We got a page in the current edition of FRESH VIEW on technologies.

Read the whole article - it is available in English and Chinese.

Today, we updated our VisionX Beta installation to the current version. It contains many performance improvements - Be surprised

The short list:

• VisionX works now on MacOS X (Snow Leopard)
• Clipboard support for JREs >= 1.6.0 u24
• Drop only database objects and/or the database user
• MetaData caching
• Application loading without additional server requests
• Screen locking - prevents simultaneous editing of the same screen
• German/English translation upates
• Bugfixes

All test systems were resetted. Let's create applications with amazing new features!

The reset was necessary because we changed the project structure and a migration in the current product stage is not funny.

Thanks to all VisionX users. We collected a lot of performance data because of your use. With this, we were able to reduce some bottlenecks.

Now, an application starts without delays and the designer opens a screen without additional remote calls.

Our next optimization concerns the remote calls of data objects. There are savings in the range of seconds. This optimization will be done directly in JVx and because of this, JVx developers will love it

Today we installed the first update for VisionX. It contains many improvements, based on our user feedbacks.

A short list:

• The screen creation with large spreadsheets (> 200 columns) works now
• DB Specification does not show empty tags anymore
• Show icons for user tables/views and system tables/views
• We fixed some translations
• Added a workaround for JRE >= 1.6.22 html formatting problems
• Color selection for GroupPanels is now supported

We fixed a lot of smaller problems and started with performance tuning. Now we have enough data to reduce bottlenecks. We send too many requests especially during design mode switching, but that was important to find where it makes sense to optimize.

Stay tuned.

Today is a great day for us! We launch VisionX as public beta.

VisionX is available as installation in the cloud, even if it was not yet fully optimized for the Cloud. Some options could still be better adapted to the Cloud, but VisionX is not only a cloud tool. It is designed for Intranets or desktop PCs too.

The launched version allows application creation, screen design with a great visual designer, database object creation, help and specification creation. It is possible to export an application as eclipse project and import an external application archive into VisionX. The installation on remote application servers is also available. But of course, we have some limitations and not implemented features.

The caching is completely disabled because we want to gather real-world performance data. Because of that, VisionX needs some extra time after login, the application start or during visual design. But the performance is still quite acceptable.

Some important features like search/filter, actions, edit menus, user management are still in development and are disabled. We will activate the disabled features in the course of the coming weeks.

Use the registration form to get access to VisionX.

We look forward to your feedback

Today I have some links to frameworks or news which sounds great or are very useful:

• Ace Cloude Editor

  If we don't find a Cloud IDE for VisionX, it would be possible to use a great code editor. Additional we need a sort of tree for our source files and the first step is done.

• UnQL

  That sounds great and makes JVx storage creation easier.

• Angular

  Not very popular, but creates clean pages and is very simple to use.

It is available from the project page.

This version should be the last beta before release 1.0, but we changed our plan a little bit. VisionX starts the open beta phase in the next weeks and we want release VisionX 1.0 with JVx 1.0. Because of that, we extend the beta phase for JVx. The current beta of JVx is almost production ready but does not contain all features for 1.0.
A short delay should not be a problem for you, and our beta releases are always in high quality.

What’s different?

The current beta contains some very useful productivity features and a lot of important changes in our database access layer.

• AbstractBean serialization

  Our AbstractBean is an instance of Map and because of that we serialized objects as Map. That worked well but produced a ClassCastException when you tried to cast the serialized object to the wrong type. Now it is clean!

• StackTrace manipulation

  Stack Trace Elements of SecurityExceptions are now shrinked, because it is not clever to show all details on the client. If you need the whole Stack Trace, enable debug logging for AbstractSecurityManager.

• Live config

  In production use, a Master session caches the application configuration and changes are not considered until you create a new Master connection. If you need up-to-date sessions, you have now an option. Add:

  <liveconfig>true</liveconfig>

  to your server config.xml.

