BridgeLab 2.0.0

BridgeLab 2.0.0

BridgeLab 2.0 is a big step for everyday work with large HL7 v2 and FHIR messages. It is lighter and faster with many messages open, and it adds new tools for test cases and samples. It also brings a long list of refinements across editing, validation, communication and anonymization.

Highlights

• Lighter and faster. With ten messages open, three of them 2–5 MB, BridgeLab uses about half the memory of 1.8. A restored session opens in under three seconds, and very large messages scroll and switch smoothly.
• Undo and redo per tab. Each tab keeps its own history, caret and scroll position when you switch.
• Long fields folded, never cut. Base64 attachments and long notes show as compact chips that expand on click. The editor always holds, and saves, the whole message.
• Test case packs. Export and import test cases as a .bltests.json file, with a preview of what is new or different.
• Sample messages and segment grid. Thirteen realistic HL7 v2 samples in your language, and a table view of every OBX (or any repeating segment).
• CLI. New test (with JUnit output for CI), fhirpath, send and xsd commands, and standard input everywhere.
• Editor settings. Word suggestions, occurrence highlighting, clickable links and sticky scroll are in Settings → Editor.
• Character sets. Latin-1, Windows-1252, Big5, GB 18030 and KS X 1001 files open, validate, anonymize and send in their own charset. MLLP defaults to an automatic mode that follows MSH-18.

What changes for you

A few behaviours are different in 2.0. Most make results more accurate; some can change what a check or a script reports.

• Validation is more precise. HL7 v2 dates, timestamps, times and numbers are now checked, as warnings, so no valid message changes verdict. FHIR now reports dates that do not exist, malformed resource ids and empty values. FHIRPath type tests on choice elements (ofType, is, as) and resolve() follow the specification more closely. If you run the CLI in a pipeline, a few files may report differently.
• The CLI exits non-zero when a pattern matches no file, when a resource could not be fully checked (reported as skipped in JUnit), when a charset cannot be decoded, or when send would have to alter characters. Before, these cases could pass silently.
• Anonymization covers more fields. The catalogue now follows the HL7 v2.5 definitions of the segments it covers (89 fields). Anonymized output differs from 1.x and masks more. See the note in the 2.0.0 fix list.
• Batch anonymize and "Save all to folder" never overwrite a file. A name already taken is reported and left as it is.
• Plugin packs. Two packs with the same id in one folder: the second is refused and listed with the reason.
• HTTP in Community. Any request that carries credentials (API keys, tokens, signed URLs) needs Pro.
• History keeps the full request and response of the latest 100 entries, received messages included.
• Licences activated online are re-checked with the licence server about once a week. A code that has been revoked, for example after a refund, returns the app to Community. If the server cannot be reached, nothing changes.
• macOS 11 or later is required.

Full list of changes

The complete list of fixes and improvements, grouped by area, is in docs/releases/2.0.0.md. Every detail is in the CHANGELOG.

Known limitations

• FHIRPath shows decimals without trailing zeros (72.50 appears as 72.5); comparisons are not affected. Exact decimal precision is planned for 2.1.
• On macOS, quitting from the Dock or by logging out still closes the app without the unsaved-changes prompt. With session restore on, the autosave keeps your tabs.

Downloads

See the assets below for Windows (installer and MSI), macOS (DMG), Linux (.deb, .rpm, AppImage) and the command-line tool.

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BridgeLab is built by TECHEMV SRL · info@techemv.it

BridgeLab 1.8.1

BridgeLab 1.8.1

HL7/FHIR editor for healthcare integration professionals.

A maintenance release for managed and hospital installations: IT gets
another switch, the app opens fewer doors by default, and the manual
works everywhere.

Fixed

• The manual opens with its content on every platform. Help →
  Manual (F1) opened its own window from a temporary in-memory address
  created by the main window; on Linux that window stayed empty. The
  manual is now a page of the app itself, loaded the same way on
  Windows, macOS and Linux, in your language and with your own keyboard
  shortcuts.

For IT departments

• Usage statistics can be forced off for a whole machine. They are
  already off unless a user turns them on; now an administrator can
  guarantee it with the environment variable
  BRIDGELAB_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1, or "disable_telemetry": true in the
  same policy.json used for the update check (%ProgramData%\BridgeLab\,
  /Library/Application Support/BridgeLab/, /etc/bridgelab/). Nothing
  is sent then, and Settings → Privacy shows the box locked with the
  reason.

