Tech blog

SkySpark Analyst is now bigger and better than ever thanks to the recent updates to bring this up to SkySpark version 3.1.4.

Our hosted SkySpark instance for students to use real training data is also using this latest version.

And even more news! This eLearning now has its own JOURNAL for long term access to training materials!

Access SkySpark Analyst eLearning

Updated this free course to unlock the final checkpoint quiz AFTER the final topic.

This makes it much easier to access all the details for further Project Haystack learning.

Just like Haystack Essentials for example!

Updated Mongo with some bugfixes and general "tweaks"!

Read the full release notes to learn more.

Added workaround for non-UTF-8 characters in MongoDB err msgs. See issue SERVER-50454 for details.

Read the full release notes here on eggbox

Don't you just hate it when you click on a link and it automatically downloads a file to your computer? Hands up if your Downloads folder is massively overloaded and horrible to search through!?

We appreciate that our students REALLY want to share their shiny new training certificates.

So, to make life easier, we've implemented an option to EMAIL certificates to any chosen address! (Now there is no need to go looking in those dark places!)

Our new account activation page now helps to explain how our platform uses gamification and immersive story scenarios for enjoyable training and long term memory retention.

Updated our SkySpark Viewbuilder course with minor improvements to question wording. Thanks to everyone who sent in some feedback - every little helps!

SkySpark Viewbuilder eLearning

Eggbox is now updated, released, and live and is now using the latest Fantom Factory Mongo drivers.

This replaces legacy Map Reduce algorithms with speedy Aggregation queries to make the whole repository website snappy and responsive.

Try it for yourself! Visit the Fantom Eggbox Pod Repository

Announcing an even bigger and better version of Mongo than ever before!

This new version adds multi-document transactions and re-tryable writes, making it feature complete with incredible functionality.

Read the full release notes here on eggbox

We created a new video to introduce our amazing SkySpark Viewbuilder eLearning.

Watch it now!

SkySpark Viewbuilder will teach you everything you need to know about creating custom dashboards in SkySpark!

A newsletter was sent out to our audience about the official launch of our new Haystack Essentials eLearning.

Read more about Haystack Essentials

Improved the performance of large (32KB+) Axon functions by formatting them as a single "multi-line" Axon string.

Read the release notes on StackHub.

Released Haystack Essentials; a detailed training course on how to use Project Haystack tags to create data models.

It also comes with a Journal for referencing key notes and links after the training is complete.

Read our news article or click visit the course page.

To utilise the new official Fantom build release v1.0.78 we bring you the new and improved Windows Fantom Installer!

Now you can take advantage of the new Fantom APIs including one for 2D graphics!

Enjoy!

Announcing the release of our brand new Kaiterra Cloud Extension!

Connect any Kaiterra device to your SkySpark instance easily through the power of the Kaiterra cloud.

Our SkySpark extension is officially endorsed by Kaiterra and is available on Stackhub now. You can even try it for free with the official Kaiterra test device data!

See the documentation for details.

New version 2.1.8. release of Http Client Ext (our bespoke implementation of the HTTP protocol for SkySpark v3.1.x.)

• Bug: Fixed an issue with HTTP Cookie path matching. Sticky Cookies may not have been set / re-sent when they should have.

See the documentation for details.

Announcing the new hCaptcha Fantom library!

Want to protect your web application from harmful bots and spiders? But want to support charities instead of a faceless, corporate empire?

Then hCaptcha is for you!

This new Fantom library from Fantom Factory helps integrate the hCaptcha API into your BedSheet web application.

See the documentation for details.

Announcing a new Morphia IoC v1.0 Fantom library!

This mini-library bridges the gap between Mongo, Morphia, and IoC to supply injectable services, Collections, and Datastore for IoC based applications.

See the official release notes for details.

The new v2.0 Object Mapping library for MongoDB is here!

Morphia is an extension to the Mongo library that maps Fantom objects and their fields to and from MongoDB collections and BSON documents.

Based on the popular Fantom Factory JSON library, this major update increases performance and shuns IoC to make Fantom to Mongo Object mapping accessible to all.

Find all the details in the official release notes.

The new v2.0 Fantom driver for MongoDB is here!

