Spring Blog

Dear Spring Community,

We are pleased to announce that Spring IDE v1.2 has been released.

Version 1.2 is a port to Eclipse 3 with a bunch of bugfixes. For a complete list of bugfixes included
visit http://springide.org/project/milestone/Release%201.2

Changes:

• Ported to Eclipse 3.0


• Added support for Eclipse 3.1M7


• Updated to Spring v1.2


• Refactored
  generic stuff (e.g. model, project nature + action, incremental project
  builder, …) into separate plugins
  (org.springframework.ide.eclipse.core and
  org.springframework.ide.eclipse.ui)


• add change notification and visitor support to generic model


• beans model now extends generic model defined in new plugin org.springframework.ide.eclipse.beans.core


• all jars moved from org.springframework.ide.eclipse.beans.core to new plugin org.springframework.ide.eclipse.core

On this lucky Friday the 13th, we are pleased to announce that Spring 1.2 final has just been released.

(Thanks to Juergen for doing the packaging and his usual coding heroics). 

The major new features since 1.2 RC2 are:

• TopLink support (for both TopLink 9.0.4 and 10.1.3)


• JDO 2.0 support (tested against JPOX 1.1 beta 3)


• Hibernate 3.0.3 support (aggressive release of Connections)

The overall major new features of Spring 1.2 are:

• finer-grained distribution jar files


• simplified XML bean definitions


• JMX support


• JDK 1.5 transaction annotation


• support for WebLogic JTA extensions


• JDBC RowSet support


• JCA CCI support


• JDO2 support


• Hibernate3 support


• TopLink support

We are pleased to announce that Spring Modules 0.1 has just been released.

Downloads can be found at: http://springmodules.dev.java.net.

This release includes:

• Integration with HiveMind, allowing for HiveMind services to be exposed as Spring beans
• Spring-style integration classes for JSR-94 rules engines such as Jess and Drools
• Spring-style configuration for OSWorkflow
• Integration classes for Commons Validator (taken from Spring sandbox)

The HiveMind and Commons Validator support classes
are considered to be stable and ready for use in production.
Modifications to the JavaScripthandling in Commons Validator will
appear in 0.2.

We’re pleased to announce that Spring 1.2 RC2 has just been released.





This release introduces one major new feature:

• support for JCA’s Common Client Interface (CCI), including support for CCI local transactions

• deprecated ListableBeanFactory’s getBeanDefinitionNames(type)", in favor of "getBeanNamesForType"
  
  
  
• added "value"/"value-ref" shortcut attributes to XML "entry" tag for maps
  
  
  
• added "alias" root element for XML bean definition files, for aliases for beans in other files
  
  

  
  
  

• JdbcAccessor lazily initializes the SQLExceptionTranslator by default now
  
  
  
• added further configuration options to LocalSessionFactoryBean for Hibernate3
  
  
  
• added "defaultDestinationName" property to JmsTemplate, for a dynamic default destination
  
  

  
  
  

• refined Resource support for compatibility with JDK 1.3’s classic VM and with JRockit’s jar paths
  
  
  
• refactored static PathMatcher class into PathMatcher interface and AntPathMatcher implementation
  
  
  
• added ConfigurableMimeFileTypeMap, with extensive MIME type mappings out-of-the-box
  
  

  
  
  

• added "context.i18n" package, with LocaleContext abstraction and global LocaleContextHolder
  
  
  
• DispatcherServlet exposes the current LocaleResolver through the global LocaleContextHolder
  
  
  
• added RemoteInvocationTraceInterceptor, logging remote calls and exceptions on the server
  
  

  
  
  

• updated JasperReports support for JR 0.6.6, using JRDefaultCompiler as default report compiler
  
  
  
• reworked AbstractJasperReportsView to work on JasperPrint instance rather than JasperReport instance
  
  
  
• added support for reports with embedded SQL statements to AbstractJasperReportsView

We are pleased to announce the 2nd preview release of Spring Web Flow
for use with the Spring 1.2 release path.  This
stable-for-development-use release offers the following major new
features:

