[Webmacro-devel] Ignition 1.0 Alpha 3 available

[Marc P. <ma...@an...>]

Hi all,

OK - hopefully some more of you will be able to find the time to download 
and install Ignition to contribute to the voting process. I plan one more 
alpha before going public with a beta - the remaining major functionality 
for alpha 4 being authentication.

http://www.wangjammers.org/ignition

For an idea of the new stuff since Alpha2, some excerpts from the readme:


 At this time Ignition has been verified to work with:

     * Tomcat 4.1.18
     * Tomcat 4.1.24
     * Resin 2.1.10

 At this time Ignition has been shown to NOT to work with:

     * Resin 3.x beta (due to apparent classloader bugs in Resin)

[snip]

 What's new in this version
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------

      * New - TransactionPlugin interface and automatic commit/rollback of 
all transaction types at the end of an action chain

      * New - JDBCTransactionPlugin implementation using JNDI lookups to
        DataSource(s)

      * New - Field validation using MetadataPlugin(s).

      * New - Field validation plugin implemented with Metalizer library
        (included - no good documentation for Metalizer yet though, but see 
http://www.wangjammers.org/metalizer).

      * New - Documentation for validation/metadata and transactions.

      * New - $Ignition.executeInline mechanism to execute Actions in line 
while rendering response.

      * New - Demos now included in main .war distribution, no separate 
download. To disable/delete demoes edit WEB-
        INF/classes/ignition.properties and remove the module.demos= line.

      * Improved - Access to action descriptor object parameters changed
        from #set $action.ParamName to #set $action.Parameters.ParamName

      * Improved - Access to action descriptor object form field names for 
parameters changed from $action.FieldName.ParamName to 
$action.FormFieldName.ParamName

      * Improved - Rationalised Configuration. All Actions/RequestPlugin
        etc. are just 'plugins' in config terms, so the property prefix is 
now just 'plugin.' for all - so ALL CUSTOM CONFIG FILES MUST BE CHANGED

      * Improved - Enhanced internal plugin management with full 
extensibility

      * Alert - Config files must no longer include 
.action/.requestplugin/.actionplugin property prefixes - just 
plugin.[name]= now, Ignition auto-detects type.

      * New - RandomHelper for selection of random items from a list

      * Alert - Changed contract for all blackboard access - caller must
        synchronise on blackboard.

      * New - Separation of fields from action parameters. Fields are 
available to all plugins and actions, Parameters only to the action they 
apply to.

      * New - Now that fields are separate, parameters set but not declared 
by the action will now cause an error.

      * Improved - EmailRequestParameters action in the light of new fields 
separation - options to send either all HTTP req parameters (legacy mode) 
or just Ignition fields.

      * Bug Fix - default plugin property values not being set.

      * Bug Fix - documentation templates to URLEncode bookmark links 
(Thanks to Keats Kirsch!)

      * Bug Fix - new visitor flag was incorrectly being cleared after 
first request in first visit

      * Moved getHelperInfo up into Plugin interface from 
RequestAwarePlugin interface

      * Improved startup logging

      * Improved error handling - page render failures due to WM exceptions 
now show the Baby of Consolation page.

      * Includes new pre-alpha WebMacro build with binary accessor set 
fixed and no context pooling etc.



-- 
Marc Palmer
Contract Java Consultant/Developer
			
                        w a n g j a m m e r s

                 java and web software design
              experts with an ethical outlook

                   http://www.wangjammers.org