Project SienaBeta Release Notes

Beta Release NotesSupported platforms for running Siena are Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 (x86 or x64) Pro or Enterprise editions.

Supported platforms for running generated apps are Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 (x86, x64, ARM).

While Project Siena supports multiple resolutions, the recommended resolution is 1080p (1920x1080).

For more information, help, and resources visit us at http://aka.ms/ProjectSiena

CONTENTS1 Installing Siena.....................................................................................................................................2

1.1 Siena prerequisites......................................................................................................................2

2 Working With Siena.............................................................................................................................2

2.1 Getting started.............................................................................................................................2

2.2 Loading app documents...............................................................................................................4

2.3 Importing data.............................................................................................................................5

2.3.1 Azure Mobile Services (AMS)...............................................................................................5

2.3.2 Excel.....................................................................................................................................6

2.3.3 REST connectors..................................................................................................................7

2.3.4 SharePoint lists....................................................................................................................8

2.3.5 RSS Feed..............................................................................................................................9

2.4 Publishing apps............................................................................................................................9

2.5 Deploying published apps..........................................................................................................10

2.5.1 Steps for installing published apps on a device with Siena................................................10

2.5.2 Steps for installing published apps on a different device...................................................10

2.5.3 Steps for installing published apps on a Windows RT device.............................................11

2.5.4 Steps for deploying an app across enterprise....................................................................12

2.5.5 Keeping your developer license current............................................................................12

2.6 Things to remember when using Siena......................................................................................12

2.6.1 Long-running, resource-intensive processes......................................................................12

2.6.2 Reserved column names....................................................................................................13

2.6.3 Column types in Excel data................................................................................................13

3 Known Limitations & Restrictions in Beta..........................................................................................13

3.1 Size restrictions when importing Excel data..............................................................................13

3.2 Canvas zoom..............................................................................................................................14

3.3 Circular references.....................................................................................................................14

3.4 Usage of asynchronous predicates in rules................................................................................14

3.5 Custom gallery nesting recommendations................................................................................14

3.6 Publishing using local resources................................................................................................14

3.7 Image not showing....................................................................................................................15

3.8 Internet connection requirement for apps................................................................................15

3.9 Apps produced by Siena cannot be published to Windows store “as is”...................................15

3.10 Network-heavy apps may be terminated at startup..................................................................16

3.11 Certain visuals may cause performance degradation in custom gallery....................................16

3.12 Beta doesn’t support SharePoint Office 365..............................................................................16

3.13 Selection not working well on Lenovo Helix..............................................................................16

1 INSTALLING SIENAThank you for your interest in the Siena Beta release. Please install the latest version from the Windows Store or navigate to the app directly using this link: http://aka.ms/GetProjectSiena

Go ahead and get started!

1.1 SIENA PREREQUISITESPrerequisites for installing Siena:

1. The current release of Siena is only supported on client SKUs (Pro and Enterprise) of Windows 8 RTM or Windows 8.1 RTM. An error will be reported if you try to run Siena on other unsupported SKUs.

2 WORKING WITH SIENAThis section will get you started with Siena, with a quick overview of the UI and how to go about building apps, importing data, and publishing and deploying your apps. For more specific information about the supported functions that you can use in your apps, please refer to the function reference document available online: http://aka.ms/ProjectSienaFunctionReference

2.1 GETTING STARTEDYou can launch Project Siena by clicking or tapping the app tile on the Windows 8 Start screen:

On launch, you will see the canvas.

Each app consists of one or more screens. By default, your app will have one screen. You can move between screens while building the app by using the drop-down list on the top left or by using the top app bar (swipe from the top or right click).

The “+” control on the top-right allows you to bring up your control palette—controls can be added to the currently-selected screen.

The following figure shows a canvas with a few controls added to it (you can display the names of all the controls on a screen by pressing Alt key). The Button control instance on the canvas has been selected. The bottom app bar displays the properties of the selected control.

Control properties have been grouped as follows:

Design: These determine the appearance of the control. Data: These properties can be set for data bindings for the control. For example, Button control

has a Text and Tooltip data property associated with it and it determines what text gets displayed on a button instance.

Behavior: These properties can be set to define the behavior of a control in response to various user (or system) interactions.

Go ahead and try adding a few controls to your app canvas, and setting their properties.

2.2 LOADING APP DOCUMENTSYou can load app documents as follows:

1. Bring down the app bar by right-clicking anywhere on the canvas, or by swiping top down.2. Select File > Open to bring up the Windows 8 file picker. 3. Browse to the location where you have the app document saved.4. Select app document file that you want to open and click “Open”.

