Changes Report¶

Release History¶

Release 2.0 - 2010-05-10

Type	Changes	Bye
	More convention over configuration and smart defaults .	nbubna
	New configuration formats (more concise/flexible/powerful xml, properties, java) .	nbubna
	Entirely new core infrastructure (lazy-loading tools, easier access, standalone support etc) .	nbubna
	Added VelocityViewTag for JSP integration .	nbubna
	Added DisplayTool, ConversionTool, ClassTool, LoopTool, FieldTool, a generic version of LinkTool and more .	nbubna
	Refactored and enhanced a number of existing tools .	nbubna
	Improved documentation .	nbubna
	Deprecated many outdated things .	nbubna
	Legacy support for almost all Tools 1.4 configurations and extensions .	nbubna
	Better integration of $application, $session and $request scope control objects .	cbrisson

Release 1.4 - 2007-11-26

Type	Changes	Bye
	Added ability to add current request parameters to LinkTool, including controls for automatically and/or manually ignoring some of those . Thanks to Christopher Schultz.	nbubna
	fixed infinite recursion in RenderTool . Fixes VELTOOLS-87. Thanks to Andrea Bernardo Ciddio.	nbubna
	Upgraded DVSL version used for documentation to v1.0 .	nbubna
	Fix order preservation problem in SortTool . Fixes VELTOOLS-85. Thanks to Tatyana.	nbubna
	Protect BrowserSniffer from requests without user-agent .	cbrisson
	Added support for a MethodExceptionHandler - the TilesTool.get() method now only returns null if one isn't present .	marino
	Changed StrutsLinkTool.setForward() to look for forwards local to the action mapping, before looking up global forwards . Thanks to Christopher Schultz.	nbubna
	Rearrange/refactor/deprecate some internal methods in VelocityViewServlet in preparation for VelocityTools 2.0 upgrades .	nbubna
	Upgraded Velocity Engine dependency to build and test against v1.5 (NOTE: Velocity Engine 1.5 will be required for VelocityTools 2.0.) .	nbubna
	Added propertyKey() and propertyValue() escaping support to EscapeTool . Fixes VELTOOLS-81. Thanks to Phil Cornelius.	nbubna
	Fixed bug in request-path restriction when using wildcards .	nbubna
	Make default locale and format for NumberTool configurable, just as they are in DateTool .	nbubna
	Add ComparisonDateTool (with some tests and showcase demos) for comparing dates and displaying the comparisons textually . Thanks to Chris Townsen.	nbubna
	Add ability to configure default Locale for DateTool and to lock down configure() so it is safe to use in application scope .	nbubna
	Add better support for dynamic locales in MessageTool . Thanks to Christopher Schultz.	nbubna
	Use ResourceTool for common text throughout the Showcase example .	nbubna

