User Interface (UI)

• AJAX creates desktop-like experience and has the following goals:
  
• simplify User operations
  
• preserve User's context by avoiding page transitions
  
• achieve UI speed close to Desktop UI interactions
  
• greatly speedup UI on Mobile Devices
• Allows to fit smaller screens
• added tabbed UI utilizing improved Property Groups.
  Property groups are evolving. They look like viewCols now, so no dependence on sequence of props. They allow to define an icon and will be getting more annotations. Property groups (previously used only in Create/Editmode) are now used to define Tabs in Control Panel and (soon) in View mode. Edit mode is a Tab itself - avoiding extra turnaround to the server and giving user immediate screen repaint on click. It was also never clear for a User where to find Edit button. Now it is up in the front.
  
• improved Dialogs and used them pervasively in many aspects of UI
• redesigned and greatly improved RTE (to allow MS Word-like text editing). New RTE has flexo-wrapping-toolbar. It works in popup Dialogs and will hopefully soon get the image paste function. This by itself is a great time saver for reporting bugs: just Prt Sc (or Alt-PrtSc) and paste in RTE. There will be no need for MS Word doc attachments anymore.
  
• simplified date chooser and date filter
• greatly enhanced Schedule Grid functionality (various cell markings, calendar chooser, paging by month or 2-weeks, etc.)
• greatly increase Schedule Grid speed and usability
• integrated Calendar (day, week, month, year) and Gantt Chart with Schedule Grid
• Filter: improved numeric and duration ranges (better detecting edges)
  
• Resource View: moved blue box to Communications tab. Made all links in this tab open as Dialog
  
• Limitations: some error messages still need to be switched to AJAX, e.g. deleting resource with dependencies, general help
• Added one-click access to User Profile and Inbox

Web on Mobile devices

• Various automatic adaptation techniques were added to make sure developer does not need to worry about screen size and absence of mouse.
  
• certified for Opera 8.02, 8.54, 9.02+ (Opera is found on many mobile devices. As added bonus - Desktop Opera is now also supported)
  
• certified for Linux Konqueror, Nokia's S60 Browser (as tested on Nokia e62 mobile phone, but should work on any 3rd generation S60 Phone)
• modified UI to allow pen-based operations of Mobile devices (no double-clicks, ctrl-clicks, etc.)
• changes to make UI more compact for 800x480 resolution (Nokia 770)
• changes to make UI more compact for 320x240 resolution (Nokia e61, e62)

Database

• added support for parameter annotation
• improved vocabulary (Schema) evolution
• detect incompatible schema changes. Allows user to run backup,confirm data loss (via 'ant loadforced') and then restore backed up data
• avoid data loss by manually indicating that property changed name (oldName annotation)
• added another cascading mechanism (via cascadeTo annotation). For example, this allowed allowed group adjustments - one Bar adjustment on Ticket is automatically propagated to all existing BarItems.

Data Export

• improved Papinet delivery message export
  
• added support for cancellation and replacement of Papinet messages that were already sent out (This required clever detection of cases when data already sent via Papinet were updated online or via imported documents).

Multiple-languages

Optimizations

• significant CPU speedup, especially on resource lists (felt most on SaveInExcel)
• listbox speedup - requesting smaller number of resources
• improved Shared and Transactional Caching (avoid database I/O by covering remaining cases when modified/created DavResources were not moved from transactional cache to shared cache)
• improved JavaScript popup and dialog opening (speedup most noticeable on slower Mobile devices)   
  

Developer Tools

Complied with Netbeans IDE ant target names convention

• added ant build (now same as ant compile)
• ant rebuild renamed into ant reload
• ant rebuild (now same as ant recompile)
• ant clean (now same as ant cleanup)
  

Created new Developer corner

• show code behind the page (vocabulary, JSP templates, menus)
  
• show SQL statistics
• show Cache statistics and Cache management tools
  
• Browser-based Log viewer shows the log for the last user request (or log subset including only SQL statements)
  
• show SQL & Cache stats for last AJAX request
• Log viewer for last user request that ran via AJAX
  

Increasing server uptime

• adding host without server restart
• adding new classes - davBeans are generated and compiled automatically and loaded into the server without server restart
  
• no need to restart when changing viewCols, adding backlinks, changing annotations - anything that does not effect SQL mapping
• several means to apply changes and inform the server
  
