Configuration of widgets in components prior to deploy for KNIME portal

KNIME Server
1

Dear KNIMERs,
I am using widgets (e.g. for file upload) in my KNIME workflows that are deployed on a KNIME server via the KNIME portal. Unfortunately, in contrast to quicknodes, when using widgets and before uploading them to the server, they cannot be configured via clicking on the component. This is not very handy given that before you deploy a workflow for the server you need to test it and try several configuration options. Without the possibility to configure the widgets via the component it is always required to open the component and configure the different nodes individually. Which is a bit annoying when developing or updating workflows. For this reason I tried to use the quickform nodes instead. However, there are commands for which the use of quickform nodes instead of widgets cause errors when executing on the server, particularly for file uploading and processing of file names for later file download I observed this. Hence, quickform nodes appear not to be an option here and they were also recommended not to be used for the server workflows.
Is there any workaround how widgets could be configured by clicking on the component, or is it planned to provide such an option?
Kind regards
Stefan

2

Dear Stefan,

I understand that the file upload widget is tricky when working locally. The best option at the moment is, to overwrite the default value with the variable defined in the Local File Browser config node.
The Generic File Upload – KNIME Hub verified component shows how.

The same logic works for other widget types. But you can use the component’s Interactive View to provide different values and use them in downstream nodes.

Regards,
Temesgen

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Thanks for the quick response. I tried using the generic file upload component but it gives the following error message for an excel file:
Your InputStream was neither an OLE2 stream, nor an OOXML stream

Reason might be that the excel file has different sheets?
Stefan

4

I solved the problem with the xls file (it was indeed a csv file with the extension xls). But there is another strange problem:
When I include the generic file uploader, the workflow (only on the server) is not continuing after the file upload. I.e. I am asked to upload the file again and again.
Stefan

5

That is indeed a strange problem. I will try to reproduce this and get back to you with a potential explanation.

–
Temesgen

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I solved the problem by customising the generic download with my specific requirements. Particularly, in the excel file reader, in “Read from” replaced the URL by “Local file system” and using the file path instead of the URL.

Kind regards
Stefan
File Upload (1x file reader, 1x excel, both xls extensions).knar (34.6 KB)

1 Like
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