Towards rmf-web's first tagged release

[aaronchongth]

Outline

This ticket details and tracks the progress towards the first tagged release of rmf-web, which will support

• Ubuntu 24.04
• ROS 2 Jazzy Jalisco
• Open-RMF release-jazzy-240617 onwards

In general, this release will attempt to address issues regarding outdated dependencies, ease of extensibility, new features with Open-RMF and UX. Admittedly not all features are well documented at the moment, and some newer UI features would benefit from tooltips on the frontend dashboard rather than written documentation. We will attempt to address these concerns in minor releases if they are absent in the first release.

Current state of branches

• main - supports ROS 2 Jazzy, with mostly up-to-date dependencies, but missing newest features that were developed for live deployments
• deploy/hammer-humble - live deployment branch, supports ROS 2 Humble, with the newest set of features and bug fixes, but with outdated dependencies. Features implemented for deployments were kept to this branch instead of main due to their customized nature where introducing it upstream will incur difficulties in maintenance as well as documentation.
• koonpeng/hammer-jazzy-base - base branch where all the dependency updates, feature refactoring and porting, documentation and testing improvements, as well as cleanups and deprecations will happen.

The progress checklist below will target koonpeng/hammer-jazzy-base, and when ready, it will be labeled as the new main branch, while the original main branch will be set up as legacy/main for legacy uses. This move will incur changes in git history and therefore any users on the legacy main branch will no longer be able to pull, and will require a fresh clone of the repository.

As rmf-web is a monorepo all the packages will be tagged as the same version to best ensure compatibility from source or docker image releases.

Notable changes

• Tasks
  • Various bug fixes and improved testing for task scheduling system.
  • Task warning time, Hammer/fix warning time #953, to warn users that the task is expected to be completed later then the defined task warning time.
  • Removal of task start time and task file upload in task form, use task scheduling system instead.
  • Refactor of task type implementation, to better support database migrations and extension of new task types, Hammer/demo tasks #925.
  • Usage of task booking labels, which allow information encoded from a task creation form to propagate to task state updates. This is useful for displaying custom information onto the task queue table, e.g. pickup, destination/dropoff, task warning time, etc.
• Robots
  • Robot decommissioning system, Hammer/decommission #920, Hammer/decom info #941.
• Doors and lifts
  • Map centering on door or lift when row is selected in System Overview, Hammer/center on infra #851.
  • Door and lift summaries when row is selected in System Overview, Door and lift summary #849.
• Map
  • Removal and cleanup of all uses of leaflet since migration to react-three-fiber, First iteration of cleanup for maps #968.
  • Re-center (full view) map button, Hammer/map changing #837.
• UI and UX
  • Removal of support for different color themes.
  • Dashboard configurable help link, issue link, as well as attribution texts.
  • Dashboard configurable admin or custom tabs, Adding build-time configuration to bring back custom and admin tabs #969.
• Delivery alert system (deprecated), use generic alerts instead.
• Generic alerts system, replacing previously implemented robot or task specific alerts, Hammer/generic alerts #948. Other systems in the ecosystem is then able to trigger alerts on the frontend dashboard, requesting for user responses, for example a fleet adapter alerting users that the robot is obstructed, or requesting for a user response when the robot detects a wrong cart.
• Resetting of fire-alarm triggers, Hammer/fire alarm #934, informing fleet adapters that it is safe to resume robot operations.
• Robot Interaction Object (RIO), api-server: first impl of rio #960, which allows the API server and database to accommodate other entities within the ecosystem, e.g. Smart Carts, workcells, etc, by saving their states and allow for queries via REST, making it easier for user to implement their own frontend components for other entities.
• Mutex group manual release, Hammer/mutex groups #933, supporting Mutex group manual release rmf_ros2#339. This allows users to manually release a mutex group lock held by a robot, allowing other robots waiting for the same mutex group to lock the mutex and be allowed to move.
• Dashboard configurable parameters
  • Default map zoom levels when page is loaded, to view larger or smaller maps, Using default zoom from resources if available #756.
  • Default zoom-in levels when centering on a robot, door or lift, Using default zoom from resources if available #756.
  • Default map level to display when a user logs in, New app event specifically for checking just logged in to tweak the default map #831.
  • Scale of imported robot icons to ensure it is accurate when rendered on the map, Hammer/frontend changes #856.
  • Supported task forms as well as renaming of tasks, Hammer/demo tasks #925.
• API server configurable parameters
  • Time zone at which the scheduling system operates in, Schedule deletion: fix date differences due to different timezones, more tests #896.
• General bug fixes and optimizations that have been validated in production.

Progress checklist

• Update docs #970, documentation updates
• Clean up unused dependencies and update deprecated ones #975, minor dependency updates
• port new features #973, port generic alerts
• port new features #973, port RIO
• Adding build-time configuration to bring back custom and admin tabs #969, reinstate admin and custom tabs, while making them configurable
• add mutex group micro-app as a default app
• Ac/remove permission requirements #976, reinstate all admin-only actions for normal users
• dashboard: migrate to vite #977, Migrate build system to vite
• Bump versions to 0.1.0 #980, update package versions

Tickets resolved along the way

• [Bug]: pnpm install fails with Ubuntu 24.04 #952
• Clean task form to be compatible with perform_action composed task  #639
• [Bug]: The map and robot do not appear on the web application or when they do, they require lots of right/left clicks and zoom in #822

After release

• update to new dashboard config rmf_demos#256 (review)
• New rmf-web screenshots and updated introduction and links osrf/ros2multirobotbook#110
• update deployment template

[aaronchongth]

0.1.0 released