After an app document has been loaded, you can fully inspect and edit app contents. You can also preview the app by hitting F5, or by bringing down the app bar and selecting “Preview” option on the right. In this setting, you can try out the app and the experience will be exactly the same as you would

see if you installed a published version of the app. You can exit the preview mode by hitting Esc key or by bringing down the app bar again and selecting “Design” option on the right.

2.3 IMPORTING DATA1

Links to data sources can be added to your apps for importing data. You can create these links through the Data Sources backstage, which can be accessed as follows:

1. Bring down the app bar by right-clicking anywhere on the canvas, or by swiping top down.2. Select File > Data Sources.3. Select “+” control to bring up a list of possible data sources.

Please note that your SharePoint site or REST web services or RSS Feed should not be running on the same device as the published app. If this condition is not met, the app won’t be able to access the service due to a security restriction with Windows 8 apps that prevents them from calling into web services running on the same device.

The current release of Siena supports the following types of data sources that are displayed as options when you click “+” control.

2.3.1 Azure Mobile Services (AMS)If your enterprise uses Azure Mobile Services, contact your IT department or the administrator of the account for the account details. You can then add AMS tables as data sources to your app:

1. Select “+” control in the Data Sources backstage.

1 In the current release of Siena, we do not support write-back to data sources.

2. Select “Azure Mobile Services” from the data sources menu.3. You will be prompted for the URL (usually of the form “https://<EnterpriseName>.azure-

mobile.net) and AppKey (this is generated when the account is set up; you should use an application key and not the master key). Enter this information and select the search icon.

4. All the tables in your AMS instance are listed and you can select one or more of them and then select “Import Data” to import the data into your app.

Please note that in the current release, we support a simplified and light-weight interface for accessing AMS data. As part of the AMS setup, your IT administrator will also need to create a table named “zz_config” in your AMS instance for Siena to be able to interact with it. This table should contain the following columns:

1. Key: This should be set to “table”2. Value: String value that stores table name

The zz_config table should contain one row per table that you want to expose to Siena. For example, if you need to allow Siena to access Employee and Sales tables, your zz_config table will have the following entries:

Key Value“table” “Employee”“table” “Sales”

2.3.2 ExcelPerform the following steps to import Excel data into your app:

1. Select “+” control in the Data Sources backstage.

2. Select “Excel” from the data sources menu. 3. This will bring up the Windows 8 file picker. You can browse to the location where your Excel file

is stored, select it, and select “Open”.4. All the tables within the Excel workbook you selected are displayed. You can select one or more

tables from the displayed list, and then select “Import Data” to import the data into your app.

Please note that only Excel tables will be imported (link to help on creating tables in Excel).

2.3.3 REST connectorsYou can consume data from REST connectors in your app by following these steps:

1. Select “+” control in the Data Sources backstage.2. Select “REST” from the data sources menu.3. Enter the URL for your REST service.4. Choose an authentication method from the dropdown.5. Select enable headers checkbox if you want to specify any additional custom headers.6. Import data. 7. All the tables exposed through your REST service are imported into your app.

Siena can fetch data from REST services using GET requests (your proxy has to support GET requests at the supported endpoints) if the following conditions are satisfied. Please contact your IT administrator about these requirements if you are having trouble connecting to your enterprise’s REST services.

2.3.4 SharePoint listsPerform the following steps to import data from SharePoint lists:

1. Select “+” control in the Data Sources backstage.2. Select “SharePoint” from the data sources menu.3. Enter the URL to your SharePoint site and select the search icon.4. All the lists on your SharePoint site that you have access to are displayed. You can select one or

more lists and then click “Import Data” to import the data into your app.

Please note that in the current release of Siena, link to SharePoint data is not “live” in the sense that changes done to the list on the server are not immediately reflected in the app. The app, on loading, essentially takes a snapshot of the data on the SharePoint server.

2.3.5 RSS FeedPerform the following steps to import data from RSS feeds:

1. Select “+” control in the Data Sources backstage.2. Select “RSS Feed” from the data sources menu.3. Enter the URL to your RSS Feed and select the search icon.4. All the RSS feeds in your specified URL that you have access to are displayed. You can select one

or more feeds and then click “Import Data” to import the data into your app.

Please note that in the current release of Siena, link to RSS Feed data is not “live” in the sense that changes done to the feed on the server are not immediately reflected in the app. The app, on loading, essentially takes a snapshot of the data on the RSS Feed server.

In the current version of Siena only Atom and RSS 2.0 feeds are supported.

