AddSense Chrome 1.2.1: active objects, dimensions, measures, link to Catwalk

A new version of my Chrome extension for Qlik Sense, Add Sense, is now available in Chrome Web Store. This is a pretty big version, actually that’s why it has number 1.2.1, because a bug sneaked into 1.2.0 which I had to fix.

New app level operations

You reach the new functions from the app popup box:

In fact, most of the buttons are new. From the left to the right they are used for:

  • showing the script
  • listing the tables
  • exploring the data model (in Catwalk)
  • listing variables
  • listing dimensions
  • listing measures
  • listing extensions used
  • listing active objects

Data model

A number of the new functions helps you with the data model. You can see what tables are defined in the app, and list dimensions and measures (and copy their definition into a program of your choice, like Excel or something). But perhaps the best new function is the link to Catwalk. Click on the compass icon, and it will open Catwalk with your current app:

If you don’t know what Catwalk is it’s time to get to know it knopw. It’s an open source tool from Qlik that helps you explore the data model of a Qlik Sense app. If it doesn’t work on your server, you might need to whitelist it. Check the documentation! Originally I planned to do some visualization of the data model, but I realized that I cannot make anything better than Catwalk, so why not reuse it.

List all active objects

The Add Sense extension uses Angular and some CSS selectors to find Qlik objects in your page, whether it’s the standard Qlik Sense client or a mashup. This only works for visualizations that are either Qlik Sense standard visualizations or extensions built with the traditional Angular-based method. But in a custom built web app using Qlik you might choose to visualize the data in some other way. Qlik Sense objects used this way have previously not been available in Add Sense, you could not check their properties, monitor recalculation times etc.

With the new function to list all active objects that has changed. While the little boxes showed on the page start from the HTML DOM and Angular scopes, this function uses enigmajs and lists all objects active in the enigmajs session. It might look something like this:

Example from the demo app ‘History of the fortune 500’

It still needs to find the enigmajs session, which might not work in all cases. If you want to use the extension for a case where it does not work, please let me know, you might be able to fix that with just a very small change.

Dimensions and measures

The extension can now also list dimensions and measures.

Dimensions

You can use the copy function in the dialog to copy the contants to the clipboard and then into application of your choice, like Excel etc.

Measures

And that’s it for the new functions. Please let me know if there is anything you are missing.