• Developed against the MongoDB Stable API v1 (introduced in MongoDB 5.2+)
• Compatible with Amazon DocumentDB
• Compatible with MongoDB 3.6+
• Support for Replica Set connection URLs
• Easy to use Query DSL
• Pooled Connection Manager for multi-threaded use and automatic connection failover
• Pluggable authentication with a default SCRAM-SHA-1 over SASL implementation
• Re-written for compatibility, simplicity, and performance.

Read the release notes here to find out more.

A complete re-write of the Binary JSON library that is the cornerstone of the Mongo database.

The BSON library provides datatypes, pretty printing, and low level serialisation for communicating binary data with Mongo databases.

The re-write provides highly optimised reads and writes of BSON documents.

See BSON on Eggbox for more details.

This new 3 minute video showcases all of the best features of our unique and innovative eLearning platform.

View it now on Youtube:

Or see our new website page: Why choose us?

A new achievements page which details the student progress and awards for each course.

This new feature now enables the downloading and printing of certificates in different sizes and automatically generates a public URL to link awards to social media platforms - like a LinkedIN profile. Read more about it in this article.

We also changed the styling in the Dashboard area to make it easy to find the new achievements area!

Updated this Fantom driver for MongoDB to be compatible with the latest Fantom version (1.0.77).

The main improvement is an optimised connection pool for heavy loads.

Lots of minor updates included, paving the way for a potential major "rewrite" coming very soon!

Read the release notes for all of the details.

We created a new website page to showcase all the amazing reasons why anyone should choose (and trust) us!

New header, path, and query authentication mechanisms for setting custom values as HTTP headers, URL query parameters, and path segments.

Thanks go to BAM Energy Systems for sponsoring these new authentication mechanisms.

Other new functionality includes a new camelCase option for normalising header names.

Read the release notes for more info!

The functionality around how certificates are awarded has been reworked so we may also automatically provide a Certificate of Attendance!

This enables students to claim credits towards professional development purely for completing our training content. Read more about our certification here.

Tested and updated 9 custom SkySpark extensions for a client to ensure their continued compatibility with SkySpark v3.1.3.

Fixed when an absent title caused an error when generating documentation with the SkySpark docgen pod.

Thanks to Group14 and Altura Associates for reporting.

New Dashboard image for the user home page in our Mars training platform (Mars theme only), complete with a parallax scrolling, rotating carousel of clouds and stars.

A new internal library for rendering custom HTML layout components as inspired by:

https://every-layout.dev/

New custom slim components let you add, and mix in, custom templates to Slim files.

Click here for more!

Released View Refresher v1.1.0. (For SkySpark v3.1).

Thanks to Danny Chak of Control & Electric PTY for the nudge.

Released SkySpark Engineer Journal v1.1. All the try-it yourself exercises have been moved out into their own separate module - making it easier to use.

Fixed a bug whereby answering all questions in a checkpoint after the checkpoint was already passed, could cause an error if the containing module unlocks a Journal.

Thanks go to Jorge Martin for reporting.

A unit test runner and assertion functions for testing Axon code.

Re-compiled against SkySpark v3.1.

Thanks go to Stephen Frank of NREL for the nudge.

Click here for more!

A new web page for our SkySpark Core Training is now public - helping to onboard new starters easily!

Updated our Journals to unlock all modules when they have more than one.

Axon Programmer (for Haxall) now has links to the NEW Haxall documentation.

Updated platform to allow old and unused courses to be archived.

Fixed bug whereby tiny usernames could cause an error.

New and improved Toolkit which includes multiple tabs, new documentation and all of the brand new Viewbuilder views!

Check out our new Arcadia Toolkit help page that gives you all the information you need to know for the brand new Arcadia Toolkit v2.0!

Click here to see more!

Certificates are now auto-generated using our own PDF creator library and may be automatically downloaded from the Dashboard on successful completion of an eLearning course.

Updated our analytics platform to be much more performant, and hold 50x less data.

Updated to be compatible with Fantom 1.0.77 and retain compatibility with older versions.

Check it out at Eggbox!

Consolidated all "Try It Yourself" sections into one module, to avoid any distraction from the main reference material.

Fixed an error on the Mars Platform to allow learners to remove an organisation name.

Thanks to Chunil Noh for reporting.

News articles may now define an "Updated Date" alongside an original "Published Date".

Updated 9 custom SkySpark extensions for a client to ensure their continued compatibility with SkySpark v3.1.2.

