Stream: conformance
Topic: Forge
Grahame Grieve (Mar 05 2016 at 04:28):
(deleted)
Grahame Grieve (Mar 05 2016 at 04:29):
@Michel Rutten, I'm about to write some training for forge. Is a new version anticipated anytime soon?
Martijn Harthoorn (Mar 07 2016 at 09:36):
Grahame, we plan to release a new version this week. Contains some UI improvements (relevant for training and documentation) and improved handling of extensions
Grahame Grieve (Mar 07 2016 at 09:37):
ok thanks
Michel Rutten (Mar 14 2016 at 10:36):
Note: in the new Forge release (v12.2), the Element core data type is always expanded, resulting in Element.Id subnodes to appear throughout the element tree. According to the FHIR specification, this is correct. However in pracice, constraints on the Id element seem to be quite an advanced use case. Also the many Id elements clutter the element tree and may confuse new users. Therefore we've decided to make this behavior configurable and disabled by default. In the next update, the Options menu item "Expand Common Elements" also toggles the optional expansion of the Element.Id nodes.
We are planning to publish a hotfix release shortly. If you find any other bugs in the new release, please inform us and we'll try to fix them ASAP.
Michel Rutten (Mar 16 2016 at 12:14):
Just reading an interesting discussion in the dotnet stream about choice types constrained to a single type. The recently published Forge 12.2 release introduces support for choice element renaming, replacing "[x]" with the name of the single selected base type or resource. However, according to Grahame's comments in the dotnet stream, the current implementation is not fully correct. Apparently, if you constrain a choice element to a derived core type such as Money, then according to the spec, the "[x]" suffix should be replaced with the root _base_ type name "Quantity" - and not "Money". We will try and fix this for the upcoming hotfix Forge release.
Ewout Kramer (Mar 16 2016 at 13:18):
Note that this has been a surprising "feature" of FHIR for many, and we are discussing clearing this up during the FHIR-I calls. See also Forge issue #8916 and #9168.
Brian Postlethwaite (Mar 16 2016 at 23:24):
I thought we'd fixed that in the current build that it stays as Quantity?
Brian Postlethwaite (Mar 16 2016 at 23:24):
Otherwise the round trip tests would fail.
Ewout Kramer (Mar 17 2016 at 09:41):
Could be you fixed it I think.
Brian Postlethwaite (Mar 17 2016 at 09:42):
:)
Michel Rutten (Mar 17 2016 at 15:22):
A new Forge update (12.2.1) is now available for download.
This release is a minor update that fixes a couple of bugs.
Features:
- Expansion of Element.Id is now also controlled by the global application setting "Expand Common Elements" (Options menu).
Release 12.2 introduced support for common elements derived from Resource & DomainResource.
As an unintended side efffect, the application now always expanded the Element.Id node.
This behavior is now controlled by the aforementioned global configuration setting and disabled by default.
Bugfixes:
-
Properly dispose of resource instances in case of unhandled exceptions during initialization
-
Properly match choice element paths
Due to a bug in release 12.2, when opening a Procedure profile, the Procedure.performed[x] element was discarded
(reported by Jonny Rylands)
This issue has been solved. -
Always emit the root element definition to the StructureDefinition.differential component
In DSTU 2, the differential component should always contain the root element definition,
regardless of wether the root element is constrained.
In DSTU 3, this will no longer be required; the root element definition may be omitted
from the differential component if it is not constrained.
Note that this Forge release conforms to DSTU 2.
UI Improvements:
-
New command: File / Open as Copy
Open a new, in-memory copy of an existing resource file.
Forge automatically assigns a unique name and canonical url to the new instance (via auto-numbering).
When saving, the application will prompt for a new filename. -
New command: File / Duplicate
Create a new duplicate instance of the selected item.
Forge automatically assigns a unique name and canonical url to the new instance (via auto-numbering).
You can download the new relase from http://fhir.furore.com/forge
If you have any questions or comments, you can contact us at forge@furore.com.
Happy profiling!
Michel Rutten (Mar 18 2016 at 18:13):
Note: Forge currently doesn't respond well to StructureDefinitions without a canonical url. The FHIR spec defines this element as required, so you should always specify a valid and unique url for a StructureDefinition. On the other hand, Forge should gracefully handle an invalid StructureDefinition. So we will try and improve this in the next release. In the mean time, please don't do this ;p
Reuben Daniels (Apr 11 2016 at 05:30):
Is it possible to put constraints around contained resources and modifierExtensions when creating a profile in Forge?
