I'm very happy to announce that VisionX 2.0 is available. It's available as Trial version or Online via Cloud Login.

Use our registration form and request a trial license or request a Cloud Login.

If you have any questions, feel free to send us a message via Twitter (@sibvisions), leave a comment or send us an email.

With the next nightly build, you'll find a new cell editor in JVx. It's a technology independent implementation and it's more or less a mix between choice cell editor and linked cell editor.

A choice cell editor shows images for defined values, e.g Checkboxes instead of Y, N. You can bind a choice cell editor to one column.
A linked cell editor is more or less a combobox that shows a table with one or more columns. You can bind a linked cell editor to one column and it can set multiple columns on value selection.

The new enum cell editor has the advantages of both editors. It shows a list of values instead of the real value, e.g. Yes, No instead of Y, N. You can bind an enum cell editor to one column and it sets exactly one column.

A short example:

VisionX 2.0 is ready!

We're happy to announce that VisionX 2.0 will be available in the next days. Our last tests were successful and everything is green
The new VisionX is so amazing. It bundles all our open source frameworks in one tool and shows how application development should be - Fast and simple.

You've never created a multi platform application as fast as with VisionX.

VisionX 2.0 is more than just another RAD tool. It bridges the gap between end users and developers. If you're not a software developer, use VisionX like Excel and if you are a software developer, just use VisionX for all the boring stuff like UI design, Documentation, Help creation, Database design, Project setup, ...

Don't waste valuable time - simply use VisionX.

What's new in VisionX 2.0?

We have an uncountable number of new features, but some are

• Your applications will run in modern browsers - with Html5
• Excel reporting
• XML reporting
• Import your reports (offline data capturing)
• Use your application on mobile devices
• Use your application as Liferay portlets
• Live Preview of your applications as Liferay portlets
• Live Preview as Html5 application and on mobile devices
• Create your own VisionX AddOns
• Integrate Custom controls
• More actions
• Developer documentation
• Form validation support
• Tree support
• Integrate any Vaadin AddOn
• New data wizard with simple and advanced mode
• SOAP interface for importing reports
• Mobile API, Designer API
• Seamless Eclipse IDE integration for your applications
• PostgreSQL as database system
• Integrated pgAdmin
• Application template support
• Screen templates
• Support for the new Security mechanism of Java applications
• Your applications will be based on Open Source Software

The list is not complete because we have about 500 Tickets in VisionX 2.0.

More information will follow in the next weeks.

VisionX 2.0 will have another great new feature. It's fast user switching.

An application created with VisionX is always a multi-user application. It has roles and roles can be assigned to users. You can take care of users and roles in work screens, e.g. set filter conditions or hide components depending of the user or role.

To test your screens with different users, you had to logout and login manually. This was cumbersone and not productive. With VisionX 2.0 it'll be possible to switch the user with two mouse clicks:

Switch user

It's the next step to enhance productivity.

First of all, a big welcome for our new JVx commiters Robert and Thomas
Both have successfully solved their first tickets and are now part of the community.

Two of their tickets were number 1 and 2 and they were special because they were created in October 2009.

The other curious thing is that the last created JVx ticket had number 999 and the next ticket will be #1000
This is a coincidence.

We are looking forward to the next 1000 Tickets.

It's great to have you in the community!

We think it's time to say goodbye to JVx and it's sub projects!

Because of the growing number of UI independent frameworks we think it's time to focus on new challenges. In the last months we worked hard to develop the last JVx release. The version number is now 2.0 and it is our last release.

We had some discussions with partners and developers about the future of JVx and we decided to move over to Eclipse RCP. It absolutely makes sense because the codebase of Eclipse RCP is very clear and the technology is easy to learn. There is enough documentation and the platform is well known.

We migrated all our projects to Eclipse RCP and are very happy with the results because everything is now based on Maven and we now have well organized sub projects. Instead of one small project we now have one Maven module project, a client, a server and a business logic project. The build customization is so comfortable and build scripts are now extremely short.

There's only one thing left to say: Thanks for your support!

Our application is available in the AppStore for your iOS devices. It's an open source application. The whole source code is available on SorceForge. The application itself is a client application for JVx applications. Its your custom ERP in the pocket. Simply manage your customer records, wherever you are. Use one client for all your JVx applications. If you are VisionX user, it's very easy to customize your applications for your mobile device because VisionX has built-in support for it.

The Preview app has one limitation: It only shows one screen.
We'll release a version without this limitation a little bit later.

The Preview client should be the first choice for VisionX users because it's free. If you need full functionality, we'll offer a client without limitations and customized to your needs.

Today we've some great news for you!

Our upcoming Release of VisionX will support jar signing.

Global keys

App keys

Jar signing?

This is a long story, but in short: Since latest JDK 1.7 releases, Oracle introduced a new "security feature". The new feature is available via Java ControlPanel, Security tab. There are different security options like Medium, High, Very high. If you're using default setting (high) it's not possible to start Applets in your Web browser or JNLP applications via Webstart. If you change the default setting to medium, it'll be possible to start applets and JNLP applications but a big warning dialog will appear. This dialog contains a lot of security information and bold red letters. Red is always a bad color for users, because it stands for danger.

This new security feature made it impossible to use VisionX' (Java in Broser) live application preview, because no one changed the default security.

We tried to find some workarounds but didn't find a real solution. The best choice was jar signing support directly via VisionX, but end-user capable.

The bad news: It was hard work

The good news: It's working!

VisionX will contain a self-signed Java certificate per default. No worries, you can add your custom/official certificates!
The default certificate is only for application tests and should never be used for productive applications.

Sign information

It won't be possible to use Applets or JNLP Webstart applications with current and upcoming JREs without signing. So the only chance for VisionX was a self-singed certificate.

Our next release of VisionX will contain support for custom AddOns.

What is an AddOn?

It's like a plugin, module, extension, ...
An AddOn can extend VisionX with custom libraries, custom configuration files, custom templates.
It configures YOUR VisionX.

One example is a custom application template. Create your own application and extend new applications from your own template. Use custom Login screens, custom background images and custom security managers. Everything will be possible with AddOns.

A new screen will be available for AddOn management:

AddOns

The feature already is available in our automatic builds!

We made some smaller changes to VisionX that supports developers in their daily work. The first improvement is that database connection messages will be developer friendly (original message) instead of user-friendly (simple language). It'll be easier to debug VisionX applications because we've added debug information to included Open Source projects like JVx, JVx.vaadin, ...

VisionX enterprise comes with source code of our Open Source projects like JVx and JVx.vaadin. The source code matches the binary versions, used in VisionX, and a developer has exactly the same code to debug problems. It was possible to get the source code from our sourceforge project site, but you didn't know the exact revision.

We've also added VisionX API jar and javadoc archives to enterprise VisionX. That makes it easier to develop modules or AddOns (will be a new feature in upcoming releases).