Release 1.3 - 2007-02-08

Type	Changes	Bye
	Added ResourceTool and ViewResourceTool for access to and use of ResourceBundles .	nbubna
	Upgraded to latest versions of Commons-Digester (1.8) and Commons-Validator (1.3.1) .	nbubna
	Updated ValidatorTool to mirror key changes/features in Struts 1.3.x's JavascriptValidatorTag . Fixes VELTOOLS-58. Thanks to Christopher Schultz and Niall Pemberton.	nbubna
	Added url(String) method to EscapeTool for URL encoding . Fixes VELTOOLS-73. Thanks to Marc Novakowski.	cbrisson
	Added start.showcase.webapp and stop.showcase.webapp ant targets to manually launch the showcase webapp using the embedded Jetty servlet container .	cbrisson
	Added a testcases framework for generic and view tools .	cbrisson
	Changed VelocityViewServlet to look for toolbox config at "/WEB-INF/toolbox.xml" and velocity init properties at "/WEB-INF/velocity.properties" when no other locations are specified (i.e. change the standard location into a convention to reduce configuration needs) .	nbubna
	Upgraded VelocityStruts dependencies to those for Struts 1.3.x series and updated "struts" example app according to provided directions .	nbubna
	Replaced "layout" example with new "showcase" example to interactively demonstrate all tools and the VelocityLayoutServlet .	nbubna
	Added auto() and manual() methods to AlternatorTool and deprecated the make() methods that took a boolean parameter .	nbubna
	Added getAll() method to ParameterParser to retrieve map of all params via $params.all .	nbubna
	Added configurable getSelf() function to LinkTool to make self-referencing links easier .	nbubna
	Added create() methods to CookieTool to support more complex Cookie creation .	nbubna
	Added ContextTool for convenient access to context data and meta-data .	nbubna
	Overhauled ant build process: dependencies are now automatically download, jars have manifests, checksums are auto-generated, and more. Also, building with JDK 1.3 is no longer supported . Fixes VELTOOLS-71.	nbubna
	Updated license headers and notices to comply with new ASF policy .	henning
	Made auto-alternate default of AlternatorTool configurable via toolbox config .	nbubna
	Add addQueryData(Map) and params(Map) method to LinkTool . Thanks to Mark Brunkhart.	nbubna
	Fixed a number of problems with ImportSupport . Fixes VELTOOLS-56. Thanks to Christopher Schultz.	nbubna
	Add ability to restrict availability of request-scoped tools according to a request path value set in the tool configuration . Fixes VELTOOLS-67. Thanks to Claude Brisson.	nbubna
	Change VelocityViewServlet to read logger and resource loader config from velocity.properties file instead of hard-coding it . Fixes VELTOOLS-68.	henning
	Added setAbsolute() and absolute() methods to LinkTool .	nbubna
	Made default format of DateTool configurable via toolbox definition .	nbubna
	Deprecated ViewTool and Configurable interfaces ; ViewToolInfo has been enhanced to automatically recognize such tools by checking for init(Object) and/or configure(Map) methods .	nbubna
	Enhanced TextKey trick in MessageTool to make using args and bundles easier .	nbubna
	Add getInteger() and getDouble() convenience methods to ValueParser .	nbubna
	Added get() method to StrutsLinkTool to allow syntax like $link.action.saveFoo .	nbubna
	Added param(), relative(), anchor(), and uri() convenience methods to LinkTool .	nbubna
	Added currency(), number(), integer(), and percent() convenience methods to NumberTool .	nbubna
	Changed auto-alternate default in AlternatorTool to match Alternator default .	nbubna