2.4 PUBLISHING APPSAt any point during the development of your app, or while trying out any one of the sample apps, you can publish it to your device as follows:

1. Bring down the app bar by right-clicking anywhere on the canvas, or by swiping top down.2. Select File > Publish. You may be asked to download an installer update – please do so.3. Provide a name for your published app. The name must be at least 3 characters long, start with

a letter, and must not contain spaces or any non-alphanumeric characters.4. OPTIONAL: Pick an icon for your app. This icon gets displayed on the Windows 8 Start screen

after your app is installed. 5. Click Publish.

6. Navigate to the location where you want the published app package to be created. Click “Choose this folder” and click OK.

7. This will conclude creating a Published Package.

You can now follow the steps outlined in Section 2.5.1 to install the published package on your device. Steps for installing the published package on other devices have been outlined in sections 2.5.2 & 2.5.3.

2.5 DEPLOYING PUBLISHED APPSAfter you have published your app, you can use the resulting generated folder to deploy your apps to any Windows 8 device.

There are two prerequisites for deploying published apps:

- Be logged in as an administrator- Have PowerShell enabled (it is enabled in the default Windows 8/8.1 installation, but some IT

departments may disable it)

The InstallApp.exe app in the PublishedPackage folder will automatically prompt for a valid Microsoft developer license if one is not found on the machine. You can use any valid Outlook.com (or @hotmail.com, @live.com) email account as a free license, or you can create a free Microsoft developer license from here: http://aka.ms/WorkingWithDeveloperLicenses.

Deploying an app requires digital certificates. Siena provides a default deployment certificate in case you want to use it. Deploying an app with the default certificate will install that certificate to your computer's Trusted People certificate store. Doing so carries serious security risk and should only be done if you trust the originator of this digital certificate. When you are done using the deployed app, you can manually remove the associated digital certificate. Instructions for doing so can be found here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=243053

The steps for supported app deployment scenarios are described below:

2.5.1 Steps for installing published apps on a device with SienaAssuming you have a valid Windows 8 developer license, you don’t need to perform any extra setup to install apps developed and published using Siena2 on any device where Siena has already been installed.

1. Go to the PublishedPackage folder and double-click “InstallApp.exe” file to run it. 2. You can choose to install locally. This will install the generated app on your device.3. Once the installation succeeds you can launch your app from the Windows 8 Start screen just

like any other installed app.a. Note: On Windows 8.1 the app tile is not pinned on the Start screen. You need to Search

for the app and optionally pin it.

2.5.2 Steps for installing published apps on a different deviceIf you need to install an app you created and published using Siena on other devices, you need to perform the following steps:

2 Please refer to Section 2.44 for instructions on publishing apps developed using Siena.

1. You need to be logged in as an administrator on the device you are trying to install published app on.

2. Go to the PublishedPackage folder and double-click the “InstallApp.exe” file to run it. 3. Select “Create an appx file for sharing”4. Follow the prompts, configuring certificates if necessary. (Note: Siena provides a default

certificate in case you want to use it)5. Click “Open Folder Location” to view the DeploymentPackage folder created for sharing6. Copy the DeploymentPackage folder to your target machine7. On the target machine, right click “Add_AppxPackage.ps1” and select “Run with PowerShell”

If Windows Smart Screen has been enabled, you will need to click “More info” and then click “Run anyway” for the installation to proceed:

Once the app has been successfully installed, you can launch your app from the Windows 8 Start screen just like any other installed app.

Note: On Windows 8.1 the app tile is not pinned on the Start screen. You need to Search for the app and optionally pin it.

2.5.2.1Notes You must uninstall any old versions of your app as Add_AppxPackage.ps1 will not install over old

versions. If you have signed your app with a custom certificate, that certificate must be installed on your

target machine. Add_AppxPackage.ps1 will not install any custom certificates.

2.5.3 Steps for installing published apps on a Windows RT deviceEven though this version of Siena cannot be run on a Windows RT device, you can take the published apps and deploy them to your Windows RT device. The following steps need to be performed for installing your apps on Windows RT devices:

1. You need to be logged in as an administrator on the device you are trying to install the published package on.

2. On the device that was used to publish the app, browse to the app folder and run “InstallApp.exe” using the “Create an appx for sharing” option. This will generate a deployment package folder.

3. Perform the device setup steps described under 6 and 7 in Section 2.5.2 above. These steps are the same for devices running Windows RT as well, and need to be performed once per device.

Once the app is successfully installed, you can launch your app from the Windows 8 Start screen just like any other installed app.

