We're pleased to announce that the 2.00 bundle of the Expresso Framework is
now available! This is a major new release and the download is available at
www.javacorporate.com. We are excited and grateful for the user community
support of this project with about 17,000 downloads and an active listserv
community of more than 1600. Many thanks to all of the contributors who
have made this new release possible!
100% Open Standards-Based Application Framework for building Distributed,
Reusable, Component-Based, Secure Web Applications. Comprising of a library
of extensible components for providing services to web-based applications.
Building on Sun's standard APIs it provides facilities for web applications
using Java Servlets including components for security, connection pooling,
access to databases, email connectivity, job control, health check, logging,
event notification, database objects, download, configuration values, access
to other server-side components, etc. Expresso Framework is a foundation set
of reusable, standards-based software components designed to shorten
time-to-delivery of Web-based, business transactional applications. Expresso
Framework provides a toolkit so the developer can concentrate on application
logic.
Some of the highlights from the release notes for 2.0 are:
Enhanced Security
-----------------
This release of Expresso includes significant enhancements in the area of
system security. All password and cookie information is now encrypted (any
existing passwords will be encrypted the next time they are used). Filters
are now applied to field data to prevent security attacks via entered data
(for example, embedded Javascript). These security enhancements can be
enabled to use the Java Cryptography Exceptions to provide better security.
IMPORTANT: In order to use Expresso *without* either the Sun JCE or the
Cryptix JCE package, you MUST set the strongCrypto=n property in your
property file. By default (and contrary to previous notes!), Expresso will
try to use the 'strong' encryption routines, providing maximum security, but
requiring the presence of either the Cryptix JCE package or the Sun JCE.
See the properties file documentation for details. The package
com.javacorporate.common.security.strongencryption will not compile if the
JCE package is not in your classpath - if you're using weak encryption (e.g.
strongCrypto=n) this can simply
be ignored.
Included Database
-----------------
The Hypersonic SQL database is included with this release of Expresso.
Hypersonic is an open-source lightweight all-Java database supporting the
JDBC standard. By using the included Hypersonic with the supplied
default.properties file, you can get Expresso up and running quickly, then
easily switch to (or add) your own database engine of choice.
Multi-Database Support
----------------------
A major change in release 2.00 is complete multiple database support. Put
simply, this enables Expresso (and any application built with it) to support
multiple, independent 'environments', where each environment has a separate
database. This database can be a separate database within the same server
(e.g. 2 different MySQL databases on one server), or a completely different
kind of database on the same or another server (e.g. one MySQL database on
Linux, one DB2 database on AS/400). These multiple environments can be
accessed by a single instance of Expresso, but remain otherwise separated.
The configuration directory must now contain a separate property file for
each environment/database. There must exist at least one file in the
configuration directory, and the first file must be called
'default.properties'. This is identical to the existing Expresso
configuration file, and contains and supports all the same properties (plus
a few new ones added in this release). There may then be any number of
additional property files, each of which denotes another database available
to this instance of Expresso.
Integrated JobHandler
---------------------
This release supports the new 'integrated' JobHandler - the JobHandler to
process background queued 'jobs' can now be run as a thread within the
servlet engine's VM, eliminating the necessity to run a separate VM to
handle jobs. The separate JobHandler is still available, however, for
situations where multiple VM's are appropriate.
New Documentation
-----------------
A large amount of new and revised documentation is included with this
release - see the
http://www.javacorporate.com/components/expresso/doc/index.html file for the
new documentation index.
Updates have been made to the Troubleshooting page in the documentation,
giving step-by-step instructions for troubleshooting any problems with
Expresso or applications built with Expresso. This document is also very
helpful as a checklist when getting Expresso up and running initially.
A new documentation project has been started that organizes some existing
documents and adds many more into a comprehensive manual for developing
applications with Expresso. While still undergoing improvements, the guide
is already very useful for understanding Expresso's capabilities.
Transaction Package Updates
---------------------------
A number of updates for superior form-handling and error management have
been introduced to the com.javacorporate.common.trx package - examples using
these new functions will be online soon.
Cascading Stylesheets
-------------------------
This release also incorporates the changes contributed to enable Expresso to
utilize Cascading Stylesheets, enabling the look & feel of Expresso to be
changed quickly and easily. More documentation on using CSS with Expresso is
available from the documentation index and in the Expresso Developer's
Guide.
Logging Channels
----------------
Logging has been enhanced considerably, with the inclusion of a new object
called a LogChannel. LogChannels allow a specific kind of logging to be
grouped together into a 'channel', and this channel supports a simplified
syntax for writing log messages (as well as supporting multiple databases,
which the previous LogHandler did not).
HTML/JSP Changes
----------------
A number of bad links and other problems were corrected in the HTML and JSP
pages for Expresso, and many of the HTML pages in /components/expresso have
been replaced by JSP pages. The initial administrative page for Expresso is
now /components/expresso/frame.jsp, rather than the previous
/components/expresso/frame.html.
Binary Code
-----------
The Expresso source code download now includes the .class files for all
corresponding .java files. It should not be necessary to recompile your new
release of Expresso. In addition, the HTML/JSP download now includes
additional reference files and examples.
Bug Fixes
---------
A number of errors have been corrected in the new release, including better
scalability and better performance, corrections to the 'page' features (e.g.
specifying a page limit for db objects), and a number of link updates in the
HTML and JSP pages.
Many thanks to all of the contributors who have made this new release
possible and we look forward to feedback to continue to improve Expresso!
Regards,
The Javacorporate Team
http://www.javacorporate.com
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