Technical Background

When you run the executable of the AIMMS development system for the first time, it unpacks AIMMS into the C:\Users\MyUserName\AppData\Local\AIMMS\IFA\Aimms folder on your machine. The WebUIDev subfolder of the AIMMS installation contains WebUI support files, such as:

  • The Cube Server: a collection of DLLs, responsible for communicating data between AIMMS and the WebUI (available in the Win32 and x64 subfolders).

  • The WebUI Server: a Java server responsible for storing (and retrieving) the pages and widgets that are developed.

  • The AIMMS WebUI runtime: a collection of JavaScript and other resource files.

  • A version of the Java Runtime Library (JRE7).

  • Some logging configuration files that allow you to control the destination and amount of logging information that is created by the Cube Server and WebUI Server.

When AIMMS is started, the Tools menu will contain a WebUI - Start and a WebUI - Stop command. Starting the WebUI will start the Cube Server and launch a WebUI Server on your local machine. Amongst others, the WebUI Server serves files with WebUIDevwww as the document root. In addition, the WebUI Server stores widget content in the WebUI subfolder of your AIMMS project.

Current Limitations

Currently, there are some limitations on the usage of the AIMMS WebUI:

  • The AIMMS WebUI requires a recent version (latest version, or one release before the latest) of the Chrome browser or the Microsoft Edge browser. On iPad devices the Safari browser is supported for the end-users. Eventually, we may add support for other HTML5 browsers as well.

  • Changing the index domain of an identifier which is used by the WebUI while the WebUI (achieved by Start WebUI) is running, is not supported. Changes are propagated when Stop WebUI is selected and subsequently Start WebUI is selected from the AIMMS menu. This limitation only applies to working in developer mode (i.e. not to end-user running apps from AIMMS PRO).

Note

As mentioned in Requirements section, support for Internet Explorer 11 has been deprecated. Should you nevertheless run IE11, please note that there is a known problem with Internet Explorer 11: if you face a blue screen after starting your WebUI app in the browser, you should verify that the setting “Display Intranet Sites in Compatibility View” is set to unchecked. You can find this option under “Compatibility View Options” in the main menu of IE11.

Warning

Use of zooming in WebUI may lead to visual aberrations. The WebUI was developed assuming a 100% zoom in your browser.

Project Conversion

Due to changed and new functionality in the AIMMS 4.40 release (Page Manager, Page Menu, Wizards), AIMMS projects which have been created with older AIMMS versions, need to be converted in order to run in AIMMS 4.40 (or higher) version. The conversion is done automatically. During this conversion the following changes are performed:

  • the WebUI subfolder is transferred to the MainProject folder of your project, and

  • the pages are re-saved in a different format.

When opening the WebUI of your (‘old’) project with AIMMS 4.40 (or higher), you are automatically asked whether you want to convert your project. Pressing the do not convert button allows you to create a backup first.

Important

Please create a backup of your project before converting it with the new AIMMS version.