About previewing a ViewApp

Building an AVEVA OMI ViewApp typically involves significant internal testing before placing a ViewApp into production. Builders must follow an iterative process of modifying a ViewApp and then viewing the running ViewApp to assess the effects of development changes. To run a ViewApp, the Galaxy must be deployed. This repetitive edit, deploy, and assessment process is lengthy and labor intensive.

AVEVA OMI now provides a preview session, which enables builders to quickly assess their changes in a running ViewApp without deploying the ViewApp. A preview launches immediately and runs in a separate window to show the current content being edited.

The following figure shows the major steps in an example workflow to edit a graphic within a ViewApp and then launch a preview session to assess the editing changes in the ViewApp. Select the Preview button to preview the ViewApp in a native ViewApp. Preview sessions can remain open while you continue editing the ViewApp.

With some exceptions, when changes are made to the ViewApp, the preview refreshes to show the updates that were made. You can toggle the Auto Update icon next to the Preview button to activate or prevent updates to a preview session.

Note: You cannot preview what a ViewApp will look like in the OMI web client. While the OMI web client display of a ViewApp is generally very similar to the desktop client display, to see exactly how a ViewApp looks in the web client, you must assign it to a WebViewEngine, deploy it, and open it in the web client. If you make changes to the ViewApp while it is open, refresh the web page to see their effect in the web client.