New day, new hot topic in the #BetaFollow-up series. This one is brought to you by @radutzp
The new Package Manager
I’m sure every one of you spent a lot of time waiting for the package list to load. And it always happened when you had a great idea on how to solve that problem. All you needed was one more custom activity that you knew exactly in which package can be found. And then, you had to wait for a looong time in order to just start typing the package name.
Not anymore! Coming in 18.3, the new Package Manager brings a fresh look and greatly improved performance. Moreover, some more or less hidden features are brought in the light. Features like setting up custom feeds and the search pagination. I know…
First of all, the package manager is now easier to find. The Manage Package button is moved to ribbon menu, so that everyone knows about it and can access it easily.
It can also be found where you need it most: near your dependencies.
Let’s open it and get a glimpse of the new look and feel of it:
As you can see, it got a revamped look and a more intuitive layout. Now, we should dive deeper into it. On the left side, there is the improved navigation panel.
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Settings page: from here you can add/remove source feeds
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On this page you can check out the packages used in the current project
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All the available package feeds: default and the ones you have set up
In the middle section, there are a few changes as well….
The biggest changes were done in the package list. Most important, the search is almost instantaneous. No more waiting for every slow feed in order to see your results.
Also, the page number is not “hidden” anymore…welcome infinite scroll!
On the packages side we added the following:
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Installed package indicator
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An inline button for removing a dependency
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An update package button to the latest version.
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Pending install indicator
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The installed and the latest available versions
From now on, you can add or remove packages in your list like filling up a shopping cart and the dependencies will be installed only at checkout. This speeds up the process considerably.
On the package details side you will notice that we added a Runtime rule dropdown which describes how the dependencies will be resolved at…well…runtime. Anyway, this will be discussed in further detail on a future topic on dependencies.
Last but not least: the Settings page. Here you can see and manage the package feeds. It has two sources lists: the default feeds (1) and the custom ones (3). You can even add your own from the + sign (2). It can be any local folder or nuget feed you want.
When connected to the Orchestrator, the Library feed magically appears in the list. This helps you a lot when using and sharing reusable components. In the Orchestrator Feed, you will have all the libraries which were published by you and your team to Orchestrator. Unfortunately though, for the 2018.3.0 version, this is available only for on premise Orchestrator deployments.
That was all about the new Package Manager. I hope you like it as much as we do! Let us know your thoughts and don’t forget to fill up the list with your Reusable Components!