Orbeon Forms 4.7

Today we released Orbeon Forms 4.7!

Major features and enhancements

• Server-side embedding API. Orbeon Forms 4.7 introduces a new way to integrate forms within Java (and other Java Virtual Machine-based languages) applications: server-side embedding. (doc, blog)
• Internal service requests. Orbeon Forms often needs to perform requests to itself, such as calling its own persistence layer implementations, as well as for internal page navigation. In previous versions, Orbeon Forms performed HTTP requests on itself. This could cause problems, such as using more servlet container threads, slower performance, and interference with servlet filters. Internal requests no longer use actual HTTP connections, which addresses these issues.
• Improved Liferay proxy portlet support.
• The proxy portlet uses a better and more configurable HTTP client to connect to Form Runner. In particular, this means that gzip compression can be supported between Form Runner and the portlet.  (doc)
• The WAR file is much smaller than before (1.7 MB).
• The portlet supports dynamic form selection from URL parameters. Note that this is disabled by default for security reasons. (doc)
• Form Builder improvements.
• Itemsets in actions support internationalization. (doc, blog)
• You can control required values with formulas. (doc, blog)
• Multiple remote servers. The Form Runner Home page supports multiple remote servers. You can, for example, configure a staging and a production server. (doc, blog)
• Flat view support with DB2. Previously, the flat view was supported with Oracle only. It is now also supported with DB2. (doc)
• Improvements to simple processes.
• New set-data-status action. (doc)
• New setvalue action. (doc)
• Support XVT in success-message and error-message actions. (doc)
• Ability to set and clear fields with the duplicate action. (doc)
• Ability to send form metadata to a service. (doc)
• New APIs.
• Service API to duplicate form data. (doc)
• Service API to list form data attachments. (doc)

Internationalization

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 40 issues since Orbeon Forms 4.6.2 (and over 60 since 4.6).

Current browser support

• Form Builder (creating forms):
• Chrome 38 (latest stable version, plus the current dev channel)
• Firefox 32 (latest  stable version, plus the current Firefox ESR)
• IE 11
• Safari 8
• Additional support for Form Runner (accessing form):
• IE 8, IE 9 and IE 10
• Safari Mobile on iOS 6, iOS 7 and iOS 8
• Chrome for Android (stable channel)

Compatibility notes

• Browser support
• For end-users (when accessing forms, e.g. through Form Runner) – Support for IE7 was deprecated in Orbeon Forms 4.5, and isn't supported anymore started with Orbeon Forms 4.7.
• For form authors (using Form Builder) – In Orbeon Forms 4.7, we used to support both IE10 and IE11; since in most cases IE10 auto-updates to IE11, the share of IE10 dropped very quickly after IE11 was released in October 2013. So, in Orbeon Forms 4.7, we decided to drop support for IE10. Going forward, for Form Builder, we plan to only support the latest release of IE.
• Portlets. Support for loading portlet content asynchronously has been removed. This had been introduced to improve portlet loads with slower browsers such as IE 7, which is no longer supported.
• Property deprecation. The oxf.fr.production-server-uri property is deprecated and replaced with the new oxf.fr.home.remote-servers property.  If oxf.fr.production-server-uri is set and not empty, it takes precedence over the new oxf.fr.home.remote-servers property, for backward compatibility.

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!