• voc changes made in IDE (like Eclipse, NetBeans) are applied automatically upon IDE build operation (e.g. ctrl-b in Eclipse).
• voc changes made in text editor can be applied using ant build (automatically informs a server if it is running)
• issue /meta/reload in browser for hosted applications

Vocabulary Syntax migrates to Java

• As a first step VOCDOC is generated in a new syntax
• By next version (v3.3) we plan to fully migrate .hf files to .java
  

Added Vocabulary patterns

• Totals click-through. When backlink props match numeric or Money propnames (e.g. barItems and barItemsTax, retailItems and retailItemsTotal) the total will automatically acquire the link for click-through. E.g.in class Customer retailItemsTax pattern matches retailItem backlink property in Customer class and tax property in RetailItem class.
  
• Auto-generated formulas toSUM-up and COUNT totals. E.g. barItemsTotal - SUM up barItems by their total property. Useful in any business app where lost of totals are calculated.
  

Security

• Enhanced security for multi-company collaborative environments. Smarter on Watches & Subscriptions - making sure that only people with right credentials get Alerts.
  

Widgets

Modern information systems often puzzle their users with multitude of choices. How to navigate the system? Which direction to take? What does all the information on the screen mean? How do I find what I really need? It may take years to get used to a software product and often only a small subset of its features is ever used.

This release of LablZ UniversalPlatform and Applications aims to face this challenge heads on.
 
How? The one word answer is: Widgets. This release offers Widgets as the new User Interface paradigm. Widget is a small chunk of the screen devoted to one task. Simple, focused and targeted to one function. A set of widgets on one screen form a dashboard. Like in your car you see at a glance how well your business mechanism is operating. But unlike your car, you can have dashboards for everyday use and for weekly meetings with the boss,dashboards for operational stuff and analytics, for desktop use and for Mobiles. So get ready for a treat since all LablZ Application Interfaces in this release were redesigned via the use of Widgets.

Technical highlights. Just do a text search on widget* in our CRM to see the multitude of widget-related features added in this release and the how Widgets made us rethink the UI. Widgets can be bookmarked. Lists of Widget bookmarks are combined into menus, tabs and dashboards - all of which can be changed with the click of a mouse. Even the Vocabulary is now represented as Widget Gallery from which menus are assembled. Many former reports are now automatically enhanced by correlated reports presented in Widget sidebar. This allows novices to discover the parts of the applications that were previously hidden from view. Read up to see how widgets are part of many other improvements in this release.

Blogs

Blogs are a new medium on the Web, drastically changing journalism and redefining global collaboration. As much as Blogs have affected the social landscape, the Enterprises had so far no way to tap into their powers. With this release LablZ presents an Enterprise Blogging capability that brings collaboration to a new level both within the organization and between its partners. Blogging shows all diverse and complex information produced in your Enterprise in one clear and simple chronological view and greatly simplifies submitting feedback.Yet this is not the end, LablZ Blogs usability is further enhanced by its sidebar Widgets.

Technical highlights. Blogging capability was completely integrated into the UniversalPlatform -making it available for all applications that run on it. In essence: any list of resources that is open for collaboration (CollaborationPoint) can now be viewed in a Blog View. Blog view allows to see CRM, SCM resources, such as Issues, Orders, Invoices in a view that shows discussion topic and communications heads up.

Mobile Devices

We all are in the middle of the next tectonic shift in computing. Last time it was the advent of PCs, then the Internet. The change this time is in Mobiles. Mobile phones are rapidly advancing to become the computer people use most of the time, while resorting to desktops only occasionally. As our customer would have expected, LablZ is swimming with the stream of time.

Thus this release adds support for iPhone.

To be accurate, LablZ UniversalPlatform was providing Mobile support for several years now.But until now the complexity of its use was only suitable for the enthusiasts. This release marks a major change. Now any user of LablZ Applications can use them on the go. iPhone user has now his most important business information only 3 clicks away. All Application pages are automatically formatted to fit the iPhone.

To make it even more convenient for Mobile user, LablZ is introducing a Mobile Desktop. Mobile Desktop contains only those items that user specifically designated for use on the go. Mobile Desktop is configured using the Browser on the desktop computer. When user returns to his desktop he can see the same data in expanded view on a bigger screen.