• Pluggable flow execution storage strategies, with out-of-the-box continuations support.  This means:
  • You now have the option to persist an executing flow’s state to any backing data store, including the HttpSession (the default), a database, serialized files, etc.
  • You can select to use a continuations based storage strategy, turning Spring Web Flow into a continuation-driven system providing proper browser navigational button behavior (back, next, refresh, and new window.) You can also choose between client-side or server-side continuation storage.  GZIP compression of flow execution state is also supported.
• Support for OGNL transition criteria, with a TransitionCriteriaCreator strategy for easily integrating other expression languages or custom transition expressions as needed.
• Portlet support, with the samples (Phonebook) illustrating Spring Web Flow in a portlet environment.
• Support for a ‘validatorMethod’ action state property, specifying a validation method to invoke, for use with a FormAction with a configured Validator instance (to support easy piecemeal validation within a wizard)
• Support for JDK 1.3.
• Samples (Phonebook) illustrating how to write integration tests to verify the expected behavior of your flows.
• Samples (Birthdate) illustrating Struts integration.
• A brand new sample app (Sell Item), illustrating a validating wizard using continuations (providing proper browser navigational button use!) and conditional transitions (using OGNL expressions!).

We are pleased to
announce a preview release of Spring Web Flow for use with the Spring
1.2 release path.  With this release, we consider the web flow
system fit for development use.




Contained in this release are new features we expect to take web
applications with demanding page flow requirements to the next
level.  These include:

• The ability to capture the logical
  page flows of
  your application as self-contained modules reusable in multiple
  situations.
• The ability to nest flows ‘n’ levels
  deep (as
  subflows), where each flow is a "black-box" adhering to a well-defined
  contract for input/output.
• The ability to express page flows
  declaratively,
  with a pluggable flow definition format (currently Java-based and
  XML-based builder formats are provided.)
• The ability to affect the path
  through a flow in a
  dynamic fashion by reasoning on contextual data in any supported scope.
  
• The ability to track and respond to
  the lifecycle
  of a page flow.
• Automatic state management with the
  ability to
  store model data in several scopes (event, request, flow)
• The ability to centralize related
  action logic
  associated with a flow in one class.
• Support for application transaction
  synchronization, using a token-based mechanism.
• No hard-wired dependency on HTTP
  servlet
  request/response or any request URL, for use in other environments like
  Portlets, JSF, and Tapestry.
  - An expired flow detector, for automatic cleanup of abandoned flows.
• Out of the box helper actions for
  form data binding
  and validation.
• Out of the box Struts 1.x
  integration (sample
  forthcoming.)
• Out of the box Spring MVC
  integration.
• Designed for extensibility, with
  well-documented
  plug-in points for customization (custom state types, custom flow
  builders, etc.)
   

It’s Spring time




We are pleased to announce that Spring 1.2 RC1 has just been released. This release introduces a number of major new features:

• finer-grained distribution jar files, alongside the full spring.jar
  
  
  
• AOP Alliance interfaces are now contained in spring-aop.jar and spring.jar
  
  

  
  
  

• XML bean definition improvements ("ref" and "value" shortcut attributes
  
  
  etc)
  
  
  
• improved AOP TargetSourceCreator mechanism (supporting
  
  
  LazyInitTargetSource too)
  
  

  
  
  

• transaction annotation support for JDK 1.5+ (annotation called
  
  
  "Transactional")
  
  
  
• improved WebLogicJtaTransactionManager (transaction names, isolation
  
  
  levels)
  
  

  
  
  

• SqlRowSet support for JDBC (in conjunction with JdbcTemplate’s
  
  
  "queryForRowSet")
  
  
  
• Hibernate3 support (in orm.hibernate3; Hibernate 2.1 support is still
  
  
  available)
  
  

  
  
  

• JMX support for export of Spring beans as managed resources and for MBean
  
  
  access
  
  
  
• Commons Attributes and JDK 1.5+ annotations for JMX MBean export
  
  

  
  
  This release also contains many minor enhancements, for example:
  
  

  
  
  

• factored out BindingErrorProcessor strategy for ServletRequestDataBinder
  
  
  
• improved ParameterMethodNameResolver for Web MVC MultiActionController

We are pleased to announce that Spring Framework 1.1.5 has just been released.