Michel Rutten (Apr 11 2016 at 09:41):
@Reuben Daniels Forge does not support constraints on contained resources. I guess in theory this is possible, but I'm not sure that FHIR allows this...? However, you can define modifier extensions by adding an extension element and checking the "is modifier" element property. This will cause the extension element to be serialized as a child of the modifierExtensions collection.
Reuben Daniels (Apr 11 2016 at 10:47):
Thanks Michel. At the moment I'm trying to create a profile that excludes both contained resources and modifierExtension elements. Is that possible?
Michel Rutten (Apr 11 2016 at 11:19):
@Reuben Daniels hmm, interesting! Currently Forge explicitly hides the DomainResource.contained element (because I couldn't think of a use case). If necessary, I could change this and (optionally) display this element, so you can constrain it. This would be a relatively simple change.
As for constraints on the Extension and/or modifierExtension elements, that's a bit more difficult to implement due to certain Forge-specific implementation details. Currently, the (modifier)Extension elements are completely managed by internal application logic, so the application cannot simply display these in the UI. This would require some more effort. And since not many users have asked for this feature, it doesn't look like we will implement this any time soon. Note that we also offer paid support services for Forge, which would allow you to submit priority change requests. If you are interested, please contact us for a quote.
Lloyd McKenzie (Apr 11 2016 at 15:52):
@Michel Rutten FHIR doesn't prevent it and it's useful/necessary. I think it would be fine if Forge forced you to define a separate profile and then simply let you assert the profile rather than nesting down into the elements if nesting down would be problematic (though because a contained can't have a contained, there's a maximum of one level of nesting, so it shouldn't be a huge strain). I expect that constraining contained content will be pretty common.
Michel Rutten (Apr 12 2016 at 07:08):
@Lloyd McKenzie thank you for the explanation, very helpful. I already updated the display logic yesterday. The next release will support constraints on the contained element.
Michel Rutten (Apr 26 2016 at 14:00):
Forge Release 12.4 for DSTU2 1.02 is now available for download.
Highlights:
- Upgrade FHIR .NET API library to v0.95-alpha1 for DSTU2 1.02 (Official version)
The new FHIR API version provides several bugfixes and optimizations.
- New online F1 help: http://docs.simplifier.net/projects/forge-docs/
- Display resource maturity level, as defined by the FHIR specification
- Support editing of the Narrative component (DomainResource.text)
Note: the Narrative component contains formatted text and can be quite large.
Forge provides two global configuration options in order to conserve memory:
-
Discard DomainResource.text values
Delete the Narrative component when loading a (core or user) profile -
Discard DomainResource.text profile element
Delete ElementDefinitions for the Narrative component in all (core or user) profiles - Optimized Differential generation
The serialized XML output is now more compact and contains less noise.
All omitted values are implied to be derived from the base resource. - New configuration option "Show common elements"
This option toggles the visibility of common profile elements derived from Resource & DomainResource - Support for hyperlinks in error dialogs
- Various optimizations and bugfixes
If you have installed Forge from the ClickOnce installer package, then the application will automatically offer an upgrade to the new release on the next launch. Alternatively, you can download the new release from https://simplifier.net/ui/info/forge.
In case you find a bug in this new release, please report it to us ASAP at forge@furore.com and we will try and fix it before the upcoming HL7 Montreal WGM. Also, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact us at forge@furore.com.
Happy profiling!
Michel Rutten (May 07 2016 at 18:18):
Forge Release 12.5 for DSTU2 1.02 is now available for download.
Forge is a Windows application for FHIR Profiling & Conformance based on the Microsoft .NET platform. The application is freely available for download and free to use.
Note: this release still supports FHIR DSTU2 1.02 (Official version) from Oct. 24th, 2015.
After the HL7 WGM ballots in Montreal, we will upgrade all our FHIR tooling to support the new STU3 specification. Because STU3 introduces breaking changes, we will publish the future Forge STU3 release as a new major version. This will allow side-by-side deployment of both the DSTU2 and STU3 releases on the same machine.
Highlights:
-
NEW! Logical modelling
Forge now supports the authoring of logical models, based on the FHIR StructureDefinition resource. -
New start page
The application start page now displays a news feed from https://simplifier.net/feed/organizationnews/furore
The news feed will inform you about product updates, new major releases and upcoming events such as HL7 WGM.
