Release Notes for OpenLaszlo 4.1
Release Notes for OpenLaszlo 4.1 |
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OpenLaszlo 4.1 is the recommended release for DHTML and SWF development. This is a major release with over 800 bug fixes in the source code and many underlying architectural changes, in part paving the way for SWF9 support. OpenLaszlo 4.1 has been fully-qualified across the following browser/platform combinations: Safari3/OSX, Firefox2/OSX, Internet Explorer 7/WinXP, Firefox 2/WinXP, and Firefox 2/Linux. We have tested the full suite of demos, samplers, and example applications with the requirement that, when possible, DHTML applications behave the same as their SWF counterparts. Keep in mind that DHTML does not support audio and video. To include that in your application, you can embed a SWF application within your DHTML application, as in this example.
OpenLaszlo 4.1 also debuts the new and significantly improved documentation. There have been over 300 bug fixes made to the Reference Guide, and over 225 bug fixes in the Developer's Guide. The Reference Guide and Developer's Guide are also being built using the new doctool chain, which is described in the Developer's Guide, for contributors interested in adding to the documentation.
Preliminary support for SWF9 is included in this release. As such, we removed the swf9
button from the dev console for this release. You can compile applications for
SWF9 by appending lzr=swf9 to the compilation URL. Or, if you are building the LPS from source, you
can uncomment the swf9 radiobutton in lps/admin/dev-console.lzx, and
then rebuild the dev-console by running the new console-rebuilding ant task there: cd
lps/admin
ant
Remember to clear your browser cache before reloading to see the rebuilt dev-console, as it is loaded as a SOLO application. We will add the SWF9 button to the developer console when support for this runtime is more complete.
For every release, we rely on the OpenLaszlo community to help ensure the quality of the platform release and to determine its future direction. To propose or participate in discussion of new features, see the Wiki.We encourage you to report any problems, and to make suggestions for enhancements, through our JIRA bug tracking system. We'd also like to hear from you on the mailing lists and in the forums.
OpenLaszlo 4.1 has two major changes that may require your attention. A summary is provided below. Complete details and additional information on the differences between the SWF and DHTML runtimes can be found on the OpenLaszlo Wiki: http://wiki.openlaszlo.org/Runtime_Differences.
In OpenLaszlo 4.1, user classes are no longer defined as part of the global namespace. This gives OpenLaszlo better interoperability with other frameworks. In your application, user classes defined as:
<class name="Foo" .../>
<new foo(...)
will need to be changed to:
new lz.foo (...)
A script has been posted by Sebastian Wagner to help convert user classes. It can be found here: http://code.google.com/p/laszlo4converter/.
In addition, warnings may now appear if you are using deprecated syntax in your application. OpenLaszlo 4.1 includes a perl conversion script (convert_laszlo.pl) to help mitigate these warnings.
This section describes some known issues and workarounds for using OpenLaszlo 4.1. For various reasons, these issues are being deferred to a subsequent release. The bug number has been provided so that you can read the full description. A summary is provided below.
LPP-3875:
Default installation location for Windows Vista. The 4.1 Windows installer saves the
OpenLaszlo files to c:\Program Files by default. If you use the default value,
you need to adjust the file permissions after installation as follows:
c:\Program Files\OpenLaszlo Server 4.1.All the files under c:\Program Files\OpenLaszlo Server 4.1 should now be
accessible by users.
LPP-6513: To
roll back to an earlier version, you need to delete
/Library/Receipts/openlaszlo* For those of you who have downloaded nightly trunk
builds recently, you may have noticed that we changed the numbering to 4.1 from 4.2.x. As a
result, if you wish to install OpenLaszlo 4.1, you need to delete your existing
/Library/Receipts/openlaszlo* files first and then run the installer.
LPP-6110:
Text messages for controls that don't work in DHTML. The Rich Text Editor component in
the incubator (lps/components/incubator/rich-text/richtexteditor.lzx) does not
run in DHTML. Similarly, richinputtext is also not supported in DHTML. Both
components work properly in SWF runtimes.
LPP-5675:
Ctrl-A key combo doesn't work in Windows IE (or any Mac browser). On Windows XP and
Vista with IE7, Ctrl-A works the first time you press it and then doesn't work at all. On Mac
browsers (Safari and Firefox), Ctrl-A doesn't work at all. This is a swf8 issue that is being
caused by a bug in the Flash player. See:
http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-118
and
http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-106
.