Release 1.2 - 2005-11-09

Type	Changes	Bye
	Updated documentation to cover new features and sync to many infrastructure changes .	nbubna
	Fixed incomplete escaping in ValidatorTool . Fixes VELTOOLS-52. Thanks to Christopher Schultz.	nbubna
	Fixed infinite loop logging problem with Tomcat 5.5 in the "simple" example webapp .	nbubna
	Upgraded jars to Struts 1.2.7, Commons-Logging 1.0.4, Commons-Validator 1.1.4, Digester 1.7, Commons-Collections 3.1, Beanutils 1.7.0, Struts SSL Extension for 1.2, and Commons-Lang 2.1 .	nbubna
	Added VelocityStruts support for non-resource and session-scoped action messages . Fixes VELTOOLS-51. Thanks to Niall Pemberton.	nbubna
	Factored generic parsing code out of ParameterParser into new ValueParser for parsing strings pulled from any Map .	nbubna
	Improved error handling/recovery in toolbox xml parsing by adding validation of tool info .	henning
	Added BrowserSnifferTool for identifying browsers and their features ; this depends on Java 1.4's regexp support for use .	nbubna
	Added EscapeTool for commons escaping needs ; this requires commons-lang for use . Thanks to Shinobu Kawai.	nbubna
	Added ListTool as utility for using arrays like Lists in templates . Thanks to Shinobu Kawai.	nbubna
	Added DateTool methods to provide easy access to date values (e.g. month, year, day) .	nbubna
	Converted VelocityView and VelocityStruts to use a VelocityEngine instead of the Velocity singleton. This means only the servlets log directly to the VelocityEngine instance; the tools and other classes now use commons-logging (which can still be redirected to the VVS's VelocityEngine). Also, both the RenderTool and LogSystemCommonsLog now support either the singleton or non-singleton approach .	nbubna
	Fixed bad relative URIs in LinkTool when webapp is installed as root . Thanks to Laurent Dauvilaire.	nbubna
	Factored basic pagination code out of AbstractSearchTool into new AbstractPagerTool .	nbubna
	Make StrutsUtils.errorMarkup() support errors.prefix/suffix . Thanks to Shinobu Kawai.	nbubna
	Fixed ImportSupport bug with multiple calls to ImportResponseWrapper.getWriter() or getOutputStream() . Thanks to Shinobu Kawai.	nbubna
	Made DateTool.toDate(Object) accept Number in place of Long .	nbubna
	Fixed RenderTool NPE when passed null VTL string . Thanks to Tim Colson.	nbubna
	Enable template cache refreshing and global macro autoreloading in WebappLoader .	marino
	Stopped using Velocity's dependency jar .	marino
	Upgraded Struts, commons-collections, commons-logging, and commons-validator to Struts 1.2.4 versions .	marino
	Added new SortTool . Thanks to Brett Sutton.	nbubna
	Added MathTool methods for totalling or averaging lists or arrays of values . Thanks to Leon Messerschmidt.	nbubna
	Prevent NPE in RenderTool.recurse() when an evaluation fails .	nbubna
	Upgraded jars from Velocity 1.3.1 to Velocity 1.4 .	nbubna
	Simplified MessageTool interface to support $text.this.that syntax instead of just $text.get('this.that') .	nbubna
	Added Alternator and AlternatorTool to improve on the old VelocityFormatter.makeAutoAlternator() . Thanks to Daniel Rall.	nbubna
	Added new Configurable interface and support for configuring tools in the toolbox definition .	nbubna
	Added methods for integer division and modulus to MathTool .	nbubna
	Remove members, methods, and classes deprecated in 1.1 .	nbubna
	Bring example Struts apps up to speed with latest Struts version .	marino
	Upgrade jars to Struts 1.2.0 and Validator 1.1.2 .	marino

Release 1.1 - 2004-02-21

Type	Changes	Bye
	Deprecated StrutsUtils' getActionErrors() and getActionMessages() in favor of getErrors() and getMessages() .	nbubna
	Fixed javadoc warnings during build . Thanks to Nathan Green.	nbubna
	Some sort of improvements to Struts example apps .	marino

Release 1.1-rc1 - 2004-02-21

Type	Changes	Bye
	Changed recommended keys for MessageTool and ActionMessagesTool to $text and $messages .	nbubna
	Changed XMLToolboxManager to use thread context classloader when digesting toolbox .	nbubna
	Fixed session tool initialization/synchronization issue .	nbubna
	Added TilesTool methods to import attributes to specific scopes (page/request/session/application) .	marino
	Added new demos for using ValidatorTool, TilesTool, and SecureLinkTool to VelocityStruts example app .	marino
	Upgraded/refactored MathTool to add floor() and ceil(), make type-handling more intuitive and flexible, and improve number parsing .	nbubna
	Improved resource bundle support in ActionMessagesTool .	nbubna
	ErrorsTool now extends ActionMessagesTool .	nbubna
	LinkTool now encodes URLs using the response's character encoding .	nbubna
	Removed inadvertant JDK 1.4 dependencies from ImportSupport .	nbubna
	Made XMLToolboxManager not abstract .	nbubna
	De-staticized non-private methods in RenderTool and LinkTool .	nbubna
	Added NumberTool for formatting numbers . Thanks to Mike Kienenberger.	nbubna
	Filled out and cleaned up DateTool's toDate(...) methods .	nbubna
	Changed VelocityViewServlet's error method to print the stack trace of the root cause when it encounters a MethodInvocationException .	nbubna
	Added importAttributes() method to TilesTool to automatically put all attributes of the current Tiles context into the Velocity context .	marino
	Replaced TilesTool's getString(String) method with getAttribute(String) in order to support "put lists." .	marino

