Release Notes

Version 2.6.2

New features and improvements

Dependency Updates

The following versions have been updated:

Faktor-IPS

24.7.5.release

Vaadin

24.4.16

Spring Boot

3.3.5
Automatically focus first applicable element in combobox

If a character or word is entered into a combobox and there is only one matching element, then this element gets selected automatically.

Example

A combobox has the values UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT.

If the user enters 'u', the entry UP is selected automatically.

If the user enters 't', there are two possible matches (LEFT and RIGHT) and therefore no entry is selected automatically.

Bugfixes

  • Previously, setting the value to null in @UIRadioButtons failed to check the appropriate radio button. Now, selecting null correctly checks the "Not specified" radio button, ensuring proper representation.

    With this bug fix, the converter must now be able to handle null-valued presentation values. Although this was already part of the Converter contract, it can now lead to an exception in ValueAspectDefinition.

Version 2.6.1

New features and improvements

Dependency Updates

The following versions have been updated:

Vaadin

24.4.4

Bugfixes

  • Card sections theme now only applies to dialogs if the theme is explicitly set on the dialog itself or a child layout.

  • The items of a table created with @UITableComponent are now only fetched asynchronously if the return type is CompletableFuture. The documentation is updated accordingly.

Disabled and readonly style for radio button and checkbox

The disabled and readonly style of radio buttons and checkboxes has been harmonised to follow the linkki style guidelines.

DefaultCaptionProvider uses the provided Locale

If the provided Locale is null, it defaults to UiFramework.getLocale(). It does not ignore the provided Locale for Boolean captions anymore.

Scrollbar on required components with an empty/ blank label

Components within a form layout that are required and have an empty/ blank label do not scroll anymore. The required indicator is always visible at the right upper corner of the label.

Version 2.6.0

New features and improvements

Dependency Updates

The following versions have been updated:

Faktor-IPS

24.7.1.release

Vaadin

24.4.3

Spring Boot

3.3.1

The new Vaadin version brings some notable improvements and changes that affect linkki applications:

Using React components from Flow

React components can now be easily used in Vaadin Flow applications. Details are described in the Vaadin documentation.

Improvements for Checkbox

Checkboxes can now display validation messages also display required indicator in layouts other than @UISection. For more information, check out the Vaadin documentation for checkbox.

Breaking Change in Vaadin Testbench

The method ElementQuery.id(…​) will now throw an exception if multiple elements with the same id are present, instead of returning the first matching item.

Migration

To switch back to the old behavior, you have to change the id(…​) call to withId(…​).first(). A better approach would be to first narrow the scope to ensure that the requested element only exists once within this scope.
Open tab in dev mode less often

When Vaadin application is started in dev mode, it always opens a new tab in browser. This quickly leads to many tabs opened in browser. This behavior is now changed: a new tab is only opened if the server is restarted again after 30 minutes. Otherwise, the browser tab is reused. This duration can be modified, see Vaadin documentation.

Relocation of /frontend and renaming of generated bundles

Vaadin 24.4.3 uses src/main/frontend/ directory as a default location of frontend resources, which is more natural for Maven projects. Additionally, the generated bundles are now renamed from dev-bundle to dev.bundle.

Migration

Existing non generated content in /frontend should be moved to the new location.

The .gitignore file may need to be adjusted too to accommodate the changes. To make it easier to maintain the .gitignore in the future, a new documentation is added which provides template for linkki projects.
Misleading warning during Maven build

If there are no Hilla dependencies on the classpath, e.g. in JEE projects, the following warning may occur during the maven build:

[WARNING] The 'configure' goal is only meant to be used in Hilla projects with endpoints.

This warning is a false positive because of a bug in Vaadin (details) and can be ignored.

Product build failure when using Spring Data JPA

When using Spring Data JPA, exception may occur during the Maven production build using build-frontend, caused by a ClassNotFoundException for example for the class ApplicationPublisherAware. This occurs particularly if the @EnableJpaRepositories annotation is on the same class as @Theme (details).

Migration

One possible workaround is to move the implementation of the AppShellConfigurator into a different class. Alternatively, the annotation for Spring Data JPA such as @EnabledJpaRepositories can be moved to a separate configuration class.

Details on all changes can be found in the Vaadin 24.4.3 release notes.

