How to handle Text Area customizations using jQuery and jQueryUI when upgrading from Spotfire® 11.4 LTS or earlier versions

Background

• Earlier versions of Spotfire used JQueryUI and JQuery. It was possible, but not recommended, to use these in JavaScript customizations in the Spotfire text area.
• From Spotfire version 11.5 the JQuery library is updated to a newer version, and the JQueryUI library is no longer used by Spotfire and has been removed.
• See: How to include your own instances of jQuery and jQueryUI in Text Areas for instructions on how to include your own instances of jQuery and jQueryUI in text areas.
• Spotfire may at any time update the version of JQuery, or stop to include it, as is the case for any third party software component used.
• Disclaimer: Your use of any third party libraries in scope, whether in this release, past releases, or future releases of Spotfire, is at your own discretion, and is not supported or warranted by Spotfire, see Best Practices for Writing Custom JavaScript Code in Text Areas.

This means that:

1. If your analyses contain JavaScript customizations that use Spotfire's instance of JQueryUI, those customizations must be adjusted in order to function.
2. If your analyses contain JavaScript customizations that use Spotfire's instance of JQuery, those analyses may need to be adjusted in order to function, but even if they do continue to work, we strongly recommend you to adjust your customization to make it future proof.

See also:

• How to find specific scripts in DXP files in the Spotfire Library using the Application Profiler
• Introducing the Spotfire Script Management APIs for details on how to automate updating all JavaScript and IronPython scripts in a Spotfire analysis.

Solutions / workarounds

Verify your analyses in the upgraded Spotfire version

If only jQuery, not jQueryUI, is used in your analysis files, they might still work after an upgrade or some adjustments might be needed depending on how jQuery has been used.

Include your own instances of jQuery and jQueryUI

If you are using jQueryUI you may consider updating your scripts and replace jQueryUI with regular HTML (see next section for details), or you need to include your own instances of jQuery and jQueryUI in each Text Area, see https://community.spotfire.com/s/article/How-to-include-your-own-instances-of-jQuery-and-jQueryUI-in-Text-Areas.

Replace the use of jQueryUI with regular HTML5

Since the introduction of HTML5 a lot of the functionality in jQueryUI is now obsolete and can be replaced with regular HTML5 syntax. You can find several examples in the Using Spotfire Text Areas to Increase Usability of Analytics through HTML, Javascript and CSS page.

Examples:

• Javascript Accordion for Spotfire
• Date and Time Pickers
• Javascript Rating Widget for Spotfire
• Javascript Page Navigation for Spotfire
• Javascript Drawer for Spotfire