Changed

• The MLLP listener listens on this computer only by default
  (127.0.0.1 instead of 0.0.0.0). Starting a listener no longer opens
  a port to the whole network. To receive a feed from another machine,
  click Accept connections from other machines (0.0.0.0) under Bind,
  or type an interface address; a hint under the field always says which
  of the two is in effect. If you receive feeds from other hosts, check
  this setting once after updating.

Security

• A content security policy for the app window. The window now loads
  only the app's own code, and may contact nothing on the internet but
  api.github.com for the new-version check. Licence activation and the
  opt-in statistics run in the native part of the app and are
  unaffected. The website FAQ "Does BridgeLab connect to the internet?"
  lists every connection the app makes on its own.

Upgrading

Nothing to do, apart from the listener note above if you receive feeds
from other machines. Your data, settings and licence are untouched.

Downloads

See the assets below for installers for Windows, macOS (Intel and Apple
Silicon), Linux, and the bridgelab-cli binaries.

---

BridgeLab is built by TECHEMV SRL — www.techemv.it · info@techemv.it

BridgeLab 1.8.0

BridgeLab 1.8.0

HL7/FHIR editor for healthcare integration professionals.

This release is about the ways BridgeLab talks to the outside world, and
about you deciding on them: buying a license, finding out that a new
version exists, and removing your data when you uninstall.

Buy a license from inside the app

Until now the app only said "contact info@techemv.it". Now Help → Buy a
License…, a See prices & buy button on the Professional and
Enterprise cards of the activation dialog, a See prices button on every
"requires a Professional license" prompt and Compare plans on the
trial banner all open the pricing section of the website, where the
checkout runs. E-mail stays for invoices, purchase orders and quotes.

New versions are announced — if you say so

Once a day, a few seconds after start-up, BridgeLab can ask GitHub for the
number of the latest release and, when it is newer, show a banner with
Download (the release page), Skip this version and a close button.
Nothing is installed automatically.

• Nothing is requested before you decide. The Windows installer asks
  during setup (Yes preselected; silent installs are not interrupted);
  every other package asks once, in a banner, at first start. Closing the
  question without answering asks again next time.
• What is sent: an anonymous request to api.github.com — no
  identifier, no license data, nothing about your files. GitHub sees your
  IP address, as for any web request; TECHEMV receives nothing. Offline,
  the check is skipped silently.
• Change it any time in Settings → Privacy → Check for new versions
  at startup.
• For IT departments: turn it off for every user of a machine with
  the environment variable BRIDGELAB_DISABLE_UPDATE_CHECK=1, or a
  policy.json containing {"disable_update_check": true} in
  %ProgramData%\BridgeLab\ (Windows),
  /Library/Application Support/BridgeLab/ (macOS) or /etc/bridgelab/
  (Linux). The Settings checkbox then shows as locked.

The privacy policy describes this, and now also states that a license
activated online repeats its activation in the background, at most once a
day, from 14 days before it expires, to pick up a renewal.

Fixed

• "Delete the application data" on Windows uninstall now does what it
  says. It used to remove only the embedded browser's cache; the
  database — preferences, communication history with message previews,
  test cases, open tabs — plugins and FHIR packages stayed on disk. They
  are now removed too. Your license file is kept, so a reinstall stays
  licensed (use Deactivate first if the machine is leaving), and so is
  the trial state.
• Release assets: the macOS .app.tar.gz updater bundles that still
  appeared on 1.7.0 are no longer produced — nothing used them.

Upgrading

Nothing to do. On Windows, the setup asks the update question once; on the
other packages the app asks at first start. Your data, settings and
license are untouched.

Downloads

See the assets below for installers for Windows, macOS (Intel and Apple
Silicon), Linux, and the bridgelab-cli binaries.

---

BridgeLab is built by TECHEMV SRL — www.techemv.it · info@techemv.it

BridgeLab 1.7.0

BridgeLab 1.7.0

HL7/FHIR editor for healthcare integration professionals.

This release is about reading a message without a reference book open.
Every coded value now says what it means, everywhere you meet it, and the
listener console and send history can be filtered by what the receiver
answered.

