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Posted by
2022-09-14
Development update
The backup and restore process has been fixed and the old library has been dropped. I am trying to get rid off as many of the dependencies as possible as this will make maintenance easier and I don't run into compatibility issues in the future. Of course I will keep on using 3rd party libraries where necessary.
With that in mind... Jasper Reports. Jasper reports has progressed so much since the last version of Data Crow. So much so that I think rewriting the existing reports is a necessity. I am hoping to release a small set of reports. It will mean, as far as I can see now, that if you created custom reports yourself that you will have to recreate these with the new version of Jasper Reports. More on this later..
To-Do
Data Crow 4.3
- Rewrite the way data is send between the server edition and the client (faster method is required)
- Add basic reports to make sure the reports option still works in 4.3
- Decide on SVG image support
- Rewrite the e-book import
- Fix the MP4 import (movies)
- Evaluate the Bol.com book server
- Fix the ISBN DB book server implementation (books)
- Look at all the online services that are there currently in Data Crow and remove broken ones (if unfixable). If an entire rewrite is required I will probably move it out to version 4.4
Data Crow 4.4
- Implement new online services (investigate possible services, evaluate them and, if applicable, implement them)
- Create additional imports
- Continue fixing missed bugs in 4.3
That's as far as I dare to go, currently.
Overview:
[Fixed]
- Java 18 incompatibility issues have been fixed.
- Backup and Restore has been fixed
- Server to client communication has been partially fixed (it's working but the speed is abysmal)
- Image server is back up again (old implementation was not compatible with the new Java version)
- Various small compatibility issues have been fixed.
[Updates]
- Java version support has been changed from Java 1.7 to Java 18.
- Upgraded Log4J to the latest version. The old library was a huge security risk
and had to be replaced.
- Build process has been moved to Maven (thanks to: flag-courier).
- Code has been moved from net.datacrow to org.datacrow.
- Java Help was upgraded to 2.05
- jAudiotagger was upgraded to 2.2.5
- Matroska File parser has been upgraded to 2.3.1
- MP4 Parser has been upgraded to 1.9.41.2
- Bouncycastle has been upgraded to 1.7
- Jacksum has been upgraded to 3.1
- JTattoo has been upgraded to 1.6.13
- TheMovieDB API has been upgraded to 4.3
- Cobra HTML parser has been replaced by jSoup
- Jasper Reports has been upgraded to 6.20
- HSQL DB has been upgraded to 2.7.0
- JSON-IO library has been dropped (too old)
- Tomcat Embedded has been dropped and has been replaced with the latest version of
Jetty. Jetty is solely used as a web service for the hosting of images when making
use of the Data Crow server edition.
- Libraries not mentioned have been dropped and replaced.
- Code optimizations to bring Data Crow's code in line with the latest version of Java.
[Removed]
- The web module has been dropped for now. It would need to be completely rebuild to
run successfully on the latest version of Java. This will be rebuild at a later stage.
I would have a question... would it have Java built in the installation file, or I would have to go to java webpage and install it myself (current latest one is Java8u341) ?
Hi Ariel,
Not sure yet as I have not gotten to the installer part yet. But I think it will have to be installed by the user. In any case Java second edition is the one to go for and can be downloaded from here (version 18 is the latest):
https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase/jdk18-archive-downloads.html
Cheers,
Robert
For the installer, it might it be worth looking into using
jlink. I'm not all that familiar with it myself, and it would require migrating Data Crow to implement modules (per the JSR 376 spec.) But, it would be a benefit to end-users by packaging a self-contained, minimized, java runtime with the client, and could even allow easy containerization of the server for use with Docker or Podman.Will look into JLink, looks interesting. I think these are my main options:
1) Use Launch4j to create executables on Windows for both the installer and the main application. It has options to bundle it with Java, so no need to install Java separately and has Maven build targets.
2) Use an installer which also bundles / installs Java. Some of those installers require Java themselves to run, some don't. I will need to weed through the options for installers and will consider jLink as well.
3) Could also opt for a platform dependent installer for Windows and MacOS.
Side note; I realize that for common users it's nice to have a bundled Java version but me, I'd rather install the latest version available myself. It's good you made me aware of this early on as my preference certainly doesn't match the common expectation.
I though the project was abandoned, so these are indeed good news!
So you don't have access to the old datacrow.net website? Isn't Stacey Murphy (smurfy-8) on board?
Can we (the users/fans) made something for you to regain it? (mailing campaign, mentioning someone on Twitter etc.)
Let me know if you need help with the new website or translations into Spanish.
And thanks for getting back to work!
Hi ARtEcnico,
Thank you for your message! I have no access to datacrow.net and I have given up on getting it back; I tried reaching out to Stacey Murphy but I think he is not reachable (I remember at the time all went very silent all of the sudden, hope all is OK..); instead of trying to get it back I have registered a new domain (datacrow.org) and will put a nice website on there (it's up, but just with a blank template). Ideally I would get datacrow.net back as well so that I can host the same on both sites to avoid confusion..
If there's anything anyone can find, that would be much appreciated!
Cheers,
Robert
PS thanks for you offer for help, much appreciated. I just might reach out for translation in the near future!