Local notification plugin added (can be used for background notifications).

Example apps

• New example app for Estimote Beacons.
• Two new example apps for RedBearLabs.
• New example app for LightBlue Bean.
• New example app for Nordic Eval Kit.
• New example app for RFduino.
• New example app for DFRobot Bluno.
• Updated TISensorTag example apps.
• Updated iBeacon Scan app to use the new API of the Cordova iBeacon plugin.
• In BLE Scan, display of device.address has been removed on iOS, this is a UUID that can be mistaken for an iBeacon UUID (which it is not, it is just a temporary UUID assigned by iOS).

Libraries

• Updated TISensorTag library (support for accessing firmware version, calculation of sensor values etc).
• New library file evothings.js, which must be included in all apps that use Evothings library functions. Supports asynchronous loading of JavaScript libraries, using the evothings.loadScript function. Use function evothings.scriptsLoaded(doneCallback) to ensure all script have been loaded, or pass a callback to evothings.loadScript to know when a single script has loaded. These callbacks take no parameters.
• New JavaScript library evothings.util with support for number conversions etc.
• The cordova-ble plugin has support for accessing advertisement data using the easyble.js library.
• easyble.js asynchronously loads util.js. To be safe, use evothings.scriptsLoaded(doneCallback) to ensure all scripts are loaded before using functions in easyble.js. Example TI SensorTag Sensors uses this method, see code at the end of index.html.

Evothings Studio 1.0.0

• Supported platforms for Evothings Workbench are OS X, Windows and Linux.
• Supported platforms for Evothings Viewer are Android and iOS.
• The Evothings Viewer app has improved iBeacon support with enhanced performance and stability during application reload, and an updated TCP/UDP socket plugin.
• Evothings Client for Android now has full support for evothings: URLs.
• There is a new example app for the TI SensorTag.
• Several bugfixes have been made. The BLE Scan example has been updated to work stable on Android.
• GitHub source code repositories have been renamed for consistency.
• JavaScript library files and UI files used in example apps have been renamed for consistency.
• If you use the evothings-examples source code repository, it should be mentioned that library files and UI files are found in folder resources. Use Ruby script build.rb to copy library files to examples. In the downloaded version of Evothings Studio examples are already pre-built.
• Two new examples, Nordic BLE and RFduinio BLE, are found in the examples folder (but are not included in the Workbench window). To run these examples, drag the index.html files to the Workbench window and click RUN. These examples are currently not included in the documentation.
• Find all downloads for this version of Evothings Studio at: evothings.com/download

Evothings Studio 0.8.0 Beta

• Supported platforms for Evothings Workbench are OS X, Windows and Linux.
• Supported platforms for Evothings Viewer are Android and iOS.
• Evothings Client now supports sharing of apps by hosting them on a web server. Furthermore, you can use evothings: URLs to make it easy for people to launch your apps by selecting a link on a web site or in an email. Read more on the page Share Your App.
• The Evothings Viewer app features new native plugins for iBeacons (iOS, Android) and serial Bluetooth (Android), and updated Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) plugin.
• Cordova plugins that present potential security risks have been removed from Evothings Client (e.g. file access and contacts). If you need an app with these plugins, you can build your own version of Evothings Client or contact us.
• Documentation is updated with a guide for How To Build Native Apps from your Evothings project using Apache Cordova.
• The Evothings Viewer app has a new UI.
• There is a new example app for iBeacons.
• The Example apps also have the new UI design, with improved navigability, and a stronger visual identity and clarity.
• Evothings Workbench now displays a notification when a new version of Evothings Studio is available.
• Find all downloads for this version of Evothings Studio at: evothings.com/download

Evothings Studio 0.7.3 Beta

• Supported platforms for Evothings Workbench are OS X, Windows and Linux.
• Supported platforms for Evothings Viewer are Android and iOS.
• This version of Evothings Studio features updated examples, bug fixes, improved BLE support in Evothings Viewer on Android and iOS.
• Positions of the Workbench Project window (the main window) and the Tools window are now saved between sessions. The Tools window has improved scrolling of the log panel, and a button to switch auto scroll on and off.
• Find all downloads for this version of Evothings Studio at: evothings.com/download

Evothings Studio 0.7.0 Beta

• Supported platforms for Evothings Workbench are OS X, Windows and Linux.
• Supported platforms for Evothings Viewer are Android and iOS.
• This version introduces support for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) on iOS, available in the iOS Evothings Client app. Please note that BLE on Android is not always stable. Unfortunately this affects Evothings Workbench in that it may not work to reload apps that use BLE. A workaround is to restart Evothings Viewer if BLE should stop working. On iOS reloading BLE app usually works fine. It is however important to close connected devices before the page reloads. Please see the example programs for ways to accomplish this.

Evothings Studio 0.6.0 Beta

• Supported platforms for Evothings Workbench are OS X, Windows and Linux.
• Supported platform for Evothings Viewer is Android (iOS will follow in a forthcoming release).
• Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is implemented in Evothings Viewer, but please note that BLE on Android is not always stable. Unfortunately this affects Evothings Workbench in that it may not work to reload apps that use BLE. A workaround is to restart Evothings Viewer if BLE should stop working.