Every coded value says what it means

The 394 HL7 value tables (about 5,000 codes) now ship inside BridgeLab,
imported from the same MIT-licensed source as the message catalogue, and
each version's catalogue records which table every coded field and
component draws from.

• Tree: the meaning sits next to the value — PID-8 M — Male,
  MSH-9 ADT^A01 — ADT message, OBX-11 F — Final results — including
  components (MSH-9.2 A01 — ADT/ACK - Admit/visit notification,
  PID-3.5 MR — Medical record number).
• Editor: hovering a field explains its code; auto-completion in any
  coded field offers the whole table, not the three fields it used to
  know.
• Field Inspector: lists the table for the selected field or
  component and now tells an HL7-defined table (ID fields — a value
  outside it is non-standard and gets a warning) from a user-defined one
  (IS fields — suggestions, never a warning). The old "value not in
  table" warning fired on user-defined tables too.

Field metadata for every standard segment, per version

Hover, auto-completion, the Field Inspector, search and the built-in
validation used to read a hand-written list of 15 segments that was the
same for every HL7 version. They now read the full catalogue of the
version the message declares (a full VID such as 2.3^ISO included): RXA-5
has a name, PID-8 in a v2.1 message has a v2.1 definition, and required
fields and lengths are checked for every segment the standard defines.

Expect a few more findings on messages that were "clean" before — an
ORU whose OBX lacks OBX-11, a PV1-16 holding free text. Those were
non-conformant before too, unreported.

ACK filters on the console and the history

The listener console and the History tab gain outcome chips — AA / AE /
AR / No ACK / Errors (Failed) — each with a live count, so "AE 12" out of
300 stands out before anyone scrolls. An MLLP send now records the ACK
code the receiver answered with (MSA-1, whatever field separator the ACK
uses) and shows it as a badge on its row: a send that reached the peer
and got an AE back is "OK" at the transport level and a rejection at
the application level, and the row now tells the two apart.

Also

• What Community gets of plugins is stated the same way everywhere
  (README, landing, manual, docs/PLUGINS.md): every pack kind and every
  check type runs in every edition; the only cap is 3 packs active at
  once (and 10 saved test cases), unlimited in Pro. The manual's plugin
  chapter gained the fhir/ folder it had been missing.
• Roadmap: message interpretation panel, sample message library and
  segment grid added; a "What BridgeLab is not" section says why an
  integration engine, a web platform and DICOM stay out.
• A release ships 12 assets instead of 19 (one en-US MSI, no macOS
  updater tarballs, AppImage without GStreamer: 78 MB).

Upgrading

Nothing to do. The history database gains an ack_code column on first
start; older rows simply have no ACK badge. Going back to 1.6.0 afterwards
is safe — the column is ignored.

Downloads

See the assets below for installers for Windows, macOS (Intel and Apple
Silicon), Linux, and the bridgelab-cli binaries.

---

BridgeLab is built by TECHEMV SRL — www.techemv.it · info@techemv.it

BridgeLab 1.6.0

BridgeLab 1.6.0

HL7/FHIR editor for healthcare integration professionals.

This release is about trusting what the validator says. The FHIR R4 core
now ships inside the binary, a Bundle is validated all the way down instead
of at its top level, and bridgelab-cli runs the app's own validators.

The FHIR R4 core is built in

Profile conformance used to need hl7.fhir.r4.core installed by hand
before it did anything. The distilled index (about 200 KB) now ships inside
BridgeLab, so cardinality, element types, choice elements and unknown
elements are checked against the base R4 definitions on a fresh install,
offline, in every edition — nothing to download.

The package manager lists it as Built in. A package you install yourself
supersedes it by version; implementation guides install on top as before
(installing packages stays Pro).

