Introduction
Interfaces created in MetaLocator prior to 2019 were built using our Interface Editor, a collection of over 700 settings which were individually managed in various settings groups. Over time, this editor grew unwieldy since users had to pore over 20 settings groups and hundreds of settings which required a lot of trial-and-error.
The Interface Builder replaces the Interface Editor and eliminated hundreds of settings by introducing smarter templates, consolidating redundant settings and eliminating legacy settings.
After 2019, no new Legacy Interfaces could be created unless users imported them from a backup or duplicated an existing Legacy interface.
These functions will soon be removed in favor of creating new locators in all cases.
Benefits of Upgrading
The benefits of upgrading to the Interface Builder are many, and almost too numerous to list, however; the following are the top benefits:
Vastly improved user experience. Search controls, layouts, mobile experience and browser compatibility have all been upgraded to ensure the best user experience on all devices.
Improved Performance. Newer locators are much faster when compared to the legacy interfaces. Improved performance provides a better customer experience.
Access to the Latest Features. Newer locators provide many more features such as
Completely Code-Free. New locators no longer require HTML programming skills to make basic adjustments to the search form, results and email templates.
Easier to Manage and Change. The Interface Builder provides a much simpler UI to manage, change and create locators enabling more of your team to participate.
Improved accessibility. Interfaces created in Interface Builder meet WCAG AA accessibility standards off the shelf providing a larger audience.
First-Party Analytics. Newer interfaces can leverage our new GA4 integration which tracks events directly on the host page to ensure no events are blocked by 3rd-party cookie blockers.
Pro-Only Feature Offer
For users who complete their upgrade and delete all of their Legacy Interfaces before December, 31 2024, we are offering access to a few Pro-only features to incentivize users to upgrade. Those are:
Access to Field Templates
Access to Custom CSS
The Interface Editor was full of direct access to code which is no longer necessary in the Interface Builder; however, some legacy users may have existing integrations that depend on custom JavaScript or CSS and so we are including these features for free.
Be sure to delete your Legacy interfaces before December, 31 2024 to retain access to these Pro-level features.
How to Upgrade
To upgrade an existing legacy interface to use the Interface Builder, click Interfaces on the main navigation then click the Upgrade button underneath the name of the Interface.
You can also click the name of the legacy interface you wish to upgrade, and then choose Upgrade from the menu as shown below:
This video shows the upgrade procedure from start to finish:
Consider simply starting from scratch. This upgrade procedure is mostly geared towards users with many complex interfaces that need upgrading. Creating a new Interface manually using the Interface Builder is a perfectly valid approach.
Changed Settings Report
When upgrading an Interface, it can be helpful to understand what settings were leveraged to create the legacy interface. Upgrading provides an opportunity to evaluate past decisions and automatically carrying forward some settings may no longer be the best practice.
The Changed Settings report is designed to show a clear picture of which settings were changed in the legacy interface as compared to the template from which it was originally derived.
To generate Changed Settings report, click Interfaces, the name of your Interface, and then, the "Changed Settings" option as shown below:
This will produce a report containing each setting in the Interface which was changed from its default setting.
Each row in the report represents a setting that was changed from the default value provided in the template from which this interface was derived. In the image above, the report is comparing the "Test" interface against the "Sleek Design Template", a historically popular legacy interface template from which this interface was created.