• Virtual Filesystem support

  Versions prior 1.0 beta-3 have deployment restrictions for some application servers. JVx works without problems with all application servers but e.g. JBoss uses two different deploment modes. As application archive (.war) or "exploded". If you tried to install a JVx application as war, you had the problem that config files were not found. The problem does not occur if you install the application "exploded". With the current beta, the problem is solved and JVx applications work as war or "exploded".

• Openness

  We introduced a new ISession implementation called DetachedSession. With this Session it is possible to work "outside" the JVx lifecycle. You can create a DetachedSession from a Servlet, a Filter or wherever you want. All you need is the application name. The session has its own SecurityManager and allows fast username switching. You need at least one DetachedSession for your external services. Thats saves time and memory.

  The AbstractSecurityManager got new methods to create SecurityManagers for any ISession or just for an application name. You can now use the JVx authentication mechanism for you third party services, without much coding effort.

  Furthermore, our DBSecurityManager allows connection access. Use the connection of the security manager to save connections.

  A practical example for above changes is the integration of REST services, with or without authentication. Now it is enough to create a new DetachedSession and use the configured security manager to authenticate clients, e.g.:

  DetachedSession sess = new DetachedSession("demo");

  DBSecurityManager secman = (DBSecurityManager)sess.getSecurityManager();

  sess.setUserName("jvx");
  sess.setPassword("beta-3");
  secman.validateAuthentication(sess);

  sess.setUserName("visionx");
  sess.setPassword("v1.0");
  secman.validateAuthentication(sess);

  Connection con = secman.getConnection();
  //Execute queries

• Database access

  We fixed some problems with PK, FK and UK detection for all supported databases. Now our automatic link cell editors work without database restrictions.

Check the Changelog for a complete list, and use our Forum to talk with us

Our VisionX is not an IDE, it is designed for end-users. Of course, everything in VisionX is Source Code driven, but that is behind the scenes. Application Source Code is not relevant for end-users but very important for developers. An application export/import is included in VisionX and because of that a developer can work with preferred IDEs. But sometimes it would be great to change the application source code without IDE, direct in the browser.

There are some first attempts available in the web, for Cloud IDEs. Our favourite ones are

• Orion

  It is an Eclipse project and tries to bring some parts of Eclipse to the browser. Currently it does not support Java development because its focus lays on Javascript. A big advantage is that you can download Orion and install it on your own Server.

• Cloud-IDE

  It is currently in a closed beta phase, but the feature list looks very powerful. It supports Java development and looks like Eclipse light.

• Others

  There are a lot of other Cloud IDEs e.g. Bespin, Cloud9 IDE, Coderun Studio, Kodingen, ... But they have no support for Java.

For VisionX it is important that a Cloud IDE supports Java. Currently only Cloud-IDE has support for it. Let's see how things evolve.

We don't plan our own IDE for VisionX applications because there is no market for another IDE. But we plan to integrate VisionX into other IDEs and/or support Cloud IDEs.

I'm sure that most of you have heard from Cloudbees. It is the first Platform as a Service that lets companies build, test and deploy Java web applications in the cloud.

There is a SDK, a plugin for Eclipse and a lot of useful tools. Sounds interesting but everything is for software developers.

We thought that it would be nice if we bring the cloud to end users instead of developers. Now, if you think we are crazy, then I would say: "...yeah, and it feels great".

We added support for Cloudbees in VisionX. Create your database apps for the cloud, without IT know how and with a tool that runs in the cloud. Sounds even crazier?

Are you curious now?
Watch the Video

We have a cool new JVx feature for all developers! It has always bothered us that the Link Cell Editors are not visible in the tables. You don't see the difference between date/text/number and link cell editors. Now you see the difference!

I hope you find the difference in the following screenshot

Link Cell Editor mark

The new feature is available with JVx 1.0 beta 3 or in our source repository.