One possible workaround is to write the application to use onkeyup and not
onkeydown.
LPP-5382:DHTML - IE: overflow="visible" don't work with opacity. If you use the IE alpha-filter to set the opacity, the overflow will always be changed to hidden. The example below provides a workaround for this issue:
<canvas >
<!-- the image will be clipped in IE DHTML due to nested opacity -->
<view opacity=".6" width="150" height="60" bgcolor="red">
<view width="${canvas.width}" height="60" resource="http:Unbenannt.png" stretches="both"/>
</view>
<!-- Moving the image to be a sibling fixes the issue-->
<view y="200" opacity=".6" width="150" height="60" bgcolor="red"/>
<view y="200" opacity=".6" width="${canvas.width}" height="60" resource="http:Unbenannt.png" stretches="both"/>
</canvas>
LPP-5370: IE7 DHTML Doesn't honor view opacity for stacked (overlayed) views. If you have a shadow view that uses a partial opacity setting underneath another view to create a shadow effect, the topmost view overlaying the shadow disappears in Windows IE7, using DHTML. The following example shows the problem:
<canvas width="100%" height="100%" validate="false" debug="true" proxied="false" bgcolor="0x00aaaa">
<view width="300" height="100">
<view width="300" height="100" bgcolor="black" opacity="0.3"/>
<view width="150" height="50" bgcolor="red"/>
</view>
<button text="Click me" onclick="canvas.setAttribute('opacity', 0.50)"/>
</canvas>
In this test, the red view and the button disappear when the button is clicked, instead of receiving 50% opacity. You can work around this issue in IE7 DHTML to get the same effect, as follows:
<canvas width="100%" height="100%" validate="false" debug="true" proxied="false" bgcolor="0x00aaaa">
<simplelayout/>
<!-- This example hides the red box when the button is clicked in IE DHTML -->
<view width="300" height="100" name="root">
<view width="300" height="100" bgcolor="black" opacity="0.3"/>
<view width="150" height="50" bgcolor="red"/>
</view>
<button text="Click me" onclick="root.setAttribute('opacity', 0.50)"/>
<!-- By avoiding nesting views with opacity, we can get the same effect and it works in IE DHTML-->
<view width="300" height="100" name="container">
<view width="300" height="100" bgcolor="black" opacity="0.3"/>
<view width="300" height="100" name="root">
<view width="150" height="50" bgcolor="red"/>
</view>
</view>
<button text="Click me" onclick="container.root.setAttribute('opacity', 0.50)"/>
</canvas>
LPP-5246: inputtext copy, paste not working in Firefox 2.0. There are reports that Firefox 2.0 has occasional issues with copy/paste failing when using keyboard shortcuts. If the copy (Ctrl-C) does not occur, when you paste (Ctrl-V) information into the browser, the previous contents of the clipboard are pasted instead.
LPP-5447: inputtext and clickable. Input texts have to be placed in one of the clickable elements, which are in their own tree of divs, to become active. Refer to the bug report in JIRA to read more details in specific browsers.
LPP-6125:
onmouseupoutside events not triggered outside of canvas in DHTML, work fine in SWF.
Basically if you drag and release outside the canvas, the onmouseupoutside event
never gets triggered. The following simple example demonstrates the problem:
<canvas width="300" height="300" bgcolor="0x00FF00"> <view
width="100" height="100" x="20" bgcolor="0xFF0000"> <handler
name="onmouseover"> Debug.write('over'); </handler> <handler
name="onmousedragin"> Debug.write('drag'); </handler> <handler
name="onmouseupoutside"> Debug.write('upoutside'); </handler>
</view>
</canvas>
If you click inside the red square and drag out into the green area (the canvas area) and
release, you'll see the onmouseupoutside event firing. However, if you drag and
release outside the canvas, the onmouseupoutside event never gets triggered.
LPP-6309: MacOS pathnames cause Flex compiler integration failure. OpenLaszlo 4.1 includes the flex compiler in its installer for swf9 applications. To compile swf9 applications on the Mac, the OpenLaszlo server must be installed in a directory that has no spaces in any of the pathname components.
The default installation is into a directory named OpenLaszlo Server 4.2, which
must be renamed to something with no spaces, such as OpenlaszloServer4.1.
Because of the very large number of bug fixes, we have provided links to our JIRA bug tracking system where you can view the details:
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