Hi,
Just wanted to know why everyone shouldn’t always be using the rich client against the webi (launch pad)?
Thanks !
NicolaTesla (BOB member since 2007-02-15)
A) There`s no real need (unless you are on some old version of BO).
B) Rich client needs installing (and therefore maintaining).
ABILtd 
(BOB member since 2006-02-08)
But on the other hand it does have the odd bit of fuctionality not in the launchpad…certainly in 4.1…
Nick Daniels (BOB member since 2002-08-15)
The gap is being closed more and more with each new version 
Marek Chladny 
(BOB member since 2003-11-27)
1 Like
Agreed. I rarely use it these days…but it isn’t dead yet!
Nick Daniels (BOB member since 2002-08-15)
Thanks to all.
By the eay why do you say
:
But on the other hand it does have the odd bit of fuctionality not in the launchpad…certainly in 4.1…
NicolaTesla (BOB member since 2007-02-15)
Because it does! For example text file as a data source.
Nick Daniels (BOB member since 2002-08-15)
Rich client rules!!! …at least for us.
I use it almost exclusively for development and mostly use thin clients for building quick ad-hoc reports < 1hr, viewing reports, or checking that ETLs worked in the mornings with a quick refresh on a daily report.
Our rich client is set up with an almost non-existent timeout and thin clients time out after ~15 minutes of inactivity in our implementation which means that if I get distracted or have to look something up or need additional clarification on business needs, I might lose everything back to the last save point. This can be changed as I understand it, but I just use what works.
Performance is supposedly better as it’s aided by the RAM in the local machine rather than exclusively using server resources, but I haven’t noticed a ton of difference in the last couple versions except in exceptionally large reports between dHTML and Rich client. The difference was much more noticeable in how the old 3.1 Java applet felt vs the desktop client, but the snappier dHTML client has also gained most of the applet’s old exclusive features and feels a lot closer to the rich client experience.
Also, I can use rich client to access flat files from desktop as a data source and use UNC paths to set up recurring jobs using updating files on an enterprise shared drive location whereas the file explorer window provided in thin client seems to be limited to accessing files uploaded to the launch pad, even in 4.2.
If you use xcelsius at all, it’s also the only tool that can export blocks for consumption via web service, though that’s mostly dead. We still have a couple old dashboards lying around in that format that need occasional maintenance.
I’ve also noticed that the detailed color options are much more limited without H/S/L, etc. options for semi-transparent alternating row highlights in a data block when using thin clients. You have to go into rich client, pull the resultant RGB settings for whatever color you created using the transparency, lightness, etc tabs in the color window and use that. You can still can get the same result, you’re adding a step to the process to get there that involves opening rich client, anyway.
tendernips (BOB member since 2017-07-27)
1 Like
Wow thanls to all!
I get it that besides having to physically install it on the user’s pc, RICH CLIENT offers more. It’s richer … so it gives more
NicolaTesla (BOB member since 2007-02-15)
1 Like