Version @version@ built on @builddate@.
Release Notes for Vaadin @version@
Vaadin @version@ is the first release of Vaadin, the next generation of the framework formerly known as IT Mill Toolkit. The major release includes a number of enhancements to IT Mill Toolkit 5.4, along with many bug fixes. The most significant additions are:
- Vaadin Plugin for the Eclipse IDE
- Preview version of a WYSIWYG Editor (under Eclipse)
Some other notable changes:
- State (caption, hidden, disabled) of a tab in a TabSheet is no longer bound to the contained component, though the initial state is obtained from the component (#2914).
- FieldFactory has been split into FormFieldFactory and TableFieldFactory, both containing a single method (#2956, #2499).
- The Form component previously called two methods in FieldFactory. Now it always calls only one in FormFieldFactory
- Panel and Window can now contain a ComponentContainer as the "root layout" (previously only Layout) (#2921). This should not require changes to user code.
The first three changes are not backward-compatible with IT Mill Toolkit 5.4.
Instructions for Upgrading from IT Mill Toolkit 5
While the Vaadin 6 API is otherwise mostly backward-compatible with IT Mill Toolkit 5.4, the change of the product name has made it necessary to reflect it in the Java package names, some name prefixes, and some other details.
Server-side Upgrade Instructions
- Java Package names have changed:
- In all Java files using IT Mill Toolkit, rename package prefix com.itmill.toolkit → com.vaadin
- You also need to update the web.xml deployment descriptor:
- The servlet class is now com.vaadin.terminal.gwt.server.ApplicationServlet.
- Changes in themes:
- Rename WebContent/ITMILL → WebContent/VAADIN
- If you have extracted the built-in themes and widgetsets in IT Mill Toolkit JAR to the folder to have them served statically by the server, remove the old content and re-extract from Vaadin JAR.
- This may require changes to build scripts for custom widgetsets, as well as to any code that relies on the old naming (it is discouraged but possible).
- The new "reindeer" theme is the default theme in Vaadin; the old "default" theme in IT Mill Toolkit 5 has been renamed as "runo"
- There is no longer a theme with name "default"
- In your custom theme, replace:
@import "../default/styles.css"; → @import "../reindeer/styles.css"; if you wish to use the new default theme, or → @import "../runo/styles.css"; if you wish to use the old default theme. - Use the new default theme with setTheme("reindeer") and the old one with setTheme("runo").
- CSS class names now start with "v-" prefix instead of "i-"
- Search and replace ".i-" → ".v-" in custom themes
- Embedding Vaadin applications in web pages:
- The name of the JavaScript variable used for launching applications has changed from "itmill.toolkitConfigurations" → "vaadin.vaadinConfigurations"
Client-side Upgrade Instructions
The following changes are relevant only if you have developed or integrated custom client-side widgets with Google Web Toolkit (GWT).
- GWT 1.6 is required for compiling custom widgets (optional)
- You need to upgrade GWT
- The GWT Compiler class name has changed:
- Replace com.google.gwt.dev.GWTCompiler → com.google.gwt.dev.Compiler in your widget set build script (Ant) or launch configuration (Eclipse).
- Possible problems when building widgetset using Windows and JDK 1.5. See Known Problems #2891 below.
- The "I" (IT Mill) prefix in client-side widget classes has been changed to "V" (Vaadin), for example: IButton → VButton.
- Rename IToolkitOverlay → VOverlay
Package for the experimental GWT Out-of-Process Hosted Mode
We provide a separate (platform independent) installation package
(vaadin-oophm-
The Linux version of GWT Hosted Mode Browser is no longer compatible with Vaadin (#2299), so the OOPHM is the only option for debugging in hosted mode in Linux.
The compilation of OOPHM widget sets uses a large amount of stack memory, so if the JVM default is too small, you should set it explicitly in compile-widgetset.xml with the following parameter for the Java process (currently included in the example build script): <jvmarg value="-Xss1024k"/>.
As the OOPHM package is experimental, you should use it only for debugging purposes during development. For production use, you should compile your custom widget sets with the regular Vaadin package for your platform.
Important known problems in Vaadin @version@
- #1155 Uncompressing the installation package fails in Windows if using the default Zip uncompression. Uncompression gives (in Windows Vista) an error message about too long filenames, and a more obscure message in other versions of Windows. Workaround: use 7-Zip or some other good unzip program for Windows.
- #2299 The Hosted Mode Browser does not work in Linux for debugging client-side GWT code. You need to install the experimental OOPHM package instead (see above) for development. For production, you should use the regular package for Linux.
-
#2891 As there is a bug in J2SE 5.0 that prevents setting the stack size for the main thread, widgetsets cannot be compiled using the standard GWT compiler of GWT 1.6 and JDK 1.5.0 (see #2656 for more details on the JDK bug). This bug primarily affects Windows users as other operating systems have a larger default stack size.
Before that fix is available in a published GWT version, we provide a wrapper for the GWT compiler that runs the compiler in a separate thread, thus using the user-specified stack size settings also on JDK 1.5.0. Use com.itmill.toolkit.launcher.WidgetsetCompiler instead of com.google.gwt.dev.Compiler. You need the wrapper if you use a build script to compile custom widget sets; the Eclipse plugin uses the wrapper automatically. You can also avoid the problem by using JDK 1.6.
For other known problems, see open tickets at developer site dev.itmill.com.
Requirements
Vaadin is available for the following operating systems:
- Windows (see the Zip installation notice above)
- Linux
- Mac OS X Tiger (mac) or Leopard (leopard)
- Other UNIX operating systems, such as Sun Solaris, using the installation package for Linux.
Vaadin supports Java Servlet API 2.3 and later versions and should work with any Java application server that conforms to the standard. It supports the following application servers:
- Apache Tomcat, version 4.1 or later
- BEA WebLogic® Server, version 9.2 or later
- IBM WebSphere® Application Server, version 6.1 or later
- JBoss Application Server, version 3.2.8 or later
- Jetty, version 5 or later
- Glassfish, version 2 or later
Vaadin supports the following browsers for using the applications made with it:
- Mozilla Firefox release 3
- Internet Explorer releases 6, 7, and 8
- Safari 3
- Opera 9.6
The support for browsers follows the support by GWT. The browsers are supported on both Windows and Mac, if available. Firefox is supported also on Linux (Opera 10a1 works also on Linux though also suffers from #2652). There may be differences between the exact versions of the supported browsers that may cause incompatibility with applications made with Vaadin.
The following browsers are not supported but have been found to work to a large degree:
- Safari 2, and 4 beta
- Firefox 2
- Google Chrome 1.0.x (available only for Windows)
- iPhone (firmware 2.2)
- Midori (0.1.2)
- Epiphany (2.22.3), Galeon, and other Gecko-based browsers. Also WebKit-based Epiphany (2.22.3) works.
- Konqueror 4.2 (3.5.x does not work)
- Nokia Internet Tablet N800 and N810 (ITOS 2008, Opera-based browser).
The reported versions are those that have been tested, though other versions may work as well.
Nokia E-series phones, such as E90, have been known to work with older versions, but not with Vaadin 6. Links, Lynx, and other text-based browsers do not work.