2.5.4 Steps for deploying an app across enterprisePlease contact your IT department if you want your app deployed on Windows 8 devices across your enterprise. The “appx” file will need to be signed with your enterprise certificate before being deployed broadly. Enterprise-wide signing and deployment is a complex topic outside the scope of this document. Please contact us through the Connect site for help if needed.

2.5.5 Keeping your developer license currentPlease note that developer licenses are only valid for 1 month, after which, the apps will display an icon (at the bottom right of the app tile) indicating that they have been disabled:

If you try to launch a disabled app, you will see a pop-up notification.

If you select “Go to the Store” link you, will get notification from the Store that your license has expired. You can renew your license simply by running “InstallApp.exe” in any PublishedPackage, and you will be guided through the steps for renewing your developer license. Alternatively, you can always get a free Microsoft developer license from here: http://aka.ms/WorkingWithDeveloperLicenses

2.6 THINGS TO REMEMBER WHEN USING SIENAThe following are a few aspects to keep in mind when you’re developing your apps using Siena.

2.6.1 Long-running, resource-intensive processesWindows 8/8.1 ensures that apps play well with each other. Siena is a Windows 8/8.1 app. Even though Siena itself is lightweight, you could wind up consuming a lot of system memory when you are working with apps that import a lot of data or assets (e.g. images). You won’t encounter any issues as long as you’re actively working with your app. However, if you switch to a different app, Windows 8 might shutdown and restart Siena to free up resources. You will lose all unsaved changes when this happens. So, please save frequently when you’re working with resource-intensive apps.

2.6.2 Reserved column names You cannot use the following strings as column names for your tables, irrespective of whether the data is in AMS, SharePoint, Excel or REST: “_ID”, “ThisItem”, “true”, “false”, “in”, “_src”, “Color”, “BorderStyle”, “Direction”, “Font”, “Style”, “ImagePosition”, “Layout”, “PenSelection”, “Shape”, “PenSmoothing”, “RemoveFlags”, “ScreenTransition”, “SortOrder”, “Align”, “OpenAjax” or “Transition”.

These strings have been reserved for system use.

For SharePoint lists, you cannot use “sp_ID”, since this column name is internally used by SharePoint for assigning unique IDs per list row.

2.6.3 Column types in Excel dataIn Excel tables, unless otherwise specified, all columns are of “General” type. You can force a more specific type for a column by following these steps:

1. Browse to the first row of the table.2. Select the entire column (including the heading) you want to specify the type for by clicking the

column tab. 3. Pick a type from the drop down on the “Home” tab under the group “Number”. The default is

“General”.

When importing Excel data into Siena, user-specified column types are maintained. Discrepancies might arise due to the fact that Excel does not enforce the user-specified types, whereas Siena does. For example, even if a user has set the column type to “Number”, Excel still allows string values (say “xyz”) in the cells. As a result, when such a cell is imported into Siena, it gets converted to null since the value cannot be converted to a number.

For columns whose type is “General”, we perform simple analyses on all the values in the column to infer a parent type that can then be enforced for the data:

1. If all the data in a column is of a particular type, we infer that type for the column.2. If the data in a column is of different types, we default to a parent type. For example,

Parent type for date, currency and number is number. Parent of number and string is string.

String is the overall parent we default to when values of incompatible types are found in a column. For example, if a column contains numbers and Booleans, we infer the parent type as string.

3 KNOWN LIMITATIONS & RESTRICTIONS IN BETA As you will see when using Siena, it can already be used for creating valuable apps end to end. There are a few known limitations and restrictions in Beta. What you're seeing is a snapshot and these restrictions and limitations may be removed in subsequent versions.

3.1 SIZE RESTRICTIONS WHEN IMPORTING EXCEL DATAIn the current release of Siena, we have imposed the following size restrictions on the amount of data that can be imported per Excel table:

Number of rows: 15,000 Number of columns: 100

If you attempt to import larger tables, you will get a warning message “Excel data sources support at most 15,000 rows and 100 columns. Only the first 15,000 rows and 100 columns of data for those tables will be imported”.

3.2 CANVAS ZOOMOn some devices, the canvas is not rendered correctly when Siena is launched. So, if your canvas doesn’t look like the figures shown in Section 2.1, click the “+” icon in the middle of the screen, and use the Zoom option at the bottom left of your screen to zoom out (maybe set zoom to 70 or less) to work around this issue.

3.3 CIRCULAR REFERENCESAs is the case with Excel, you could accidentally create circular references while building your apps by setting properties to use their own value, or refer to properties of other controls that use their value. In this Beta release, we have added cycle detection and Siena will warn users when such circular references are created.

