WebWork 2.1 Released

The OpenSymphony group is proud to announce the release of WebWork 2.1. This release marks an important step in the continued development of the WebWork web application framework. The 2.1.x line will continue to be developed to add support to client side validation, stability, and performance. Future major versions of WebWork will be focusing on more client-oriented dynamic features (using DHTML and JavaScript), better tools integration (an IDEA plugin is in the works), and overall developer productivity.

• WebWork: http://www.opensymphony.com/webwork/
• Release notes and changes: http://www.opensymphony.com/webwork/wikidocs/Release%20Notes.html
• Documentation: http://www.opensymphony.com/webwork/wikidocs/Documentation.html

New Features

WebWork adds support for client side input validation, beefed up backwards compatibility, increased performance, and a new simplified UI layout theme ("simple"). The biggest addition, however, is in the form of documentation. The WebWork community came together and was able to create a great set of documentation and tutorials that will only get better over time. The OpenSymphony community has proved once again that it is one of the shining stars in the open source arena.

Bug Fixes

Many small bug fixes have been address, especially those relating to backwards compatibility with WebWork 1.x. In addition, the upgraded dependency on XWork 1.0.1 has increased performance greatly.

Special Thanks

The biggest addition to WebWork has, by far, been the documentation. Without the dedicated work from the community, WebWork would be nothing more than yet another excellent java library that no one but the authors use. Fortunately, the following people dedicated time and effort to making WebWork accessible by writing detailed documentation, examples, and tutorials:

• Vitor Souza
• Richard Hallier
• Bill Lynch
• Casey Moyaert
• Michael Campbell
• Gabriel Zimmerman
• Cuong Tran
• Michael Greer

About WebWork

WebWork is a leading open source Java web application framework. Developed originally by Rickard Oberg (original developer of JBoss and creator of XDoclet, among other accomplishments), WebWork aims to lower the bar for developing web applications by making the more tedious tasks of web development automated. By taking the best features from other web frameworks available today, WebWork represents a best-of-bread solution to web development created by through the feedback of an active OpenSymphony community.

WebWork is built on top of XWork, a generic command pattern framework. WebWork uses the capabilities of XWork to provide the following features:

• Advanced UI components, allowing you to build complex, reusable UI components, ranging from simple text fields to advanced date pickers.
• A robust inversion of control (IoC) container that binds to the native Servlet lifecycles: request, session, and application.
• Pluggable configuration, allowing you to develop web "modules" that can easily be integrated together to form complete applications independently.
• Complete data mapping from HTTP to Java data objects, enabling you to focus more on application development and less on tedious data conversion.
• A complete validation framework, both on the server side and client side. This lets you choose the most optimal way to ensure user input is correct before processing it.
• An advanced expression language, based on OGNL, providing the most common operations usually associated with building web-based user interfaces.
• Support for integration with many popular open source projects, including: Spring, Pico, OSWorkflow, FreeMarker, Velocity, JasperReports, JFreeChart, and many more.