VIF / News: Recent posts

We're happy to announce the VIF 1.2 production release of the forum software.

This release adds the following major improvements to the application:

• VIF is now using Ripla on Vaadin 7 as framework stack.
• Fixed issue in the application's event handling.

What is VIF?

VIF is a next generation discussion forum, i.e. a forum with extended functionality that makes it especially suitable to discuss complex and controversial questions.
VIF's outstanding features are as follows:... read more

We're happy to announce the VIF 1.1 production release of the forum software.

This release adds the following major improvements to the application:

• Complete rewrite of the user interface. VIF is now using Vaadin (http://vaadin.com/) as Web application framework.
• Improved and cleaner modularization based on OSGi.
• Improved configuration: the application can by fully configured through the web.
• Replaced rich text editor: text is entered as WYSIWYG

VIF 1.1 will present the forum application in a completely new user interface. The UI will be based on Vaadin (http://vaadin.com/home).

In addition, the new version will leverage more features from OSGi.
However, all references to Eclipse extension point technology will be removed (in favor of OSGi dynamic services).

We're happy to announce the VIF 1.0 production release of the forum software.

This release adds the following improvements to the application:

• Implemented special content types for Bibliography.
• Implemented upload of documents that can be downloaded from bibliography entries.
• Added background thread to close inactive review requests and relaunch new ones.
• Replaced internal Wiki styles by Eclipse Wikitext providing full Textile formatting.

VIF 0.9.2 offers the following improvements:

• Added rating of cooperation behavior between contributor and reviewer.

• Added export of content of a discussion group into an OpenOffice.org document.

• Added administration task to send administrative mails to members (by the forum administration) or to participants (by the group administration).

• Added extension points for partletsMenus and pluggableTasks, i.e. empty menus where tasks can be plugged in.

The Project VIF made it to the final of the Eclipse Awards 2009 in the category 'Best Open Source Equinox Application' (see http://www.eclipse.org/org/foundation/eclipseawards/winners09.php).
The winner in this category is ModuleFusion.

This release is a big step towards readiness for production. The new VIF application builds on the OSGi component model (using Equinox as OSGi implementation). The whole application is assembled of different components. Thus, the VIF application is easily extensible and adaptable: Bundles and the functionality provided therein can be added or replaced.

As an extension of breaking up the application into components, the new release is made skinable. The release comes with two sample skins. More skins can easily be created.... read more

Changes:

• Integrated Java 5 technology: Generics, for loops and varargs.
• Made SQL commands created case sensitive.
• Added LDAP access.
• Improve logging of exceptions.
• Added Composite Property, i.e. a Property in the object definition of a domain model can be of propertyType 'composite' now.
• Fixed bug that prevented saving of strings containing single quotes in case of Derby used as DB.

What is the VIF Lightweight Framework package

The VIF Lightweight Framework is an object-relational bridge to store and retrieve data in relational database management systems (RDMS).

This release fixes a bug in the display of a contribution when used with LDAP member store. Therefore, this release is needed only if the applicaton is used with external authentication.

This release adds the possibility to use existing authentication infrastructure (LDAP or an external database) for member authentication. Thus, this release is a big step forward to a seamless integration of the forum application into an organization's infrastructure.
In addition, the project's documentation has been redesigned and its content has been greatly improved.

What is VIF?
VIF (virtual discussion forum) is a next generation forum application. VIF is intended for a structured discussion, starting from a high level problem that is refined in subsequent steps until a granularity is reached that allows to answer the questions. VIF offers a publication workflow with integrated peer review system to ensure the quality of all contributions. Thus, this application is especially suited to discuss complex and controversial questions.
Bookmarkable discussion nodes, a subscription feature and a well designed user interface facilitate the use of this forum application. VIF comes in two pieces, the proper forum application and a comprehensive forum administration. The latter allows to easily set up and configure new discussion groups. Thus, the discussion forum can be flexibly adjusted to the appearance of new discussion themes and questions.
VIF is implemented as Java Servlet application. The data is stored in a database.