Updated our internal XSD and SOAP libraries to support element base types.

Released the FREE course companion to SkySpark Viewbuilder.

A tutorial video to demonstrate the use of our new Belimo Cloud Connector - for SkySpark

Check it out Here!

Finally - our SkySpark Viewbuilder eLearning course is now available!

• Understand view types and layouts
• Add and bind variables
• Create a dashboard with cards
• Explore charts and data
• Style tables and forms
• Use actions with forms and views
• Organise and export your new views

Updated the underlying afHttpClient library to v2.1.6 and fixed a bug where HTTP requests were being corrupted.

Fixed an issue with the Ping button not updating the connector details.

Our creative team released a free music video for the world to "chill and analyse to"! Listen to tracks like, "Welcome Tomorrow" and "Hub of Stacks" all which are created by our fantastic in-house music maestro - Morgan!

Updated to be compatible with FIN v5.1 and connector updated to make use of Fantom Factory's internal Easy Conn framework.

Updated a minor error in our eLearning platform for a difference in course achievements.

Finalised our first working version of a Kaiterra Cloud Connector. Now to work on making this available to the world...!

We are very proud to release "Introducing Haystack" to our eLearning platform. The free introductory training module for the worlds first official Project Haystack digital training.

Here at Fantom Factory we do so much work, that our News and Articles page along with this TechLog, became tooooo long!

So much so, that we had to implement new "Year Selector" tags to cut down the initial page size!

Now only show the past 12 months by default, but the handy "Year" tags let you explore the archives.

Have fun!

Encrypts and obfuscates Axon source code

Updated to be compatible with the latest SkySpark v3.1.2.

Read the story behind this release in our Linked-In article, Fixing SkySpark extensions, encrypting Axon, and protecting your client's code - all in a day's work!

Updated the question to mention a more accurate time - thanks to Joe Kusnir

Updated the question to mention a more accurate time.

Thanks to feedback from Joe Kusnir.

Updated various links to the SkyFoundry website.

Check out our LinkedIn post for the holidays!

A SkySpark connector for the Belimo Cloud.

This updated connector is compatible with SkySpark v3.1.1.

We find this makes it much easier to find the information about our growing eLearning range.

Take a look!

Transform your Axon functions, Views, and Apps, into custom SkySpark extensions.

Minor update to support pod.depends meta data.

Thanks to Nathan of Trove Consulting for the suggestion.

Fantom Pod Manager (FPM) provides a targeted environment for building, testing, and running Fantom applications.

Read the docs on eggbox.fantomfactory.org

Perfect for training teams, reducing your overheads on creating individual orders. We are very pleased to offer our extra training support services for a minimum order of just 10 eLearning seats.

Check out our new YouTube video - all about our new Pod Builder!

A compiler for SCSS and SASS. Updated the internal libraries to jsass/5.10.4 and libsass/3.6.4 and patched jsass to remove deprecation warnings.

Check out Eggbox for more details.

Our new explainer video for Axon Encryptor shows how easy it is to encrypt your Axon and keep your code secure.

Created a bespoke extension for SkySpark and HttpClient that auto-authenticates HTTP requests to the Also Energy Cloud API and obfuscates credentials from console and log views.

New icons for our commercial software on StackHub.

Reworded Q8.2.9 to be clearer.

We have updated this in module 8.2 of SkySpark Engineer.

Thanks to feedback from Darius Minus.

Now runs on SkySpark v3.1, and a new afHttpConfig() function allows config to be set for the current session.

New support for custom HTTP client plugins, updated the underlying HTTP Client library to v2.0.4.

Fixed a bug relating to Digest authentication and another where the afHttpUriPlusQuery() function would throw an NPE.

Thanks to feedback from David Binstock

Provides integration with Axon Encryptor and compatibility with SkySpark v3.1.

Re-write of the original Axonator code.

Axon Encryptor runs on SkySpark v3.1, splits the runtime code into its own extension, and provides seamless integration with Pod Builder.

A dark mode theme for the Fantom F4 IDE, based on the "doom-vibrant" theme for Doom Emacs.

Check out GitHub for more details.

The web address for our training connector has changed.

We have updated this in module 5.2 of SkySpark Engineer and module 11 of Engineer Journal.

All of our existing users have been notified about the change via email.