A Bundle is validated all the way down

Opening a message Bundle whose Observation had no status used to show two
notes about the Bundle itself and ✗ 0 ⚠ 0 — the opposite of what was
true. Now:

• every entry and every contained resource is checked as the
  resource it is, reported under its path (entry[3].resource.status),
  and against its own meta.profile;
• the Bundle's own rules are checked — every entry carries a
  fullUrl (POST excepted); a persistent fullUrl agrees with the
  resource's type and id, while a urn:uuid: one is the identity and
  needs no id, so a message Bundle written the NHS/IHE way stays clean;
  fullUrls are unique; and every Reference resolves — to an entry's
  fullUrl, a Type/id or a #contained — with a warning where the
  Bundle carries a related set and a note in a searchset;
• primitive values are checked for their lexical form — date,
  dateTime (a time needs a time zone), instant, time, code, id,
  oid, uuid, URIs without whitespace — and an endpoint written
  without a scheme (https//host) is a warning, because nothing can
  connect to it as written;
• resolve() follows urn:uuid: references, which in a message
  Bundle is every reference there is.

Two profile-engine fixes ride along: a profile declared but not installed
no longer hides every other finding, and a version pin in meta.profile
(…|1.2.0) resolves to exactly that version — or says which versions are
installed — instead of silently substituting another.

bridgelab-cli is now the app's own validators

The old CLI was a separate, minimal reimplementation. It is now a thin
front-end over the library the desktop app is built on: the same
version-aware HL7 v2 validation, the same FHIR checks with the built-in
core and installed packages, the same plugin packs and PHI anonymiser.
validate and batch detect HL7 v2 or FHIR per file; --fhir-packages DIR
points at a provisioned package folder for CI and air-gapped sites. It
reads no licence and behaves as the Community edition. A binary for each
platform is attached to this release as bridgelab-cli-<target>.

Also

• The activation dialog describes the editions by what they actually
  gate: MLLP send and HTTP GET are Community; the listener, HTTP write
  methods and any Authorization header need Pro. The welcome card for
  XSD export no longer carries a blanket PRO badge — four v2.5 messages
  export in every edition.
• Double-clicking a .hl7 file now opens BridgeLab on Linux (shipped in
  the 1.5.0 packages).

Upgrading

Nothing to do. Packages you installed keep working and outrank the built-in
core where they overlap; a resource that used to come back clean may now
show findings inside a Bundle — those were there before, unreported.

Downloads

See the assets below for installers for Windows, macOS (Intel and Apple
Silicon), Linux, and the bridgelab-cli binaries.

BridgeLab 1.5.0

BridgeLab 1.5.0

HL7/FHIR editor for healthcare integration professionals.

This release is about FHIR depth: conformance against real profiles, a
complete FHIRPath engine, and your own validation rules — plus three more
HL7 v2 versions in the schema catalogue.

FHIR profile validation

Install a FHIR NPM package (hl7.fhir.r4.core, a national IG, your own
profiles) from Tools → FHIR profile packages… and every FHIR validation
also checks the resource against its StructureDefinitions:

• cardinality — a required element missing, a 0..1 element repeating
• element types — a boolean written as a string, a number where an
  object belongs
• choice elements — value[x] must appear as exactly one of
  valueQuantity, valueString, … A plain value, or two forms at once,
  is reported
• fixed values and patterns the profile pins down
• unknown elements — the check that catches a typo like genderr, or an
  element belonging to a different resource type

Profiles a resource declares in meta.profile are applied automatically
when the package defining them is installed. When it is not, BridgeLab says
so rather than quietly reporting a clean result — and when profiles did run,
the report says that too.

Verified against hl7.fhir.r4.core 4.0.1: all 4,578 resources in the
package validate with 14 findings, every one of them genuine — thirteen
SearchParameter files that really do omit the required base, and one
ValueSet declaring a profile the core package does not contain.

Terminology stays out of scope: a required binding can only be checked by
expanding the ValueSet, so bindings are left unchecked rather than
half-checked.

FHIRPath 2.0

The evaluator now implements the language, not a subset of it: the full
operator set at specification precedence, three-valued boolean logic,
partial-precision date/time literals, quantities with unit conversion,
$this / $index / $total, and around seventy functions — sort(),
repeat(), aggregate(), iif(), ofType(), the string and math
libraries, extension(), hasValue(), and resolve(), which follows a
Reference into a contained or bundled resource.

• Comparing values of different precision returns the empty collection
  instead of a guess: @2015-02-04 = @2015-02 is neither true nor false
• trace('label') passes its input through and shows what it captured
  under the result, so a long path can be inspected halfway along
• Errors name the problem — an unknown function, a missing bracket, an
  operator handed a collection where it needs one value

Checked against the official HL7 FHIRPath test suite: 836 of the 922
runnable cases pass.