The new start page also provides shortcuts to frequently used commands and recent documents. -
Various optimizations & bugfixes
You can download Forge from our Simplifier website: https://simplifier.net/ui/info/forge
Happy Profiling!
Michel Rutten (May 23 2016 at 14:27):
We have identified a couple of bugs in the latest Forge release, mainly concerning extensions and validation. We are currently working on fixing these issues and planning to publish a minor update within two weeks.
Michel Rutten (Jun 10 2016 at 15:01):
A new Forge version (13.2) is now available for download from https://simplifier.net/.
This update represents a minor release with lots of bugfixes and small functional improvements.
New commands:
- New command in File menu: Open in External Application
(also available in session explorer context menu)
Open the selected resource via windows, using the default application registered for the (.xml) filetype
This allows you to edit package entries that are not (fully) supported by Forge itself, e.g. ValueSets, example resources etc.
- New command in Options menu: Open application folder
The ClickOnce installer puts the application files in a deeply nested folder that is hard to find.
This command opens the application installation folder in Windows Explorer.
- New command: show official documentation for the selected element
The profile elements tree now provides a new toolbar command (with question mark "?" icon)
to visit the official online FHIR documentation page for the selected profile element.
Optimizations:
- Optimized differential component for size
Serialization logic has been further improved in order to suppress the serialization
of nodes with empty/default Integer or Boolean values (e.g. Min, MustSupport).
- Optimized profile (re-)binding
Forge tries to bind element types to the associated profiles, if they are available (loaded) within the current context, for validation purposes.
Type binding requires Forge to match compatible profiles, this is quite computationally intensive.
The underlying logic has been optimized to prevent unnecessary rebinding.
Specifically, Forge now ignores changes in element type options that aren't selected/checked.
This optimization improves the performance of change tracking, e.g. when loading a package
or editing the canonical url of a profile that is referenced by other loaded profiles.
Plus a plethora of bugfixes...
If you have any questions or comments, please contact us at forge@furore.com.
Happy Profiling!
Lloyd McKenzie (Jun 10 2016 at 22:31):
@Michel Rutten Does this release tolerate content that's outside the enumerations for data types & resources? (Grahame's zip won't work until that's done because of new content)
Grahame Grieve (Jun 10 2016 at 22:41):
I don't think that's been done yet. Hopefully provision of that version of the definitions will move this a long
Lloyd McKenzie (Jun 12 2016 at 19:11):
@Michel Rutten It turns out that the new "show the directory" isn't as helpful as it might be. What I ended up needing to do was to still do a manual search to find the directory of my old Forge install so I could copy the relevant validator.xml.zip file to the right folder of the new version. What would be most useful is to have a configuration parameter that lets you tell Forge where to find the validator.xml.zip file (which could even be in your local publication folder). And it would be good if the configuration of your previous install propagated to your new install.
Michel Rutten (Jun 13 2016 at 09:26):
@Lloyd McKenzie & @Grahame Grieve The new Forge release is still based on the existing, strict version of the FHIR .NET API. I've discussed your feedback with our team and we've updated our planning for Q3 accordingly. I am now going to focus on updating Forge to the new API, so the application will be able to handle custom (STU3-on-DSTU2) resource profiles. On wednesday, June 22th I am going on holiday for two weeks. I'll try to finish and publish the new updated release before then, time permitting.
Concerning the location of validation.zip, I think this is currently hard-coded into the API. But I like your suggestion and will discuss this with Ewout to see if we can implement some configuration options.
Please let me know if you have any more questions, comments or suggestions!
Michel Rutten (Jun 14 2016 at 13:14):
@Lloyd McKenzie FYI I'm upgrading Forge to a new Fhir.Net API version with flexible deserialization. The API also supports loading resources from any ZIP file, so I will leverage this to implement support for loading a custom validation.zip.
Brian Postlethwaite (Aug 22 2016 at 05:38):
Are there any plans to add Smart on FHIR Authentication into the Forge tooling?
Michel Rutten (Aug 22 2016 at 09:15):
@Brian Postlethwaite yes, eventually we want to implement Smart on FHIR authentication in all our tools, including Forge. However currently we are focusing on other functionality, based on customer demand. Do you have a specific need for this functionality right now?
Brian Postlethwaite (Aug 22 2016 at 09:16):
I can do without for now.
Last updated: Apr 12 2022 at 19:14 UTC