Additional dependencies in vaadin-spring–boot-starter

The Maven dependency vaadin-spring-boot-starter now includes the Hilla dependency by default, which introduces several transitive dependencies such as Spring Security or Swagger. Some of these dependencies may cause build issues.

Migration

Explicitly include the necessary Spring Boot Starters and Vaadin Spring dependency vaadin-spring instead. Alternatively, the Hilla dependency com.vaadin:hilla can be excluded from the vaadin-spring-boot-starter dependency.
New BOM module for dependency management

The new linkki BOM module manages the versions and scopes of all linkki dependencies.

To use the BOM module, simply import the BOM dependency in the dependency management of your project. Any version and scope configurations of linkki dependencies can then be removed.

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.linkki-framework</groupId>
    <artifactId>linkki-bom</artifactId>
    <version>2.6.0</version>
    <type>pom</type>
    <scope>import</scope>
</dependency>
New annotation for tables: @UITableComponent

A new UI component @UITableComponent is now available, providing a new way to create tables directly on a method instead of a class.

Example usage of @UITableComponent
    @BindStyleNames(LumoUtility.Height.FULL)
    @BindPlaceholder("There are no rows available.")
    @UITableComponent(position = 0, rowPmoClass = PersonRowPmo.class)
    public List<PersonRowPmo> getRows() {
        return itemSupplier.get();
    }

If server push is enabled and and the return type is a CompletableFuture, the items of the table are set asynchronously. This is particularly useful if the rows of the table must be retrieved form external systems.

This new annotation has several advantages comparing to the definition of tables using ContainerPmo/SimpleTablePmo:

  • No PMO class is required to create a table. This makes it easier to combine tables with other components in a layout.

  • It is easy to style the table itself. When using ContainerPmo, it is only possible to add style names to the section. If the table itself has to be modified, the created component has to be cast to GridSection to retrieve the Grid component. With @UITableComponent, styles names can be directly applied to the table by using BindStyleNames.

Further details can be found in the documentation.

@UITableComponent does not work with selection yet.
Multi-selection in tables

  • The BindTableSelection now includes a new attribute called selectionMode. Its default value is Grid.SelectionMode.SINGLE.

  • A new interface MultiSelectableTablePmo has been added. While SelectableTablePmo defines the necessary methods when the selectionMode is Grid.SelectionMode.SINGLE, so does the interface MultiSelectableTablePmo for when selectionMode is Grid.SelectionMode.MULTI.

Further information can be found in the documentation.

Boolean support for UIComboBox and UIRadioButtons

  • Booleans in UIComboBox and UIRadioButtons are now displayed with user-friendly text. No additional caption provider needs to be set. For more details, see documentation for UIComboBox and UIRadioButtons.

  • UIYesNoComboBox is deprecated and can be replaced with UIComboBox.

Improvements in datatype conversion
New converters for GregorianCalendar and Money

Converters have been added for GregorianCalendar and Money that make them usable with String-valued UI components such as @UITextField.
The StringToGregorianCalendarConverter is integrated into the LinkkiConverterRegistry and can be used with @UITextField or @UILabel directly.
StringToMoneyConverter has be added in the Faktor-IPS extension. Its functionality is documented here. This converter is not applied by default, thus have to be added to the converter registry if needed.

Changed String format for Date

In the previous version, Date values has been converted to String using the converter provided by Vaadin format, which displays a date as Jan 12, 1952 in the English locale. This behavior is not consistent with the presentation in UIDateField. Thus, a new StringToDateConverter has been introduced which presents a date as 01/01/1952 in English, and 01.01.1952 in German.

Improved behavior with overflowing integers

Input values in a @UIIntegerField that exceed the maximum allowed integer do not overflow anymore. Instead, an error is displayed and the field is reset to its previous valid input.

Consistent naming for number converters

The number converters have been deprecated and replaced with new ones that match the correct naming schema, using the presentation type first.

Old class

New class

FormattedNumberToStringConverter

FormattedStringToNumberConverter

FormattedIntegerToStringConverter

FormattedStringToIntegerConverter

FormattedDoubleToStringConverter

FormattedStringToDoubleConverter

FormattedDecimalFieldToStringConverter

FormattedStringToDecimalConverter
The converters are used by the corresponding UI annotations by default. Changes are only necessary if FormattedNumberToStringConverter was extended.
New VisibleType INVISIBLE_IF_EMPTY

A new enum value, INVISIBLE_IF_EMPTY, is now available in VisibleType. When used, the VisibleAspectDefinition evaluates the linked method’s output. Components linked to this method will be hidden if the result is null or an empty String, enhancing UI cleanliness. Further details can be found in the documentation.

