Release Notes v3.3RC1

We continue to provide the all-in-one packages that are easy setups. They contain everything (eclipse, all prereqs, third party packages and Lomboz) in one big zip file. Just donload it and start using it. No complex setup issues. With the 3.3 release, Lomboz provides an IDE that has tools for Struts, JSF, Portals, JPA, Databases, Hibernate, Spring Framework, BPEL and ofcourse Java EE development with EJBs, Servlets and JSPs. Proving a rich set of tools also means that Lomboz all-in-one has a large download size and large number of plug-ins. In order to provide partial capabilities for users who do not need the complete set of tools, we have provided seperate packages for BPEL, SpringIDE and Hibernate tools. These packages contain not only the third part tools such as the Eclipse BPEL Editor, but has Lomboz plugins such as the Lomboz BPEL runtime support for development and testing of business processes.

With our new Cloudsmith enabled distros you can turn complex environment setups into code streams that simply materialize when you use one of these virtual distributions. Often, you will need additional third party software for Web or portal development such as Apache Tomcat, eXo portal, XDoclet, Apache Struts, to count a few. You will have to download and install these in addition to Lomboz. No more! We have created virtual distros for most common user scenarios; For example Lomboz for Web contains an Application server runtime such as Apache Tomcat, and other developer frameworks such as Struts in addtion to Lomboz. Lomboz for SOA, contains a BPEL runtime. Visit or distribution links to find out more or create one yourself.

Since version 3.2, all Lomboz releases are also made available from our Update site. You can start using Lomboz Update Manager in addition to All-in-one zip files, SDKs, and minimal runtimes are also available from the download site.

Since contributing the original source code of Lomboz to Eclipse Web Tools Platform to seed that project along with other contributors, the new Lomboz is buillt on the Eclipse open source platform and the Web Tools Platform. Lomboz developers enjoy all standard WTP tooling such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JSP, Servlet, EJB, XML, XSD and Web Services editing, validation and wizards as well as the new graphical Web Page Editor, Java Server Faces (JSF) and Java Persistence API (JPA) tools.

Lomboz contains Eclipse Data Tools Pþatform, a set of tools for database related development frameworks. Specifically, relational database systems connection profiles, and tools such as SQL editors and result set views.

Lomboz packages Eclipse BPEL Project to add comprehensive support for the definition, authoring, editing, deploying, testing and debugging of WS-BPEL 2.0 processes. Tools include the designer, a graphical means to author BPEL processes and validation that produces errors and warnings based on the specification. Lomboz also adds support for the execution of BPEL processes from the tools into open-source BPEL engines such as Apache ODE.
You can view the following flash demonstration and learn how to use BPEL tools with Lomboz. Go to BPEL demo.
Apache ODE and Eclipse BPEL Designer projects are still under development. These teams are building excellent software, but they will release more tsable versions in the coming months. Please take this into consideration when evaluating these features and report any bugs so that we can improve the end-user experience .

Lomboz contains tools to support portal development. These tools contain Wizards for JSR-168 compliant portlet development. Development of portlets using open-source portal frameworks such as the ObjectWeb eXo Platform, and Liferay.

Lomboz has tools for the popular Apache Struts Web framework that makes working with struts XML configurations very easy. Struts tools support v1.3 and provides an Configuration and Tiles Editor with auto-completions, syntax highlighting and validation. Struts editors even support semantic auto-completion for class names, form/tiles names, forwards and actions. Struts tools also contains a Wizards for Actions, Forms and Page.

Lomboz packages the popular SpringIDE (v2.0/2.1) tools for Spring framework support. These tools contain support for Spring 2.0 namespace-based configurations, smart XML editing with content-assist, validation, graphical views and outlines.

Lomboz packages the popular Hibernate Tools that makes working with Hibernate mappings, APIs and the query language very easy. Hibernate tools support Hibernate v3.x and provides an XML Mapping Editor with auto-completions, syntax highlighting and validation. Hibernate also contains a Console, Wizards, Ant tasks for schema generation, and Reverse engineering mappings from Databases.