We've added a new feature to our model. It's an additional search row. The row is invisible per default, but you can show the row if you need/want it. With this additional row visible, your tables automatically will show a search row like this:

New search row

We use the search row with background color green, in our applications. The feature will be available with next nightly build and it's already available in our repository.

It will be possible to en-/disable the search row with VisionX via Customizer:

En-/Disable search

This new feature is a must-have for all Oracle Forms users because this is a replacement for Enter-Query Mode.

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:

Do you use a Vaadin application as portlet with e.g. Liferay and does your application create generic downloads (e.g. reports)?

If you want to download generic/dynamically created files from a portlet, you don't have too many options. You could use the FileDownloader extension or you could open a new window with the file resource. But both options are not perfect. The FileDownloader has to be connected to a clickable component e.g. a button and the new window won't be closed automatically (browser dependent). The FileDownloader is a good solution (see recommendations) but it triggers the download from the browser via user interaction. If you have dynamic UIs or if you can't use a FileDownloader because you need a more generic solution, then you could have a problem?

Our JVx Vaadin UI implementation is very dynamic and a developer doesn't use native vaadin components (until he needs to do). The FileDownloader didn't work for us because of UI abstraction. But we have a solution that might help you as well. Its comparable to FileDownloader but it's not user driven.

Simply use our extension with your UI:

The extension is not limited to UI but one Downloader per application is enough.

The source code is available in our repository.

Hello everybody. 1st April is over and no worries, we won't stop JVx

Today is a great day because I'm very happy to announce JVx - version 2.0.

It's an awesome release because JVx 2 contains so many new productivity features. It's still a small codebase and the quality is very high. We made a big step forward and want to show you some details.

First of all, the LoC analysis. Here are some very interesting numbers for you:

This time, we broke the mark of 100.000 LoC (112.507). We thought it would be possible with 1.0 but now it happened! Our code is still well documented with about 42% of the LoC.

Some additional numbers:

Files and Tests

JVx library source files   501 Swing UI source files   132 Test source files   109 Total   742

Still a small codebase and still very easy to maintain.

Unit tests (no UI, without manual perf. tests)   592 Class coverage (without UI)   78% Method coverage (without UI)   66%

TOP 10 classes

This is amazing because we have so many features and so less code. I think our quality standards have been met!

And last but not least, a short overview of new features:

• New metadata cache

  The caching mechanism is now a real killer feature. No ORM library or any other DB API has a similar technique. JVx is unique in this area. What we do? We reduce database calls and requests. We have different cache levels like Global, per Session or per Connection. The cache is a learning cache and your application will be super fast in production mode.

• Improved Constraints check

  Our linked cell editors (comboboxes, drop-downs) now shows columns from tables referenced via Foreign keys. Now the master table shows columns from tables referenced with Foreign keys. And also the resulting comboboxes show columns from referenced tables. If you have a clean database model, simple use your master table and the GUI is ready. If your database model isn't as clean as it could be, simply define your references with our APIs.

• Cache mode for Security Managers

  Before JVx 2, a security manager was cached globally per application. Every session was checked with the same security manager. With JVx 2.0 it's possible to have a security manager per client. Every client could have its own security manager instance.

• Focus listener support

  This is not rocket-science but important for all kind of UIs. Now JVx has support for it.

• IController and IControllable

  This is completely new because it allows data navigation with centralized controls. Read more.

• NO more session blocking

  Before JVx 2 the server implementation blocked simultanuous calls via DefaultObjectProvider. This wasn't a real problem for Desktop applications and with few users but it was in Web environments - especially with our Vaadin UI - or with e.g 500 users. This blocking is gone.

• Session isolation

  Usually, a session has a specific Life-cycle object with business objects and actions. Such Life-cycle objects have direct access to the MasterSession of an application for convenience. If you want Life-cycle objects without access to the MasterSession this is the right feature for you.

• New layout: UIGridLayout

  The layout is row/column oriented like good old AWT GridLayout.

• Super-lazy-loading

  If you use down and up keys to navigate in tables with details, you'll be surprised. The standard lazy-loading mechanism loads data in blocks and on-demand. If you had master/detail relations in your screens this wasn't enough because every master record change did load the detail records. With JVx 2. this will happen if you release the down or up key. This is a nice productivity feature.