New visual for card like sections

linkki provides a theme card-like-pages that can make all contained sections have a card alike appearance by giving the content of sections a background color. This theme makes AbstractPage component that contain sections appear more structured.

2 6 card section before
Figure 1. card-like-pages theme in previous version

This theme has been reworked:

Notable Changes

  • The theme card-section-pages has been changed to card-sections.

  • card-sections does not only apply to AbstractPage components, but to all components.

  • The background of the theme does not only cover the content components, but the whole section.

    2 6 card section after
    Figure 2. card-like-sections theme now

To reflect the changes, following constants have been renamed:

Class

Old name

New name

LinkkiTheme

VARIANT_CARD_SECTION_PAGES

VARIANT_CARD_SECTIONS

LinkkiSection

CLASS_SECTION_STYLE_CARD

THEME_VARIANT_CARD

See section "Theme Variants" for more details on how to use the theme variant.

Customizable position of the loading indicator

When using application header, the loading indicator has the same color as the header, making it effectively invisible. To mitigate this problem, the loading indicator was moved to the bottom of the page by default.

The position of the loading indicator can be configured with two new css properties in the linkki theme:

  • --linkki-loading-indicator-top

  • --linkki-loading-indicator-bottom

In de linkki theme the loading indicator is configured to be displayed at the bottom of the page by default.

For more details see loading indicator.

Improvements for Karibu support

KaribuUtils has been extended to provide better support for unit testing linkki applications:

Support for push UI

As the push functionality is provided by Atmosphere thus does not work out of the box with Karibu, the method KaribuUtils.UI.push() and KaribuUtils.UI.push(UI) can be used to flush the command queue manually.

Support for OkCancelDialog

A new inner class KaribuUtils.Dialogs has be added to provide methods that makes it easy to interact with OkCancelDialog.

Improved support for Notification

The methods for Notification are moved to an inner class Notifications. Additionally, methods are added to retrieve the severity, description, and content components in the notification.

Support for fields

The method setValue of AbstractField does not fire value change events, making it difficult to test if the PMO was correctly updated. The new method Fields.setValue can be now used to mitigate this problem.

Improvements of the documentation
New documentation for CSS custom properties in the linkki Theme

linkki theme defines CSS custom properties which is the easiest way to customize the UI. These are now documented in chapter "Styling".

New documentation for .gitignore

A template .gitignore file is provided for linkki projects, making it more clear which Vaadin resources should not be included in Git.

linkki tutorial in the documentation

The linkki tutorial is now part of this documentation (see Tutorial), making it easier to find.

Other

  • BindVariantNames now applies to all Vaadin components, expanding its functionality beyond its previous limitation to components that implemented HasTheme.

  • All Notifications (info, warning and error) now include a close button. Additionally, the default duration for warning notifications has been increased to 6000 ms.

  • A new constructor has been added to the DefaultCaptionProvider class that accepts a Locale parameter.

Bugfixes

Default Error Page Exception Handling

For better message handling in the LinkkiErrorPage a new MessageException was introduced.

  • On receiving a MessageException, the error page shows the message of this exception in production as well as in development mode.

  • On receiving any other exception:

    • In development mode: a custom message or the exception message is shown to the user.

    • In production mode: only a generic error message is shown to the user to hide any sensitive information.

Additionally logging for the thrown exception has been added. MessageExceptions are only logged if they contain a cause. All other exceptions are logged anyways.

Width of nested components

The width of nested components was fixed. Any value that is set as width on @UINestedComponent is now only applied to the layout element. The nested component itself gets a width of 100%.

In the following example the wrapping element of the @UIVerticalLayout gets a width of 50% but the @UIVerticalLayout itself has full width.

@UINestedComponent(position = 10, width = "50%")
public PersonPmo getPerson() {
    return new PersonPmo();
}

@UIVerticalLayout
class PersonPmo  {

    @UITextField(position = 10, label = "Firstname")
    public String getFirstname() {
        return "Max";
    }

    @UITextField(position = 20, label = "Lastname")
    public String getLastname() {
        return "Mustermann";
    }

}