WaveMaker 8.2.0 - Release date: 7 June 2016
Here is a summary of key features, known issues and bug fixes offered in 8.2 Release.
Highlights
WaveMaker Material Design Theme
Material theme has been introduced to align with Android Material Design. This theme will be used by default for all newly created apps. It allows for a unified experience for responsive apps, across platforms and device sizes.
Variable Management
- Live/Service variables will no longer be auto-generated at the time of import/creation of database or backend services.
- Live and Service variables will now be created on-demand at the time of widget binding, i.e. on drag and drop of Data and Live widgets.
- Live/Service Variables generated on-demand will be Page-scoped as opposed to application-scoped, as in the previous releases.
DataGrid export to Excel/CSV (in beta)
Export of data to Excel and/or CSV formats is now enabled for Datagrid widget. Export data property from the advanced settings of Datag**rid** can be used to enable the export of data to CSV or Excel formats.
For availing this feature in existing apps, the DB needs to be re-imported.
Wizard Widget (in Beta)
New Wizard widget can now be used for configuring multi-step form processing. Breaking down a large form into a wizard with multiple simpler steps enhances user experience for WaveMaker-built applications.
Updates to Live Form
Hint Message and Validation Message properties can be configured for Live Form fields. Hint message will be shown as help text below the input field in the form when inserting data or on focus. Validation messages will be shown right below the input field on validation error, on moving out of the input field.
Widget property for Live Form fields can now be set to autocomplete. This feature can be used to improve the user experience by supplying hints or a list of possible choices based on the text they’ve entered while filling a form. This options list can be obtained from the bound data sources, similar to the Search widget.
Single sign-on support using CAS (in Beta)
Central Authentication Service (CAS) provides single sign-on support for WaveMaker applications. Using CAS you can integrate with Authentication providers like LDAP, Active Directory etc. for identity and provides a unified login for all apps.
Passing Data between Pages
WaveMaker apps are single HTML pages with multiple page-like views, these are not physical HTML pages like JSP or PHP. To pass data between WaveMaker Pages in the previous releases, App-Scoped variables were used.
Passing data between multiple pages is now simplified with the introduction of Page Parameters.
Navigation Variables have been enhanced to handle the parameter data. This data will be passed as URL parameter.
Virtual Primary Key support in Database
Virtual Primary Key has been introduced to handle the situations where the database table does not define a primary key at the schema.
Composite or Single Virtual Primary Key will be used within the WaveMaker to enforce integrity constraints without having to change the database schema. The original database schema remains untouched, even after Update DB. This will ensure that the APIs are clear.
DB2 Database Import
You can now import DB2 Database and use them within your WaveMaker app.
Enhancements
Performance enhancements
Reduction in app load times
- Implemented on-demand loading of the component libraries to improve the first time page load performance of the application. The following component libraries are lazily included only when the widgets are rendered for the first time – Charts, Calendar and richTextEditor widgets.
- Optimised jQuery-UI library by removing unwanted components.
Reduction in app or page rendering times
- Page-scoped variables instead of app-scoped variables reduces the number of data fetch calls, thus reducing app run-times.
- Removing/deprecating widget style properties that are unused/unsupported also helps rendering times. Note: In existing projects using these properties though they are not visible in the properties panel, they will appear in the markup.
- A lighter Calendar widget has been implemented.
Usability enhancements Usability enhancements helps simplify the configuration of Tabs/Accordion widgets.
Live List Live List items can be grouped based upon the time/date fields. using the following grouping options – hour, day, week, month, year. For these options, group heading can be formatted using date format property.
- Google Maps Prefab has been enhanced to include onMarkerclick, onMarkerhover events for the display of additional information regarding the marker points on the map. #docs
- Widgets added to Form and Live Form will generate form field markup instead of composite widget. Similarly for Live Filter these will be generated in filter field markup. These widgets will show up in advanced settings as custom fields.
- Datagrid enhancements (#docs):
- Row Actions on Editable Grid (custom and default of edit & delete) can be configured for events, class, icon class, title, caption, security and show properties,
- Position of the row actions column in the Datagrid can be configured
- Actions column in Datagrid can be configured using ‘Actions layout’ section in advanced settings. Properties that can be configured include Column position, width, and class.
- onLoad event for the following widgets has been exposed – Container, Popover, Panel, Accordion, Tabs, and Page Dialog widgets. This event will be triggered after the partial page within these widgets gets loaded. Note: to access a partial page’s Widgets/Variables from the parent page script on page load, the container’s onLoad function should be used.
Bug Fixes
- The issue involving variable having start update not displaying the data has been fixed.
- Validation for Switch widget has been enabled.
- Issue with Live Form field, when bound to float type query param, not accepting decimal values has been resolved.
- Issue with multiple role assignment to single a user in security dialog has been addressed.
- Now, current role assignments to a user is displayed.
- Foreign keys, once assigned a value from select options, was not allowing to be set back to null values. This issue has been fixed.
- Now, variable data can be bound to the default value from search widget.
- Binding issue with progress bar has been addressed.
- Read only property on Date widget when default value bound to the widget is now working.
- Variable list in security dialog drop down is now in sorted order.
- Database with table names as reserve words can now be imported.
- Issue with place holder not getting set as blank for Live Form and Live Filter has been fixed.
- Issue with grid columns not showing comma separated values when format type is set as “toNumber” has been fixed.
- Checkbox in live form not honouring checked and unchecked values has been resolved.
- Security can now be enabled for grid buttons.
- Partial pages are now part of login configuration.
Known Issues
- Export of Datagrid data to Excel/CSV format:
- Export of Datagrid with boolean fields will fail
- Export of data is restricted to 100 records only.
- In a Live List widget, Select First Item property is not working when Group By fields are set. This issue will be addressed in the future releases.
- Token generation for Active Directory and Custom security is failing and will be fixed soon.
- For existing projects, search widget bound to a live variable might not work as expected. This issue will be addressed in future releases, in the meantime a Re-import of the database will fix the problem.
Technology Stack
UI Framework
| Description | JS Library | Version |
|---|---|---|
| JS Binding | jquery | 2.2.3 |
| jquery-ui* | 1.11.4 | |
| MVC Framework | angular | 1.5.5 |
| angular-ui-bootstrap | 1.3.2 | |
| Editor | ace-editor | 1.2.2 |
| Styles | bootstrap | 3.3.6 |
| Charting | d3 | 3.5.17 |
| nvd3 | 1.8.3 | |
| CORS support, prefabs | xdomain | 0.7.5 |
| Built-in functions | lodash | 4.12.0 |
| Device support, gestures | hammerjs | 2.0.8 |
*Optimised jQuery-UI library excluding unwanted components like accordion, datepicker, dialog, progressbar, spinner, tabs, and all jQuery-UI Effects.
Back-end Frameworks
| Description | Java Library | Version |
|---|---|---|
| Spring Framework | 4.2.o | |
| Security framework | Spring Security | 3.2.3 |
| Java JSON utilities | Gson | 2.2.4 |
| DB Persistence library | Hibernate | 4.3.11 |
| Sample database | HSQL | 2.3.3 |
| JSON library | Jackson | 2.6.3 |
| Logging framework | SLF4j | 1.7.12 |
| Http client library | HttpComponents | client-4.3.3, core-4.3.2, mime-4.2.5 |
| REST API annotations | Swagger | 1.3.10 |
| Logging framework | Log4j | 1.2.17 |
Run Time Environment
| Description | Version |
|---|---|
| JDK | 7.0 |
| Tomcat | 6.0 |