• CheckBox CellEditor

  We now support "real" Checkboxes as cell editor. Our choice cell editor is image based and it doesn't support LaFs. Of course, with the right images it might look like a native Checkbox. Now you can use native Checkboxes. We recommend the choice cell editor for columns with multiple possible values, e.g. Yes, No, null. The Checkbox only has two states Yes or No.

• MetaData customization

  With JVx 2.0 it's possible to set/change MetaData per Storage, e.g. add a Primary Key.

The list is not complete but shows biggest changes and all details are available in the Changelog.

Please download JVx 2 and send us your Feedback.

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.

Our upcoming release of JVx - version 2.0 will provide a nice new feature. It's a special record navigation for databooks. If you know Oracle Forms applications you should know what I'm talking about. For all others, a snippet from an Oracle Froms application:

Oracle Forms Navigation

We'll support similar navigation via JVx for our databooks without changing your whole application:

JVx Navigation

To support this old-school record Navigation, we introduced two new interfaces (IController and IControllable). If you need more details, read the Feature Request.

You should know that your existing applications won't change automatically. JVx has full support for new navigation but doesn't implement a UI for it. If you want to use it, you have to add your own controls like:

In your application init method:

And that's all you need. Don't change your screens or your UI controls. Everything will work out-of-the-box.

The event receiver should be an instance of javax.rad.application.genui.ControllerContent. Our Application javax.rad.application.genui.Application and javax.rad.application.genui.WorkScreen are ControllerContents. So it's very easy to use existing actions. All available actions are defined and implemented in ControllerContent, like

If you want to know the current state of an action command, simply ask:

If you want a different handling than already implement, simply overwrite the method

and do whatever you want, e.g. hide buttons instead of disabling:

No worries, we still prefer record navigation directly on the UI control:

Control Navigation

because it's easier for end-users to find the right buttons.
But especially Oracle Forms users will love the new Feature

First of all, we don’t have JVx 2.0 for you. We planned it for 2013 but it wasn’t possible to finish everything.

We made some smart design decisions and put more time in our vaadin UI (especially push support) and our Liferay integration. Especially LR integration is now incredibly good. We support Live Preview of work-screens without deployment. It makes developers happy!

Sorry for the delay, but we have some nice extra features for 2.0 in the queue like buffer caching for queries.
Our plan is that JVx 2.0 will be released together with VisionX 2.0. This will happen in Q1/2014.

But don’t be sad. We have a new JVx release for you. It’s 1.2.1 (see Changelog). We also have Vaadin UI 1.1 for you (see Changelog).

VaadinUI 1.1 was built with vaadin 7.1.7. The current vaadin version is 7.1.9. We'll update to the latest vaadin with vaadin UI 1.2.

Both releases will be available on 24.12.

Merry christmas

Our vaadin UI implementation is ready for Liferay portals because vaadin has built-in support for portlets and we added some magic to our UI implementation. With our last integration project we made it possible to run a JVx screen without changes as Liferay portlet. It was amazing but there was a limitation to one screen. It wasn't possible to open screens from the portlet itself, because we didn't implement this feature.

With our current implementation, we support whole applications running as portlet. It's possible to open other screens directly from your portlet. It's also possible to navigate between screens but with full JVx security mechanism (which is directly connected to Liferay security). Now it's really amazing:

We have two screenshots for you. The first shows the embedded variant with two opened screens, but only one screen is visible. It's possible to navigate between screens via navigation links. The second one shows the window variant. Every new screen will be opened as separate window.

Screen embedded

Screen as window

We fully support Vaadin' push support with current JVx *nightly* builds (see JVx with vaadin UI and server-side push). We had some problems with manual push mode because of some strange implementations of atmosphere in vaadin. We found a better solution to be independent of vaadin changes (should work with 7.1.8 and later).

No we automatically push if you use standard threads or threads, created via VaadinFactory. It's also possible to use JVx' callback mechanism for push operations. If you won't use threads in your client application, simply make an async server call. The server implementation automatically starts a new thread and executes the task. The server will notify the client after the task is finished. This is a little bit strange because client and server run on the application server, if you use our vaadin UI. If your JVx client retrieves the result of an async call, it will automatically push the results to the vaadin client. This makes the whole application very smart and live.

It's very easy to work with async calls in JVx. Simply use a callback listener:

The server method in Session LCO:

We didn't change JVx' APIs to support vaadin push. It works behind the scenes and we simply love it.

Use our nightly builds to see how it works.