Custom FHIR validation rules

The declarative plugin packs that already extend the HL7 v2 validator now
cover FHIR. A rule is either a FHIRPath invariant that must hold —
identifier.exists(), the way FHIR writes its own constraints — or a
FHIRPath selector plus a check on the values it picks up: must be present,
how many, matches a pattern, one of a list, contains text, length bounds.

Tools → FHIR validation rules… edits them in-app. It validates the
FHIRPath before saving and can run a rule against the resource in the active
tab, showing which values the selector actually matched. A rule scoped to a
type the open resource is not says so, rather than reporting a pass.

Still no code execution: rules are data.

Three more HL7 versions

v2.5.1 — the baseline most US interfaces are written against — plus
v2.1 and v2.2 for legacy feeds still in production. The catalogue
now spans ten selectable versions and 2,320 message structures, feeding
XSD export, the schema-aware tree and the Field Inspector.

Fixed

• HL7 v2.7.1 exported v2.7 data under its own name. v2.7.1 is a
  technical-correction release of v2.7 and genuinely carries the same
  definitions, so it is now declared an alias: marked (= v2.7) in the
  version dropdown, exporting from the v2.7 catalogue, without a duplicate
  payload in the binary.
• Editor autocomplete and hover always described fields against v2.5,
  whatever version the open message declared. Both now read MSH-12 and use
  the matching catalogue.
• Double-clicking a .hl7 file did not open BridgeLab on Linux. The
  desktop entry claimed the application/hl7-v2 type, but nothing on the
  system defined it, so no file ever matched. The .deb and .rpm now
  register the type with a *.hl7 rule and a content rule on the leading
  MSH|, so a message saved without an extension is recognised too. Windows
  and macOS were unaffected.

Upgrading

Nothing changes until you choose it. Profile validation only runs once you
install a package; FHIR rules only run once you write them. No file format,
setting or workflow changes, and existing plugin packs keep working.

Installing a profile package and the FHIR rules editor require a
Professional license. Rules and packages already in place keep validating in
every tier, so a lapsed trial never turns previously clean resources red.

Downloads

See the assets below for installers for Windows, macOS (Intel and Apple
Silicon), and Linux.

BridgeLab 1.4.1

BridgeLab 1.4.1

Maintenance release: seven fixes found while sweeping every function of
the 1.4.0 desktop build. No new features, no changes to licensing or
data formats — updating is recommended for everyone on 1.4.0.

Fixed

• Compare messages did nothing. The diff dialog threw on open because
  the client bundle picked up Svelte's server-side lifecycle stubs. It
  now opens with the side-by-side diff of any two tabs.
• Field Inspector stuck on "Generating…" with FHIR documents. The
  inspector kept the node from a previous HL7 tab and waited forever for
  an HL7 schema lookup. It now clears on tab switch and shows the FHIR
  element path with a clear note.
• FHIR files could not be opened from disk. File → Open, "open with"
  / command-line files and the recent-files list all went through the
  HL7 parser. FHIR JSON and XML resources (with or without a UTF-8 BOM)
  now open correctly.
• FHIR tree nodes did not expand. Container nodes such as
  name [2 items] silently stayed collapsed.
• FHIRPath results were hidden. In the default panel height the
  evaluated values sat below the fold; the results area now keeps a
  usable height and the panel scrolls.
• JSON language support for FHIR tabs. The editor used the wrong
  web worker for JSON documents, logging errors and disabling JSON
  validation. The proper JSON worker is now bundled.
• Trial and license days rounded down. A fresh 14-day trial showed
  "13 days remaining"; remaining days are now rounded up, and a license
  expires at its actual expiry instant.

Full changelog: see CHANGELOG.md.