Technical highlights. Two new technical capabilities contributed to an iPhone support in this release: iPhone list view and Widgets. Most lists now have another, more compact "iPhone" view. This applies to both the Dashboards and all resource lists. It also applies to data entry screens. Widgets have turned out to be are a perfect way to present information on next-generation phones, like iPhone. The mobile user will be happy to see his desktop Dashboard Widgets on the mobile device almost unchanged.

Performance

Our customers expect performance improvements in every new release. This release makes major advances in performance. LablZ engineers understand that users not only want pages to load faster, they want the system to do more for them in the same amount of time and with less effort on their part. The performance boost in this release allowed us to do exactly that. Users of this release will see the addition of sidebar Widgets to many LablZ pages. Sidebar widgets intelligently add information related to the main content of the page. Sidebar greatly improves usability for new users. New users do not need to search the system for the information, instead relevant information comes to them. This also makes all LablZ Applications more powerful for advanced users.

Technical highlights. Some performance improvements were possible are due to improvements in our internal algorithms, others are the result of taking advantage of new technologies: even more pervasive use of AJAX technique(resulting in less page repainting): reduced page sizes via more consistent use of CSS; reduced link sizes via adding URL parameters upon user clicks; introduction of tinyURL technology (based on bookmark id); JavaScript techniques, such as Drag And Drop, Copy and Paste; server-side improvements in caching and text-indexing and much much more.

Time management

Businesses are always struggling with time pressures. This UniversalPlatform release allows users to lift much of the pressure off the shoulders of your managers and shift it to LablZ Applications. Let the system organize, keep track of all the business activities, facilitate meetings, streamline order processing, improve production planning and optimize delivery scheduling. Let you be a good guy and let the system bring in line all the laggards who did not comply or did not pay on time.

Technical highlights. Major improvements were made in all types of screens that show resources on a time grid, especially the Schedule grid. Schedule grid acquired better navigation using built-in popup calendars, allows moving items between cells using copy/paste and has improved color coding for packing information more tightly. Time grids (calendars) show all the activities for a certain period or activities related to a certain Event, Workplace, Project, etc. They also show you activities related to a certain person (employee or a customer) or a group of them. In some respect time grids are just lists of resources put on timeline, so you can filter and search the way you did before, but now see the data in a new light.

Scalability, Robustness and Availability

This release brings major improvements in the area of Scalability,Robustness and Availability. It opens access to a greater number of users, increases safety of data and improves the uptime. These improvements were engineered to take advantage of a new hardware base to which many LablZ Applications will be migrated in the future. The new hardware base offers higher network bandwidth, reliable backup storage and on-demand availability of new server machines (we can now bring up a hundred new servers within 30 minutes, should the need arise).

Browser support

For several years now there was only one browser that mattered to the Enterprise - MS Internet Explorer. The picture has changed in 2007 and will change more in the next 2-3 years. iPhone has a powerful Mobile Browser, called Safari. Safari is a default browser on Apple Mac and is a mature and an extremely fast browser. LablZ Mobile Desktop combined with iPhone's revolutionary multi-touch screens makes Web business applications simple now even for new users.

Technical Highlights. Widgets and mobiles place extreme pressure on vendors for supporting a larger variety of browsers. LablZ stood up to the challenge. This release equally supports Opera 9+, Safari 3+, Firefox 2+, IE6, IE7, Konqueror 3.5.3+.On mobiles: Nokia's s60 browser (WebKit-based) and Opera Mobile 8.5+are now supported.

Security

This release presents many advances in making LablZ UniversalPlatform more secure for its users. It makes LablZ UniversalPlatform more open for collaboration yet more secure in the face of increased hacker activity (such as Spam, Viruses and other types of attacks). Major advances in security allowed LablZ to provide more functionality while tightening the defenses against the misuse. For example, users of this release will see the new type of more open multi-organizational workflow, called Enterprise Blogging, which would not work without new security methods introduced in this release.

• set properties of the matched resource (This will need to trigger another Watch)
• execute JavaScript (This will need to trigger another Watch)
• execute external program
• send email
• issue GET on specific URL (execute Servlet)
• execute a delayed action - e.g. for a new Comment create a Job that in 5 minutes will seal it (mark this Comment as non-editable) and will create an Alert for it. This will allow new forum posts to be corrected.
• etc.