This is the last bug fix and minor enhancement release in the 1.1.x series,
featuring many minor improvements such as:

• added overloaded "reject" and rejectValue" methods without default message to Errors interface and BindException
  
  
  
• added "lookup(name, requiredType)" convenience method to JndiTemplate, matching the JNDI object against the given type
  
  
  
• added "homeInterface" property to AbstractRemoteSlsbInvokerInterceptor, for specifying the home interface to narrow to
  
  
  
• introduced MailMessage interface as common interface for SimpleMailMessage and JavaMail MIME messages
  
  
  
• Log4jConfigurer accepts a "classpath:" URL or a "file:" URL as location too, not just a plain file path
  
  
  
• Log4jConfigurer accepts config files that do not reside in the file system, as long as there is no refresh interval
  
  

  
  
  

• added "int[] batchUpdate(String[] sql)" method to JdbcTemplate, for executing a group of SQL statements as a batch
  
  
  
• added C3P0NativeJdbcExtractor for C3P0 0.8.5 or later (for earlier C3P0 versions, use SimpleNativeJdbcExtractor)
  
  
  
• added "maxRows" bean property to JdbcTemplate, allowing to specify the maximum number of rows to be fetched
  
  
  
• added "fetchSize" and "maxRows" bean properties to RdbmsOperation, passing the values to the internal JdbcTemplate
  
  
  
• added ClobStringTypeHandler, BlobByteArrayTypeHandler and BlobSerializableTypeHandler for iBATIS SQL Maps 2.0.9
  
  
  
• ResourceHolderSupport throws TransactionTimedOutException if no time-to-live left (before attempting an operation)
  
  
  
• TransactionSynchronization objects can influence their execution order through implementing the Ordered interface
  
  
  
• JtaTransactionManager is able to work with a JTA TransactionManager only (i.e. without a UserTransaction handle)
  
  

  
  
  

• upgraded MockHttpServletRequest to Servlet API 2.4 (added getRemotePort, getLocalName, getLocalAddr, getLocalPort)
  
  
  
• upgraded MockPageContext to JSP API 2.0 (added getExpressionEvaluator, getVariableResolver, overloaded include)
  
  
  
• added "contextOverride" option to ServletContextPropertyPlaceholderConfigurer, letting web.xml override local settings
  
  
  
• added "searchContextAttributes" option to
  ServletContextPropertyPlaceholderConfigurer, resolving context attributes
  
  
  
• added "clear" and "isEmpty" methods to ModelAndView, allowing to clear the view of a given ModelAndView object
  
  
  
• added JasperReportsMultiFormatView, allowing to specify the output format dynamically via a discriminator in the model
  
  
  
• JSP EL expressions in Spring’s JSP tags will be parsed with JSP 2.0 ExpressionEvaluator on JSP 2.0 (Jakarta JSTL else)
  
  
  
• changed "spring:transform" tag’s "value" attribute from String to Object, to allow for expressions resolved by JSP 2.0
  
  
  

We
are pleased to announce that Spring
Framework 1.1.4 has
just
been released. This is a bugfix and minor enhancement release in the
1.1 series.




Among the new
features are:

• added LazyInitTargetSource, lazily accessing a singleton from a BeanFactory (lazily initializing on first call)
• added ServiceLocatorFactoryBean, allowing to map custom service locator interface methods to BeanFactory.getBean calls
• reworked ResourcePatternResolver to extend ResourceLoader, for ResourcePatternResolver checks in ResourceLoaderAware
• made BindException serializable, provided that the contained target object is serializable

We
are pleased to announce that Spring
Framework 1.1.3 has
just
been released. This is a bugfix and minor enhancement release in the
1.1 series; most importantly, JDK 1.3 compatibility is fully restored.

Among the new features in this release are:

        <ul>
          <li>added

"setResourceLoader" method to
GenericApplicationContext, for overriding the default resource loading
strategy