Release 1.1-beta1 - 2003-11-10

Type	Changes	Bye
	Made VelocityViewServlet use response.getOutputStream() if response.getWriter() fails. This is functionality is deprecated and provided as a migration path from 1.0 behavior . Thanks to Daniel Rall.	nbubna
	De-staticized MathTool to make it extendable .	nbubna
	Factored common functionality of ErrorsTool, MessageTool, and ActionMessagesTool into abstract MessageResourcesTool .	nbubna
	Added ImportTool as a simple ImportSupport-based tool .	marino
	Converted TilesTool to extend ImportSupport. This allows easy mixing of view technologies (JSP, Velocity, etc.) in VelocityStruts applications . Thanks to Matthew Payne.	marino
	Added ImportSupport class for building tools that can import resources from local or remote URLS .	marino
	Overhauled DateTool to make it more extendable, user-friendly, and add support for standard, localized date-time styles (see DateTool javadoc for more) .	nbubna
	Added support for specifying message resource bundles to StrutsUtils, ErrorsTool, ActionMessagesTool, and MessageTool . Thanks to Marinó A. Jónsson.	nbubna
	Added commons-validator (1.0.2) and sslext jars to library .	marino
	Added SecureLinkTool for using Struts SSL Extension with VelocityStruts .	marino
	Added ValidatorTool to provide Struts 1.1 javascript validation for VelocityStruts .	marino
	output.encoding property (if non-default) is appended to default content-type as the charset .	nbubna
	VelocityViewServlet now uses response.getWriter() instead of response.getOutputStream() . Thanks to Matthew Payne.	nbubna
	Improved VelocityViewServlet error handling (exceptions are logged and error() is now more robust) .	nbubna
	Put VelocityViewServlet's requestCleanup() call in a 'finally' clause to allow clean after errors during a request .	nbubna
	Fixed miscellaneous javadoc and doc typos . Thanks to Takayoshi Kimura.	nbubna
	Allow system to reclaim objects held by pooled writers in VelocityViewServlet .	nbubna
	Changed LinkTool to automatically check for XHTML setting .	nbubna
	Added support for standard XHTML mode setting via toolbox config .	nbubna
	Moved request/response/session/application keys to ViewContext and add getAttribute() method .	nbubna
	Added selectModule() and getForwardURL() to StrutsUtils .	marino
	Convert VelocityStruts tools to use new StrutsUtils methods and be module aware .	marino
	Removed unused imports from StrutsLinkTool .	nbubna
	Refactor StrutsUtils to use Struts 1.1 classes and support modules .	marino
	Added TilesTool .	marino
	Allow subclasses of VelocityViewServlet to use different ToolboxManager implementations .	nbubna
	Added CookieTool . Thanks to Dmitri Colebatch.	nbubna
	Added demo of <data> elements to simple VelocityView example .	nbubna
	Made simple VelocityStruts example catch Commons-Logging output with LogSystemCommonsLog .	nbubna
	Convert toolbox setup to use Digester instead of dom4j .	nbubna
	Added LogSystemCommonsLog and CommonsLogLogSystem to provide bridges between Commons-Logging and Velocity's LogSystem .	nbubna
	Added Commons Logging 1.0.3 jar .	nbubna
	Added ActionMessagesTool .	nbubna
	Upgrade deprecated Struts 1.0 uses in examples .	nbubna
	Updated jars to Struts 1.1, BeanUtils 1.6.1, Digester 1.5, Collections 2.1 .	nbubna

Release 1.0 - 2003-07-16

Type	Changes	Bye
	Initial release. .	nbubna