What is the VIF Lightweight Framework package

The VIF Lightweight Framework is an object-relational bridge to store and retrieve data in relational database management systems (RDMS). The framework's building blocks to access data are data object models (DOM objects) and joined data object models (joined DOM objects). A DOM object is used for read-write access to a database table. It encapsulates the mapping of the object's attribute to the underlying table fields.... read more

This release includes the possibility to suspend participation in a discussion group the participant is registered during a specified time span.
The framework now supports connection pooling and JNDI access to resources.

What is VIF?
VIF (virtual discussion forum) is a next generation forum application. VIF is intended for a structured discussion, starting from a high level problem that is refined in subsequent steps until a granularity is reached that allows to answer the questions. VIF offers a publication workflow with integrated peer review system to ensure the quality of all contributions. Thus, this application is especially suited to discuss complex and controversial questions.
Bookmarkable discussion nodes, a subscription feature and a well designed user interface facilitate the use of this forum application. VIF comes in two pieces, the proper forum application and a comprehensive forum administration. The latter allows to easily set up and configure new discussion groups. Thus, the discussion forum can be flexibly adjusted to the appearance of new discussion themes and questions.
VIF is implemented as Java Servlet application. The data is stored in a database.

The VIF Domain Object Model Plug-in for Eclipse 3.1 supports developers using the VIF framework to create VIF Domain Object Models.
For more detailed information and instructions how to use the plug-in see http://vif.sourceforge.net/vifDom/.

This is a bug fix release to make the application working with Tomcat 5.

What is VIF?
VIF (virtual discussion forum) is a next generation forum application. VIF is intended for a structured discussion, starting from a high level problem that is refined in subsequent steps until a granularity is reached that allows to answer the questions. VIF offers a publication workflow with integrated peer review system to ensure the quality of all contributions. Thus, this application is especially suited to discuss complex and controversial questions.
Bookmarkable discussion nodes, a subscription feature and a well designed user interface facilitate the use of this forum application. VIF comes in two pieces, the proper forum application and a comprehensive forum administration. The latter allows to easily set up and configure new discussion groups. Thus, the discussion forum can be flexibly adjusted to the appearance of new discussion themes and questions.
VIF is implemented as Java Servlet application. The data is stored in a database.

Most interesting new feature of release 0.8.0:
Full text search capability for contributions and members, using the Lucene search engine.

What is VIF?
VIF (virtual discussion forum) is a next generation forum application. VIF is intended for a structured discussion, starting from a high level problem that is refined in subsequent steps until a granularity is reached that allows to answer the questions. VIF offers a publication workflow with integrated peer review system to ensure the quality of all contributions. Thus, this application is especially suited to discuss complex and controversial questions.
Bookmarkable discussion nodes, a subscription feature and a well designed user interface facilitate the use of this forum application. VIF comes in two pieces, the proper forum application and a comprehensive forum administration. The latter allows to easily set up and configure new discussion groups. Thus, the discussion forum can be flexibly adjusted to the appearance of new discussion themes and questions.
VIF is implemented as Java Servlet application. The data is stored in a database.

The VIF Domain Object Model Plug-in for Eclipse 3.0 supports developers using the VIF framework to create VIF Domain Object Models.
For more detailed information and instructions how to use the plug-in see http://vif.sourceforge.net/vifDom/.

The VIF workflow framework provides basic workflow functionality. It is designed to support the management of all sorts of publishable content.

The VIF workflow framework package is the Java implementation of the Python workflow module itools created by Juan David Ibez Palomar (jdavid@itaapy.com).

The package consists of the jar file containing the compiled framework and a jar file containing the source code and a unit test. In addition the package includes documentation describing the use of the workflow framework (see http://vif.sourceforge.net/WorkflowFramework.pdf).... read more