Open Designer Studio in a specific version

Update 2024-07-16

Running WEBCON BPS Designer Studio 2024 simultaneously with lower versions works, but sometimes an exception is thrown Unable to cast to Microsoft.Web.WebView2.Core.Raw.ICoreWebView2_14. when starting the 2024 version.

When this happens, close all Designer Studios and start the 2024 version first an. Another side effect is, that all credentials are lost and you need to sign-in for each environment again.

Overview

This is a short post on how to create shortcuts using different versions of the Designer Studio to connect to BPS Portals.

Shortcuts to target different versions and BPS Portals

Shortcut creation

Remark: Maybe something has changed with WEBCON BPS 2022.1.3.65 or I haven’t noticed it before, but after installing R3, the older versions have been deleted. Therefore I updated Installing an older version.

The first thing to do is to create a copy of an existing shortcut. For this you can search for Designer Studio in the windows search bar, right click is and choose Open the file location.

Open the file location of the default shortcut.

Afterwards you can copy it to the desktop and modify its properties. You can copy the following just amend the version and URL.

Target:
"%AppData%\..\Local\DesignerStudio\app-20221.3.47\WEBCON Designer Studio.exe" -protocol "webcon://https://CUSTOMURL/?Context=/db/1/app/1&parameters="

Start in:
%AppData%\..\Local\DesignerStudio\app-20221.3.47

The short cut definition.

Of course, the actual version depends on the one you are using. Different versions are installed side by side and won’t be deleted if a newer version is installed. The below folder path will open the folder in the context of the current user.

%AppData%\..\Local\DesignerStudio

Multiple Designer Studio versions are installed.

Parameter Protocol

The Context query parameter is used to open a specific element in the Designer Studio. At least in WEBCON BPS 2022 R2 and R3 there are two ways to get its value.

1. Open the developer tools of the browser and click on Designer Studio. This will display the value in the log. I don’t know since which version this is displayed. I used the second approach most of the time.

Protocol value is displayed as a log information in the browser developer tools.

1. Open the Designer Studio again and display the task manager. Right click a header, choose Select colum and add Command line. The column will display the whole command which was used to execute the process. You can also use this as the target.

Used protocol value can be seen in the task manager column Command line

Remark: The second option will only work for the latest installed version.

Warning: If a shortcut doesn’t work anymore after an update, the version in the short cut needs to be changed. If it still doesn’t work the protocol value may be different. For example, the Context parameter has been added in WEBCON BPS 2022 R2 and my WEBCON BPS 2021 failed to start, if I remember correctly.

Remark: If anyone has an idea what the parameters are used for, feel free to mention it or get in touch with me.

Installing an older version

As a prerequiste, you should uninstall the Designer Studio via Program and Features.

You can use the following URL to download the Designer Studio from BPS Portal.

URL: https://BPSPORTALURL/Addins/Studio/WEBCON_DesignerStudio_Installer.exe

Remark: This applies at least to WEBCON BPS 2022 R2 and R3. I don’t have an older version to verify it.

The other alternative would be to download the complete installation file, extract it and install Designer Studio from the subfolder Studio

Location of the Designer Studio inside the downloaded install.zip

After the installation, open the Designer Studio and connect to the target portal. This will download the DesignerStudio as a nuget package and place it in the packages folder.

Additionally downloaded file, which doesn’t exist after the installation.

Afterwards move / copy the whole Designer Studio directory to another folder. I opted for a dedicated folder c:\Install\DesignerStudio\Version

An own folder for each Designer Studio version.

Copy the DesignerStudio folder content from AppData to your own.

Once this is done, you can create the shortcuts like it is described in Shortcut creation. Just make sure to target the new folder.

Shortcut targeting the new folder.

Remark: It’s important to download the nuget package file. If this does not exist in the packages folder, the Designer Studio will use the latest installed version to connect to the portal. At least I was stuck with something like a Version mismatch error when I first installed 2022.1.2.31, followed by 2022.1.3.65 and only then opening Designer Studio Version 2022.1.2.31. I have some ideas why this happened but no evidence.

SQL Mode

By default, all Designer Studios will use the REST services. If you still want to use the old communication mode, where the Designer Studio directly communicates with the database you need to add --sql. Of course, the current user will still need to have access to the database itself.

Target:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\WEBCON\WEBCON BPS Designer Studio\WEBCON Designer Studio.exe" --sql

Remark: The folder path may be Program Files (x86) or Program Files this will depend on the version which was used to install WEBCON BPS the first time.