Merge pull request #605 from rdwallis/hist

use Historian interface instead of DefaultHistorian implementation
deduplicate mergeTemplate code
Merge branch 'cook' into tslots2
Abstract view can be initialized with IsWidget
Merge pull request #612 from ArcBees/abstract_view_sugar

Abstract view can be initialized with IsWidget
Merge pull request #603 from rdwallis/cook

reduce raw types
merge master