Currently, the AVEVA Adapter Configuration Utility is a program that lets you enter data into the configuration file without having to type parameter names and while having some protection against invalid inputs (e.g. a check box for true/false values, a dropdown menu when the list of accepted text values is limited). It currently strongly reflects how the configuration file reads, and this stops it from being more user-friendly.
I believe that the AVEVA Adapter Configuration Utility should be made user-friendly first and foremost, and its ties to the configuration file can be accessible through tooltips.
Some examples of changes that would increase user-friendliness but decrease the clarity in the tie to the configuration file include:
If parameters are mutually exclusive (e.g. username/password or clientId/clientSecret when configuring health endpoints or failover), allow the user to choose which path they want to take and then show only the parameters that correspond to that path so that the user cannot enter both and cannot even see all of possible text boxes. This change should reduce confusion. In the case of username/password and clientId/clientSecret, there should be an explicit 3rd path: "Use AVEVA Adapter service account". Currently, this is implicitly specified by not specifying username, password, clientId, or clientSecret, and you would need to read the documentation to know this (i.e. it is not obvious).
The "OmfEgress" component does not need to appear under "Components" since it will be present for all AVEVA Adapters and since there is only ever this 1 instance of a component of a type other than the adapter type. Instead, it or its children can come out to the root level alongside Health Endpoints, Buffering, etc.
If the change above is made, then the component type does not need to be shown since only the adapter components will remain under "Components".
Even though "Enable Persistent Buffering" is stored as a true/false value, it would be clearer if this was a dropdown menu with choices "Buffer to buffer files" and "Buffer to memory only".
"Max Buffer Size MB" could be renamed to "Maximum Buffer Size Per Endpoint (MB)", and the underlying parameter name could still remain as "maxBufferSizeMB" (though if AVEVA were to rename it or add a new parameter that mentions "PerEndpoint", then I would not complain).
For the AVEVA Adapter For RDBMS, the query string for data discovery could be replaced with a series of labelled text boxes. The queryId should have a dropdown menu that lists the queries configured for the current component. Since there can be multiple columns in valueColumns, the user would need to be able to add an arbitrary number of text boxes for this. Because valueColumns can be arbitrarily large, it should come after the other string items.
For the AVEVA Adapter For RDBMS, when configuring a data source, the text box for "Secondary Connect String" should appear if and only if the "Enable Server Failover" check box is checked (assuming that the "Secondary Connect String" is only ever used if the "Enable Server Failover" check box is checked).