Fantom Factory was a sponsor of this year's SkyPosium 2021.

Although we could not be there in person, we made sure that would not stop us from leaving an impression, by delivering an incredible video talking first and foremost about everything that we do, as well as a little bit about us and our team.

See our article for more details.

Updated and re-compiled 8 custom client connectors, extensions, and pods so they continue to work with the new SkySpark v3.1 release.

BugFix: Removing a Trio file from the Folio View did not delete the actual file on the file system. Now it does!

Thanks to feedback from Ian Habermann of AFM.

The Axon Docs v0.2.2 is now fully compatible with SkySpark 3.0.29!

Fixed an error when a previously documented function could not be found.

Thanks to feedback from Simon Challet.

Updated the Haxall article to link to our new build of Haxall v3.1.1.

The code behind this TechLog page has been updated so TechLog entries may also show display images.

The rule writing section of our SkySpark Engineer course (7.6 - Assigning Spark costs) has been updated to add help on how to recompute a spark rule.

Thanks to feedback from Javier Betancourt.

With the release of Fantom 1.0.77, we have updated our Windows Installer.

Download it from the Fantom website!

The disMacros section (4.7) of our SkySpark Engineer course has been updated to give a better example and clearer instruction.

Thanks to feedback from Javier Betancourt.

Read the amazing backstory of our Alpha Colony! We've released a fun freebie comic book for you to enjoy on our MARS training platform!

We use the Alpha Colony scenario for consolidatory training techniques AND to make these boring subject matters actually enjoyable!

See our LinkedIn post for information, or go directly to our training site and create a free account to access it right now!

Our new version of this Axon eLearning course (and the accompanying Axon Journal) is designed specifically for the new open source HAXALL platform.

• Tailored and tested for the new open source HAXALL platform.
• Updated content including images and description changes

Completely agnostic of using any commercial products, learn how to use Axon as it relates to the key technology elements of Haxall, such as the Folio database.

See our news article for more details!

The new Axon Docs v0.2.0 brings continued compatibility with SkySpark 3.0.28+ !

All functions have been re-tagged to conform to the new library split in the later SkySpark versions. And tabbing out of Axon Docs and back in again doesn't lose your settings any more.

And... Axon Docs is still compatible with older SkySpark versions too!

Updated the embedded Fantom runtime to Fantom 1.0.76, fixed many long standing bugs, and fully enabled Dark Mode.

Download the latest release from GitHub.

A JSON to Fantom object mapping library.

API updates.

Updated questions relating to the Energy Profile View (module 7) to give clearer answers.

Thanks to James Gessel for the feedback.

Added a fix for a ValDef validation bug in SkySpark 3.0.29, see the SkyFoundry forum for details.

Thanks to Leroy Simms of ABI Advantage LLC for reporting.

We've re-evaluated our course achievements; assigned more appropriate names, and designed fresh new badges for each.

The achievements:

• Lift Off! - Correctly answer your first exercise
• Space Odysse - Successfully complete ALL the exercises
• Astro Vision - Watch any video from start to end
• Celestial Cinema - Watch ALL the videos from start to end
• Ace of Space - Pass a checkpoint with the top score of 100%
• Galaxy Brain - Pass ALL checkpoints with the top score of 100%
• Mission Accomplished - Pass the final assessment of the course
• Maximum Velocity - Pass the final assessment, first time, with a score of 100%
• Saving the Planet - A special achievement for completing ALL optional material.

More than that, we've also reallocated their XP points so harder achievements are worth more XP. Can't say fairer than that!

This MASSIVE boost to the SkySpark Analyst eLearning course is a refresh for SkySpark 3.0.29 and incorporates:

• A whole new module
• 5 new topics
• 20 new questions
• New achievement badges and XP allocation
• fresh new videos (no more creepy hand pointer - sigh) Not to mention a complete overhaul of all the existing content, exercises, checkpoints, and an updated final assessment!

Updated Pod Builder to work with the latest (3.0.29) version of SkySpark.

It sounds easy, but involved investigating and solving some backwards binary compatibility problems with the various versions of SkySpark! Phew!

Thanks to Carlos Garcia for reporting the incompatibility.

Fantom Pod Manager dynamically resolves pod dependencies, providing a targeted environment for building, testing, and running Fantom apps.

Fix for shifting transitive dependency trees during dependency resolution.