3.4 USAGE OF ASYNCHRONOUS PREDICATES IN RULESIn the current release of Siena, we do not support the use of asynchronous function calls as predicates. We report an error for such instances:

For example, an error will be reported for the following expression because LoadData is an asynchronous function:

Filter(CustomerList, Age < Count(LoadData(“FileName”)))

3.5 CUSTOM GALLERY NESTING RECOMMENDATIONSThe CustomGallery control allows users to nest or group their data. However, due to the flexibility afforded, it is also easy to unintentionally create cross joins, thereby adversely affecting performance of the system. Since Siena is a Windows 8 app, it will get shut down by the operating system if its usage of system resources spikes and affects other processes.

As a rule of thumb, you should filter the data that gets bound to CustomGallery instances to under 1000 records. So, if you have nested CustomGallery instances, you should also make sure that data bound to both, the outer and inner instances, are filtered, such that the product of the number of outer records and the average number of inner records is less than 1000.

3.6 PUBLISHING USING LOCAL RESOURCESIn general, it might be desirable to fetch the data and assets (images, audio, video, etc.) for your app from the cloud or enterprise SharePoint instances. However, you might encounter scenarios where you

would like to provide the assets3 locally within the app such that it does not require a connection to your enterprise network to function. To achieve this perform the following:

A. Copy your assets to the following location locallya. Image assets: C:\Users\{username}\Picturesb. Video assets: C:\Users\{username}\Videosc. Audio assets: C:\Users\{username}\Music

B. From within your app, you can now access these assets by specifying the path above. C. You are now ready to publish with local resources:

a. Bring down the app bar by right-clicking anywhere on the canvas, or by swiping down.b. Select File > Publish.c. Check the “Publish resources locally” option.d. Click Publish.e. In the file picker, select the location you would like to publish the package to. Select “Choose

this folder” and then select “Ok”.

The published app can now be installed on any device. It will have all the required assets within the app itself, and won’t require network access to display them.

Note that only the Pictures, Videos and Music folders are supported for using local resources. If you use other folders, Siena will not load the desired files.

3.7 IMAGE NOT SHOWING When adding an image, the file extension for an image must match the image format, otherwise the image resource cannot be displayed. For example, a .jpg file must be encoded as a jpg file and not, for example, .png.

3.8 INTERNET CONNECTION REQUIREMENT FOR APPSApps published by Project Siena will show an error message on startup if they require an Internet connection but a connection is not available. After the error message the app will terminate.

3.9 APPS PRODUCED BY SIENA CANNOT BE PUBLISHED TO WINDOWS STORE “AS IS”.

Windows store integration is not supported for apps published by Project Siena (Beta). Apps can’t be published to the Windows Store “as is”.

3 You can provide your data locally by exporting a snapshot from your enterprise data store to Excel, and then using the Excel workbook as the data source for your app.

3.10NETWORK-HEAVY APPS MAY BE TERMINATED AT STARTUP In line with the note in 2.6.1, apps that take a long time to initialize may be terminated by Windows. Apps that fetch over the network significant amount of data at startup can be prone to such behavior. A typical mitigation is to not do heavy network traffic at startup.

3.11CERTAIN VISUALS MAY CAUSE PERFORMANCE DEGRADATION IN CUSTOM GALLERY

Slider and Rating visuals may cause performance degradation when used in a custom gallery visual bound to many data rows. The mitigations can be to design the app in a way that doesn’t require a lot of controls in the custom gallery, or to cap the number of data rows used in the custom gallery using the FirstN function.

3.12BETA DOESN’T SUPPORT SHAREPOINT OFFICE 365The Project Siena (Beta) release does not support SharePoint Office 365. Retrieving data from on-premise SharePoint lists is the supported method of importing SharePoint data.

3.13SELECTION NOT WORKING WELL ON LENOVO HELIXOn the Lenovo ThinkPad Helix device, Project Siena may spontaneously deselect visuals when the mouse is moved to the edge of the screen. This behavior is caused by a known incompatibility with the Lenovo Auto Scroll Utility on the device.

To resolve this problem, please uninstall the Lenovo Auto Scroll Utility using the following steps:

1. Open Programs and Features by swiping in from the right edge of the screen, tapping Search (or if you're using a mouse, pointing to the upper-right corner of the screen, moving the mouse pointer down, and then clicking Search), entering Programs and Features in the search box, tapping or clicking Settings (step required on Windows 8 but not 8.1), and then tapping or clicking Programs and Features.

2. Tap or click Lenovo Auto Scroll Utility, and then tap or click Uninstall/Change. You might be asked for an admin password or to confirm your choice.

3. Restart your PC.