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Version 7.0 release note

Warning

This release note corresponds to the future first minor version of the next major version 7.

It is in EARLY ALPHA heavy development stage. It means it is ABSOLUTELY not yet suitable for production nor just for development and testing.

This release note is also in its early redaction stage.

Compatibility breaking changes​

Among the reasons for this version to be the first minor version of a new major version are the changes at the level of the underlying technical components:

  • JVM level
  • Tomcat version

The platform is now compiled at JVM level 21 (vs 17 for previous major version 6 and 11 for previous major version 5).

There is no impact unless certain Java APIs, which have been deprecated for several versions and may have been removed from the JVM, are used.

note

The latest Docker images have been built with JVM 21+ since major version 6 (JVM 25 for this major version 7). Deprecated Java API usage would already have resulted in compilation warnings or errors within the platform; therefore, the JVM level change at platform level should not have further impact.

The target Tomcat version for major version 7 is now Tomcat 11.

Tomcat 11 uses Jakarta EE 11 instead of JEE 8, which was used in previous Simplicité version's Tomcat 9 target. As a result, imports such as javax.servlet.* must be updated to jakarta.servlet.*.

Typically, the usage of these packages occurs in the following platform hooks: customStartPage, customErrorResponse, and customAuth/customAuthPage.

Server-side components​

The following outdated third party Java libs have been removed:

  • legacy Apache commons commons-lang library, note that the commons-lang3 library is present since major version 5
  • legacy Apache commons commons-collections library, note that the commons-collections4 library is present since major version 5
  • legacy Apache commons commons-fileupload library, note that the commons-fileupload2-* libraries are present since major version 5
tip

If these libraries are required and refactoring is not possible, they may be re-added as needed.

As announced in the version v6.2 release note (and recalled in the version v6.3 release note):

  • The legacy iText libraries have been removed and the associated helpers PDFTool and PDFDocumentExternalObject have been completely refactored to use the PDFBox libraries. Any code written for iText and/or with the help of the above helper classes must be rewritten accordingly.

As announced in the version v6.3 release note:

  • The deprecated GoogleMap helper JS tool gmap.js has been removed. Custom code relying on this tool should be refactored to use the Leaflet helper JS tool, which provides an abstraction layer over map service providers. Note that existing GoogleMaps inclusion methods continue to include the GoogleMaps JS library, but code relying on helper functions from gmap.js may require refactoring to use the GoogleMaps JS API directly.
  • All classes related to legacy grant hooks have been removed. Grant hooks have been deprecated since major version 5 in favor of platform hooks, the refactoring of user session level logic to PlatformHooks should have already been done.

Client-side components​

The historical locations of Bootstrap libs have (finally) been changed.

This may have an impact only if included specifically using hardcoded paths (e.g. in a standalone external object page).

This should not be the case, as Java methods are provided to include these libraries properly without requiring knowledge of their locations (see below).

tip

There is no reason to re-include these Bootstrap libs specifically within a custom component of the generic UI because they are already included.

The changed locations are:

  • Bootstrap: /scripts/jquery/bootstrap5/* to /scripts/bootstrap5/* (the Java methods HTMLTool.bootstrapJS/bootstrapCSS should be used instead of hardcoded paths).
  • Bootstrap date/datetime picker: /scripts/jquery/bootstrap5-datetimepicker/* to /scripts/bootstrap5-datetimepicker/* (the Java methods HTMLTool.bootstrapDatetimePickerJS/bootstrapDatetimePickerCSS should be used instead of hardcoded paths).

Long text fields behavior vs truncation​

  • FeatureFlag.TRUNCATE_TOO_LONG_TEXT is set to false by default.
    • the UX/UI is not impacted because field inputs are already limited to the max size
    • but the API create/update will get an error if a data is too long (against data truncation in 6.3)

UI constant Simplicite refactored as ES module​

The new ES module Simplicite has been refactored to clean its root data. Now the Simplicite interface contains only:

  • Simplicite.Globals contains now all global variables from back-end: application infos ROOT, URL, FULL_VERSION, ENDPOINT... and user's common properties LOGIN, LANG, etc.
  • Simplicite.Application has been preserved (same as $app) to contain all model constants: CONTEXT_*, field TYPE_*, TRUE/FALSE, etc.
  • Simplicite.Ajax: unchanged namespace of model layer with ajax services to Session, Grant, BusinessObject, BusinessProcess, etc.
  • Simplicite.UI: unchanged namespace of UI layer, controllers and viewers
  • Simplicite.Diagram: SVG diagram modeler

Unsupported Ajax service call with a callback function​

As announced in 6.3 release notes, the function callback as (first) parameter are no more supported in Ajax services. Those functions should be moved in a then statement before upgrading to V7.

Example for a search service:

// Wrong syntax: this callback won't be called and filters not applied correctly
obj.search(list => { ... }, filters);
// Good syntax with promise since V6
obj.search(filters).then(list => { ... });

External objects improvements​

It is now possible to add custom HTTP headers to the external objet's response (the related methods are addHTTPHeaders, removeHTTPHeaders and getHTTPHeaders). Note that these headers are added after the platform sets the content type &nd cache-related headers, so only set such headers as custom headers if you know exactly what you are doing.

