Hello dear FME users, and welcome to What's Up Wednesday.
These are a few highlights of what's been going on with FME and here at Safe this week.
Standards for Transformer Design
Here's an interesting question from user David Runneals on Twitter:
Luckily Safe co-founder Dale was on hand to give a great answer, which gives advice on both how to design a custom transformer and how Safe designs its transformers too:
In the earliest of days, we thought data was inherently good and so if we encountered anything in the data stream that wasn't expected, clearly we should shut down the translation then and there so the user could fix the input.
With time, however, we realized that data is inherently evil and so we needed to put the decision of what to do with bad input in the hands of the workspace developer as much as possible. Then they could decide to ignore it, or shut things down, based on their needs.
So the policy we have now is if there is some problem with the *configuration* of the transformer (eg a file that doesn't exist, a directory that can't be written to, a string that can't be changed to a number), then we error and terminate. The workspace author can fix that.
But if the problem is in the data stream going by (eg a point feature when you expected a line, an attribute that holds a string that can't be turned into a number, a timeout of a web service) then we go out a <Rejected> port so that the author can take appropriate action.
Epilogue: We're considering alternate ways of depicting <Rejected> ports on transformers to make them a little less ubiquitous and a little more subtle in the years ahead.
Blog Posts and Upcoming Webinars
While we're talking about custom transformers, we've just added a new webinar on the subject, to take place on October 7th. I encourage you to check out the full webinar list, because there's something for everyone including an upcoming presentation on Data Stream Processing and a special AMA (Ask Me Anything) on the subject of FME and ArcGIS integration.
Meanwhile, on the FME Blog we've a new article that follows up on the Datetime webinar with more information on how FME can help you to process dates and times in many more ways than you expected.
Known Issue: Python Packages on FME Server
A new knowledgebase article got published this week on the subject of uploading packages to FME Server.
In short, when a workspace published to FME Server uses a packaged reader, writer or transformer, that package is also published to Server. In some cases, that package does not get installed correctly and the workspace fails.
If this happens to you, then this article will help you fix the problem.
User Research and Feedback
Are you a member of the User Research and Feedback group on the FME community? It's a great way to learn about - and influence - upcoming functionality in FME.
A recent poll asked for your feedback on the FME Workbench Start Page, and I happen to know that... Well, I can't yet say exactly what I know. But I can say that a big change is being considered for the Workbench canvas, and members of that group will be invited to give their feedback.
Live Chat Refresh
On a minor note, the Safe Live Chat tool got a refresh this week in the guide of the FME Lizard:
It might be styled slightly differently, but the same skilled set of technical experts are standing by ready to answer your questions. So any time you need help with an FME problem, you can get in touch via the lizard icon on the bottom right of any page of our website.