Orbeon Forms 4.6

Today we released Orbeon Forms 4.6!

Major features and enhancements

• Lower memory usage for compiled forms. Orbeon Forms has a sophisticated system of caches, including for compiled form definitions. In previous versions, several compiled form definition were created for different modes of the same form (creation, edition, view, PDF, email, noscript). In this version, we create a single compiled form definition for creation and edition on one hand, and view, PDF and email on the other hand. When the wizard view is not used, a single form definition is created for all those modes. The benefit is that less memory is used per form you create, and that the first access to a given mode of a form can be faster. (#1143)
• Faster large forms. This version fixes a bottleneck which slowed down very large forms, sometimes by a factor of two. (#1737)
• SQL Server support. In addition to Oracle, DB2, and MySQL, Orbeon Forms can now store form definitions and data in SQL Server. (#697) (blog post)
• Improved Form Runner Home page. The Form Runner Home page is now faster, in particular with relational databases, and supports paging. (blog post)
• Improved versioning options when publishing. When versioning is enabled, publishing a form now gives the form author the option to create a new form version or to override the previous version. (#1669)
• Upgrade form definitions. Form Builder, when loading forms from older versions of Orbeon Forms, has a mechanism to upgrade the form definition to the new version. Until now, you had to open all those forms in Form Builder and republish them, which could be time consuming. You can  now do this as a batch operation from the Form Runner Home page with the new "Upgrade form definitions" function. (#1695)

Internationalization

This version introduces the following new languages:

• Portuguese (Form Runner and Form Builder)
• Dutch (Form Runner)

In addition, the Finnish resources have been brought up to date (Form Runner and Form Builder).

See Localizing Orbeon Forms for the latest localization support. Localization depends on volunteers, so please let us know if you want to help!

Other new features and bug-fixes

Including the major features and enhancements above, we closed about 60 issues since Orbeon Forms 4.5.1 (over 70 since 4.5). We should mention these notable bug-fixes and features:

• Form Builder
• You can configure whether services/actions are present in toolbox (#1722), which Publish dialog actions are available (#1721), and which buttons and processes are used in Form Builder (#1416)
• Form Runner
• URLs in text fields and textareas are automatically hyperlinked (#1694)
• The "navigate" action properties can be XPath value templates (#1226) (doc)
• Attached images are properly resized in PDF files (#872)
• Focusing out of all fields dispatches a DOMFocusOut event (the Form Runner error summary show errors as expected when this happens) (#619)
• When paging in the Summary or Home pages, full updates are used and increase UI responsiveness (#1685)
• The Dynamic Data Dropdown can now be hidden if its itemset is empty (#1621)
• The min and max attributes on fr:grid are now AVTs (#1665)
• XForms
• Required and type MIPs now count as failed validations (#1533)
• xf:case supports AVT on the selected attribute (#1683)
• The recalculate and revalidate actions are now unified (#1650)
• Other
• Properties support inline values for enhanced readability (#1257) (blog post)
• Orbeon now uses jQuery version 1.10.2 (#1349)

Current browser support

This is unchanged since Orbeon Forms 4.5:

• Form Builder (creating forms):
• Chrome (latest versions, both in the stable and dev channels)
• Firefox (latest released version and current Firefox ESR)
• IE10 and IE11
• Additional support for Form Runner (accessing form):
• IE7 (deprecated), IE8, and IE9
• Safari Mobile on iOS 6 and iOS 7
• Chrome for Android (stable channel)

Compatibility notes

• If you use Oracle, MySQL or DB2, you need to upgrade your database schemas. (doc)
• With XForms, the xxf:sequence element child of xf:var is deprecated. Instead, use xxf:value. (#1710)
• The default is for forms created with Form Builder is to have noscript support disabled. To enable noscript support, add xxf:noscript-support="true" to the main <xf:model> element of the form, via Edit Source.

You can download the latest version of Orbeon Forms from the downloads page.

Don't forget to grab a trial license for the PE version.

Please send feedback:

• via Twitter
• to the discussion list
• or as comments on this blog entry

We hope you enjoy this release!