BridgeLab 1.4.0

BridgeLab 1.4.0

SOAP client (Enterprise)

The Communication panel gains a SOAP tab for sending HL7 messages to
SOAP 1.1/1.2 endpoints — IHE-style middlewares, regional gateways and
legacy hospital web services:

• Envelope building with a sensible default, or your own template
  using a {payload} placeholder when the target service expects a
  specific wrapper. Raw HL7 v2 messages are XML-escaped and wrapped
  automatically; XML payloads pass through untouched.
• WS-Security UsernameToken credentials and WS-Addressing
  headers (To / Action / MessageID), both optional.
• Correct per-version transport: text/xml + SOAPAction header for
  SOAP 1.1, application/soap+xml with the action parameter for 1.2.
• Response parsing with namespace-aware Body extraction and SOAP
  Fault decoding for both versions. Non-SOAP replies (e.g. a proxy or
  login page returned with HTTP 200) are correctly reported as failures.
• Connection profiles and the request history cover SOAP just
  like MLLP and HTTP.

WSDL import is planned as a follow-up.

Licensing layout

Paid-tier feature implementations now live in two clearly marked
directories (src-tauri/src/pro/, src/lib/pro/) published under the
Business Source License 1.1; each converts to MIT four years after
publication. Everything else — and all code published before this
change — remains MIT. Building with --no-default-features produces a
Community-only binary without those directories.

Notes

• No changes to licensing behavior in the app itself: existing keys,
  activation codes and trials keep working exactly as in 1.3.x.
• Full changelog: see CHANGELOG.md.

BridgeLab 1.3.1

BridgeLab 1.3.1

Renewals, now hands-free

Renewing your annual license just got effortless:

• Update license, one click — for licenses activated online, the License dialog now has an Update license button: it re-activates with your stored code (your seat is reused, never consumed twice) and shows the new expiry immediately. No more deactivate-and-re-paste.
• Or do nothing at all — within 14 days of expiry (or past it), BridgeLab silently picks a renewed expiry up by itself at startup, at most once a day. Network failures are always ignored: fully offline installations notice nothing.
• Renewed late? If your license has already lapsed, the dialog offers the same one-click pickup right at the top — your stored code does the rest.

Perpetual licenses and offline keys are unaffected. The user manual (F1) documents the new flow in all 5 languages.

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BridgeLab is built by TECHEMV SRL — www.techemv.it · info@techemv.it

BridgeLab 1.3.0

BridgeLab 1.3.0

Activate your license in a minute

Buying BridgeLab Pro is now self-service: after purchase you receive an activation code (BL-PRO-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX) by e-mail. Paste it into the activation dialog and you're done — the app exchanges it over a single secure connection for a license bound to your computer, and from that moment on everything works offline as always: no server contacted during use, no account, no registration.

• Moving to another computer? Click Deactivate on the old machine to free the seat, then activate on the new one with the same code.
• Isolated / air-gapped network? The classic flow is still here: send your Hardware ID to info@techemv.it and receive a signed offline key — the app guides you through it in the "Need an offline key?" section. Previously issued keys keep working untouched.
• If your computer can't reach the server, no cryptic errors: a clear message points you straight to the offline-key option.

License expiry, always in sight

With annual licenses the date matters: both the activation dialog and Settings → License now show "Valid until …", formatted in your language, alongside the days remaining. Renewing is simple: pay, paste the same code again, and the new expiry date shows up immediately.

Trial extended to 14 days

The Pro trial doubles to 14 days with every Pro feature enabled, giving integration teams time for a real evaluation. Need longer? A 30-day extension is one click away from the banner. And as always, nothing locks up when it ends: Community features stay free forever.

Privacy, in black and white

New Settings → Privacy section. If you wish, you can help improve BridgeLab by sending usage statistics — but the choice is yours and the transparency is total:

• Off by default: until you flip the switch yourself, nothing is ever transmitted.
• "Show what is sent": inspect the exact JSON before deciding — usage counters, app version, OS, license tier, a random installation ID and (only for online-activated licenses) the activation code. Never message content, file names, host names or personal data.
• At most one automatic report per day, and never an error message when you're offline: fully offline installations are a first-class, supported scenario.

A more elegant bridge

The BridgeLab brand has been redesigned: the stylized icon with hangers suspended under the arch — the one you knew from the About window — is now the single logo everywhere: app icon (taskbar, desktop, title bar), website and favicon.

Also in this release

• The user manual (F1) documents the new activation flows and the Privacy section in all 5 languages.
• macOS builds install correctly again (while Apple signing is pending, follow the first-launch tip on the download page).

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BridgeLab is built by TECHEMV SRL — www.techemv.it · info@techemv.it