Vaadin Framework 7.0.0.alpha1

Version 7.0.0.alpha1 built on 2011-12-23.

Release Notes for Vaadin Framework 7.0.0.alpha1

Package contents
Enhancements in Vaadin 7.0
Complete change log for Vaadin 7.0.0.alpha1
Migrating from Vaadin 6 to Vaadin 7
Vaadin 7.0.0.alpha1 dependencies
Upgrading to Vaadin 7.0
Supported technologies
Vaadin on the Web

Package Contents

Vaadin is a Java framework for building modern web applications that look great, perform well and make you and your users happy. Vaadin is available under the Apache 2 license (see license.html).

Vaadin is distributed as a single JAR file. Inside the JAR you will find:

Vaadin server and client side classes (/com)
Vaadin server and client side sources (/com)
The default widget set (/VAADIN/widgetsets)
Themes: Runo, Reindeer and Chameleon (/VAADIN/themes)
Release notes (/release-notes.html)
Licensing information (/license.html)

Enhancements in Vaadin 7.0

7.0 is the first development release of the upcoming Version 7 of the Vaadin Framework. It introduces the first set of new features in Vaadin 7, for the purpose of receiving feedback regarding the changes.

The major changes in this first phase are:

Redesign of the window and application APIs
Redesign of forms and data binding

The enchancements are described in more detail in the mini-tutorials in the Vaadin Wiki.

ChangeLog

For a complete list of changes in this release, please see the list of closed tickets.

Migrating from Vaadin 6

All Vaadin 6 applications need some changes when migrating to Vaadin 7. The most obvious changes are in the application/window API and require extending either Root or Root.LegacyWindow instead of Application.

A detailed list of migration changes are given in the Vaadin 7 Migration Guide.

Vaadin 7.0.0.alpha1 Dependencies

Google Web Toolkit (GWT)

Vaadin uses GWT 2.4.0 for widget set compilation. GWT can be downloaded from http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/. GWT can also be automatically downloaded by the Vaadin Plug-in for Eclipse. Please note that GWT 2.4.0 requires the validation-api-1.0.0.GA.jar and validation-api-1.0.0.GA-sources.jar files in addition to gwt-dev.jar and gwt-user.jar for widget set compilation.

Bean Validation

If you want to use the bean validation feature in Vaadin 7, you need a Bean Validation API implementation. You need to install the JAR in the WEB-INF/lib directory.

Upgrading to Vaadin 7.0

Upgrading the Eclipse Plugin

This release requires that you use the experimental Vaadin Plugin for Eclipse. Its update site is http://vaadin.com/eclipse/experimental. Please see the installation instructions for more details.

General Upgrading Instructions

When upgrading from an earlier Vaadin version, you must:

Recompile your classes using the new Vaadin JAR. Binary compatibility is only guaranteed for maintenance releases of Vaadin.
Recompile any add-ons you have created using the new Vaadin JAR.
Recompile your widget set using the new Vaadin JAR and the newly compiled add-ons.
If you have extracted a theme from the Vaadin JAR, you need to update it with the theme provided in the new Vaadin JAR.

Remember also to refresh the project in your IDE to ensure that the new version of everything is in use.

Using the "?debug" URL parameter you can verify that the version of the servlet (JAR), the theme and the widgetset all match.

Eclipse users should always check if there is a new version of the Eclipse Plug-in available. The Eclipse Plug-in can be used to update the Vaadin version in the project (Project properties » Vaadin).

Maven users should update the Vaadin dependency version in the pom.xml unless it is defined as LATEST . You must also ensure that the GWT dependency uses the correct version and recompile your project and your widget set.

Liferay and other portal users must install the new vaadin-7.0.0.alpha1.jar as ROOT/WEB-INF/lib/vaadin.jar in the portal. Additionally the contents of the VAADIN folder from the JAR must be extracted to the ROOT/html/VAADIN directory in the Liferay installation. If your portal uses custom widgets, install the latest version of Vaadin Control Panel for Liferay for easy widget set compilation.

Notes and Limitations for Google App Engine

The following instructions and limitations apply when you run a Vaadin application under the Google App Engine.

Applications must use GAEApplicationServlet instead of ApplicationServlet in web.xml.
Session support must be enabled in appengine-web.xml:
```
    <sessions-enabled>true</sessions-enabled>
```
Avoid using the session for storage, usual App Engine limitations apply (no synchronization, i.e, unreliable).
Vaadin uses memcache for mutex, the key is of the form _vmutex<sessionid>.
The Vaadin WebApplicationContext class is serialized separately into memcache and datastore; the memcache key is _vac<sessionid> and the datastore entity kind is _vac with identifiers of the type _vac<sessionid>.
DO NOT update application state when serving an ApplicationResource (e.g ClassResource.getStream()).
AVOID (or be very careful when) updating application state in a TransactionListener or a HttpServletRequestListener - they are called even when the application is not locked and won't be serialized (e.g ApplicationResource), and changes can thus go missing (it should be safe to update things that can be safely discarded later - i.e valid only for the current request)
The application remains locked during uploads - a progress bar is not possible

For other known problems, see open tickets at developer site dev.vaadin.com.

Supported Technologies

Vaadin 7 is compatible with Java 5 and it is also compatible with most other operating system supporting Java 5 or newer. However, using Java 6 is recommended, as it is required by widget set compilation.

Vaadin 7 is supported on the following operating systems:

Windows (see the Zip installation notice above)
Linux
Mac OS X

Vaadin 7 requires Java Servlet API 2.4 but also supports later versions and should work with any Java application server that conforms to the standard. The following application servers are supported:

Apache Tomcat, version 5.0-7.0
Oracle WebLogic® Server, version 9.2-10.3.5(11gR1)
IBM WebSphere® Application Server, version 6.1-8.0
JBoss Application Server, 4.0.0-7.0
Jetty, version 5.0-7.0
Glassfish, version 2.0-3.1

Vaadin 7 supports the JSR-286 Portlet specification. All portals that implement either of the portlet specifications should work. The following portals are supported:

Liferay Portal 5.2-6.0
GateIn Portal 3.1
eXo Platform 3

Vaadin also supports Google App Engine.

Vaadin supports the following browsers:

Mozilla Firefox 8
Internet Explorer 8-9
Safari 5
Opera 11
Google Chrome 15

Vaadin – thinking of U and I