After several security audit it appears some of the highly recommended security guidelines are not always taken into account in production which leads to unintentional potential risks.

Therefore it has been decided to change some elements to be more secure by default.

These changes requires some explicit configuration to get the same behavior as it was by default in previous versions.

The following system parameters have new default values:

  • USE_IO: the default value is now no (no access to the I/O endpoint)
  • USE_IO_TESTER: the default value is now no (no access to the I/O tester page)
  • USE_API_TESTER: the default value is now no (no access to the API tester page)
  • HTTP_HEADER: the default value now is the one indicated in the security guidelines. This has an impact if you use JS scripts, CSS styles sheets, images, ... from external URLs. If so you should customize this system parameter (in particular the Content-Security-Policy) accordingly to your use case (see the description of the system parameter for the usual cases: GoogleFonts, OpenStreetMaps, ...).
Reminder

Any system parameter can be overridden by the corresponding environment variable SIMPLICITE_<name of the system parameter>. They can also use [ENV:<name of an environment variable>] substitutions to be fully or partially overridden.

Dev mode restrictions​

Some additional features have been restricted to development mode:

  • The DBAccess page is now only accessible when in development mode

Deprecations​

JVM level​

All JVM core APIs marked as deprecated since version 17 should be refactored to prevent future potential JVM-level compatibility issues (see above).

TinyMCE V6​

This old verison of this HTML editor is not maintained anymore and the latest version 8 is only for commercial usage. The UI will now use the open-source Quill (see below).

Features​

  • New "Copy to Clipboard" setting for Long Text and HTML Content fields. Click the clipboard icon next to these fields to copy their visible content.
  • New SocialPostMention Notification : A mentioned user (@user) will receive a notification when a post is created.

    Notification channels / content can be overridden via User interaction > Notifications > Notifications > SocialPostMention

Enhancements​

  • HTML editor TinyMCE has been replaced by Quill V2
    • With new $ui.options.quillOptions to define the default toolbar, with the theme snow
    • $ui.options.tinymceOptions and the loader $ui.loadTinyMCE() still load the TinyMCE V6, but they are now deprecated and no more used by the generic UI.

quill

Basic usage in your UI component (external object, hooks...):

$factory.Quill().then(Quill => {
  // Set value with DOM content
  const div = $("#mydiv").empty();
	const quill = new Quill(div[0], { theme: 'snow' });
	const delta = quill.clipboard.convert({ html: "<p>Hello world</p>" });
	quill.updateContents(delta, "silent");
  div.data("quill", quill); // attach the quill instance for further usage
});

// ... and later to get HTML from editor
const html = $("#mydiv").data("quill").getSemanticHTML();
  • Date-time picker has been replaced by flatpickr
    • previous one can be loaded but is deprecated
    • flatpickr supports dark/light themes with many features: pick a period, or several dates/times, exclude dates, show 2 months...
    • plugins have been added to show buttons (today/now, reset, close), and to pick a year or a month directly according to the field rendering,
    • manage focus and toggle button for accessibility, arrow keys to change day (+ctrl to change month/year), enter/esc,
    • flatpickr(input, options) can be used directly in specific input/component
    • and the API UIFieldDatetime.datePicker to get an input group with a date-picker is still compatible with previous implementation:
/**
 * Get a datepicker input-group
 * @param ctn optional container to append the picker (default is the input-group)
 * @param options options
 * @param options.input optional input element (create one if not specified)
 * @param options.type $ui.TYPE_DATE (default) or $ui.TYPE_DATETIME or $ui.TYPE_TIME
 * @param options.rendering optional field rendering
 * @param options.autoopen true to open the picker on click
 * @param options.clear true to add a clear button
 * @returns input group with input and buttons
 * @function
 */
UIFieldDatetime.datePicker(ctn: Container | null, options?: {
		input?: JQuery,
		type?: number,
		rendering?: string,
		autoopen?: boolean,
		clear?: boolean
	}): JQuery;

Maker Experience​

  • Integrated a search bar in the code editor to find a specific source file code-editor-search

Technical​

JDBC drivers location​

The JDBC drivers JAR are now located in the webapp's WEB-INF/lib along with other 3rd party libs.

They have therefore been removed from the pre-configured Tomcat 11 package used on the SIM servers and embedded in our standard Docker images.

Docker images​

No impact is expected when using the standard images.

For customized images at the Tomcat level, note that version 7.x images use Tomcat 11, which may have slight differences in configuration files compared to Tomcat 9 used previously. Review and adapt customization Dockerfiles as necessary.

Simplicité Instances Manager (SIM)​

See this document for details on how to add version 7.0 on an existing SIM server

Import spec improvements​

The version property in now optional, if none is specified the import is done in all cases.

If the module spec is a Git repository and the version property is specified, the import will clone the Git repository and will check for a Git tag matching the specified version:

  • if found the Git repository is check outed on this tag
  • if not found the repository is check outed on the head

In all cases the import is then done on the check outed state of the module

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