Primo New UI Support

Primo New UI Support: Overview

With the release of the Primo New UI, Ex Libris greatly expanded customer options for tailoring the new Primo interface to their needs. Not only does the new UI offer new and exciting capabilities, Ex Libris also made available new tools, new development resources, and new collaborative platforms. While our Knowledge Center and Developer Network contain much of the information on updating the New UI, there are also new resources like Github and NPM that are not managed by Ex Libris.

This presents a challenge for Ex Libris Support and our customers. We want our customers to take full advantage of the Primo new UI, but there are some options that fall outside the scope of the Support we can provide. To help make this clearer for our customers, we have defined two general categories:

Configuration (supported by Ex Libris Support)
Customization (owned and managed by customers)

Configuration
Configuration includes customer changes implemented using Primo software, including:

New UI Documentation & Knowledge Articles published in the Customer Knowledge Center;
New UI Instructions or examples posted by Ex Libris staff via the Developer Network.

Customization
Customization includes changes performed by customers based on code outside of Primo software, or code/instructions available outside of the Ex Libris Customer Knowledge Center, including:

Creating or troubleshooting custom JavaScript code;
Custom code/instructions hosted on GitHub;
Custom code/instructions posted by customers via the Tech Blog, Forum, and Codes & Apps sections of the Ex Libris Developer Network;
Customer-created feature packages hosted on npm (www.NPMJS.COM).

Primo New UI Support: Configuration vs Customization Examples

Here are some examples to give these guidelines some context:

Customer Request	Category	Details
A customer requests assistance with customizing CSS	Customization	Ex Libris Support is not responsible for customizing customer CSS. However, if we identify a simple issue that we can address quickly, we will do our best to assist you. If a simple solution is not possible, we will explain that we cannot provide further assistance, and set the Case to Closing. Please submit a Case via the Support Portal. Alternative options: Share your questions with the Primo community via the Developer Network, GitHub, and npm. We encourage you to share your customizations with the Primo community, too! For customization best practices, you can raise your questions directly with Primo developers that participate in the Primo Show & Tell monthly meetings. Register at: http://igelu.org/special-interests/show-tell/register
A customer requests assistance troubleshooting or creating custom JavaScript code that they created	Customization	Ex Libris Support is not responsible for creating or troubleshooting custom JavaScript created by customers.
A customer reports their custom code worked before a Primo Release, and stopped working after a new Primo Release	Investigation Required	If we suspect that our code caused a regression, Support will consult with Primo Development. Problems found to be specific to the custom code will be the customer’s responsibility. Please submit a Case via the Support Portal.
A customer requests assistance with content found on Github http://github.com/ExLibrisGroup	Customization	Github is not an official Ex Libris platform. Customers with issues with this content should contact the content creator for advice via Github.
A customer requests assistance with Customer-created “Feature Packages” found on npm https://www.npmjs.com/search?q=primo-explore&page=2&ranking=optimal	Customization	npm is not an official Ex Libris platform. Customers with issues with this content should contact the content creator for advice via npm.
A customer requests assistance with information/instructions submitted by Ex Libris staff via the Tech Blogs, Forums, and Codes & Apps sections of the Ex Libris Developer Network https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com	Configuration	Ex Libris Support will assist you with questions or issues related to content posted by Ex Libris staff via Developer Network. Please submit a Case via the Support Portal.
A customer requests assistance with information/instructions posted by customers via the Tech Blogs, Forums, and Codes & Apps sections of the Ex Libris Developer Network https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com	Customization	Ex Libris Support is not responsible for customer-created content found on the Developer Network. Questions or issues should be communicated to the content creator via the Developer Network. Alternative options: Share your questions with the Primo community via the Developer Network, GitHub, and npm. We encourage you to share your customizations with the Primo community, too! For customization best practices, you can raise your questions directly with Primo developers that participate in the Primo Show & Tell monthly meetings. Register at: http://igelu.org/special-interests/show-tell/register

Primo New UI Support: Q&A

As a customer, how am I supposed to know if you think something is Configuration or Customization?

This Article is not intended to discourage customers from consulting with Support. Our goal is to make you aware that there are some options for Primo New UI customization that are optional for customers to pursue on their own. The examples above should give you some good guidelines to follow, but please do not hesitate to submit a Case via the Support Portal if you have questions.

You describe “Customization” as changes not supported by Ex Libris, but you use the same term in your documentation. The Primo Back Office tool for downloading and uploading UI packages is even called the “UI customization Package Manager.” Can you clarify your definition?

It is true that you can find the terms customization and configuration used together in Ex Libris documentation.

We are using the terms Configuration and Customization in this Article to help distinguish changes applied via software designed and documented by Ex Libris, and customizations done using instructions or code developed outside of Ex Libris.

Why do you post Primo New UI content to Github if you aren’t going to support it?

The Primo Product Management and Development Teams put a considerable amount of work into planning, developing, and releasing a new, modern UI. Many customers also contributed their time to share their ideas and recommendations, not only on how the UI would look and feel, but on how Ex Libris could help customers share their ideas, and even their customization packages. The result of this collaboration was to make selected content available via popular development platforms like Github and NPMJS.

Putting this content on external platforms also helps Ex Libris to distinguish between the many standard configuration options available to customers found in our documentation, and more advanced options that are available for customers to pursue independently.

Article last edited: 05-Sep-2017