One of the challenges users face while running complex builds is being able to track how the build workflow is proceeding and how dependencies are getting executed, which dependencies failed and how the overall build got stuck. For this problem, UrbanCode Build has the Request Context view feature, where you can see the complete progress of build life. Although useful, the old UI of this feature had some limitations that made it harder to use especially if there were a large number of dependencies.
UrbanCode Build 6.1.6 has a more modern UI for Request Context view. By using the D3 library, Request Context looks much more alive than its previous look. As we know that these dependencies are best represented by a hierarchical structure. So, in the new improved UI, there will be a tree structure to show the flow of build life and it will much easier to trace the failure.
So, as you can see on the screenshot, there are five projects. Project1 depends on Project2 and Project3. Project3 depends on Project4 and Project5.
To look at the flow of build life, start a build. Click on Build-id and then click on View Context button.
Some of the useful features are the improved UI are:
Color Coding: One of the major improvements of this version is the color coding. The tree nodes will be filled with a color based on their status. This will not only give you the quick status details of a project but also you can trace the failed project amongst huge number of dependencies easily.
| Color |
Status |
| Green |
Completed |
| Yellow |
Running |
| Grey |
Waiting for Agent, Waiting on Dependency or Queued |
| Red |
Failed |
| Blue |
Suspended |
Tooltip: If you hover over any of the node then you can find the complete details of the project, i.e., Request ID, Project name, Process Name, Status and Date. When compared with the older UI, here you can get the important information upfront and other information will be there on the tooltip. This will reduce the size of the tree and user can easily view details of the node which needs to be examined.
Viewing large number of Dependencies: Let us think of a scenario where there are around 10 to 20 dependencies on each of these projects, so they all will be at the same level. But it is required to hide some unwanted dependencies we can click on other parent node to hide its dependencies (as you can see in the image below). Any project which has dependencies and are not shown on the screen will have a black border. This will help you in judging the progress of build life better.
Similarly, to manage large number of dependencies, the zoom in and zoom out feature can be used. User can zoom in/out by performing scroll up/down (as shown in the animation below below). To see the details of the node you just need to hover-over the node.