Clarification regarding new Skia rendering engine and IE Plugin

[Daniele_Purrone]

Starting with QlikView November 2018, (12.30 IR) the new Skia Rendering Engine is the default except for the 32-bit IE plugin, where the GDI+ library is still the default.

In 12.30, the rendering Engine can be changed with the setting GraphicsBackEnd, where the value 0 means GDI+ library and the value 1 is the new Skia Rendering Engine.

Please note: the easter egg setting was discontinued in 12.40 and higher version, when it comes to QlikView Desktop, the AJAX client, and the 64-bit version of the plugin. Those clients are now Skia-only.
Because of limitations of the 32-bit architecture, the 32-bit version of the IE plugin currently still uses the GDI+ library as the default. 

To be clear, IE Plugin for QlikView exists in two different versions; 32-bit and 64-bit. If the plugin installation file is downloaded from the AccessPoint only the 32-bit version is installed. If the install is performed using QlikView Desktop both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the plugin are installed by default unless uncheck in the installation wizard. By default the value for GraphicsBackEnd is 1 in 64-bit, but 0 in 32-bit version. This was done because the AccessPoint version of the plugin might also be installed on older versions of Windows, older versions in which the new rendering would be less supported. And that's the reason for defaulting to use the older rendering engine. In any case, please note that at this time R&D has deemed the 64-bit version not recommended and will not be recognized as a valid plugin by Internet Explorer at the time of last update to this article.

This might result in a dashboard designed in the desktop client looking different when seen via the 32-bit QlikView IE Plugin.

Environment:

• QlikView November 2018 (12.30 IR) or higher

Qlik recommends aligning the environments to the same graphic backend in case of issues. The use of GraphicsBackEnd=1  is the preferable way, and possibly the only option in future versions of the product. AJAX is not affected as it is rendered by the browser (except for charts which are rendered on the server).

By default, the Settings.ini for QlikView Server is located at C:\ProgramData\QlikTech\QlikViewServer\Settings.ini
ForQlikView Desktop and the plugin* is located in C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Roaming\QlikTech\QlikView\Settings.ini

Go to the settings.ini file and add the following line immediately under [Settings 7]:

GraphicsBackEnd=1
 

Related Content:

• Modify the rendering engine in QlikView 12.30 from Skia to GDI+ and other related information
• After upgrade of QlikView objects are not rendering properly when using IE Plugin

[dwh1104]

Daniele,

If I make the Settings.ini change as noted above on my QlikView server, will this correct the issue for everyone that connects with a session through the plugin to this server?  Or, does the Settings.ini have to be changed on each PC that opens a session through the plugin for those that have installed the 32-bit plugin locally on their PCs?

This has corrected the issue for one of my users.  I made the change to their local PC Settings.ini file.  I was hoping I wouldn't have to modify this file for everyone that downloaded the plugin.

Let me know.  Thanks,

Dan

[Sonja_Bauernfeind]

Hello @dwh1104 

The Plugin is an install, so settings need to be applied to it as well to ensure compatibility.

The Plugin and Desktop client also do their own rendering - unlike AJAX, where the browser and the QlikView Server take care of the rendering. 

[danielblank]

@Daniele_Purrone 

@Sonja_Bauernfeind 

Hi,

I've just installed the QlikView IE PlugIn April 2020 SR3. In the downloads section, there's only one installer for 32Bit and 64Bit.

So far no problem.

Here comes the BUT: The installed IE-PlugIn runs in GDI+ mode after installation. To use the new Skia  Rendering Engine, I need to manually modify the local Settings.ini.

My customer uses a Software Deployment Tool, distributing the IE-PlugIn to hundreds of users. How can I modify the installer to activate the Skia Rendering Engine right away?

Kind regards,

Daniel

QlikView 

[Sonja_Bauernfeind]

Hello @danielblank 

Since this requires you to edit the settings.ini (as you pointed out yourself), a 3rd party tool would need to be used to apply these changes to the users. If you're using a Software Deployment Tool, it should be possible to use this to deploy a modified settings.ini?

A solution for this is not baked into our product.