Version 2404 of Oracle Visual Builder is rolling out to Visual Builder Studio as well as VB standalone and Oracle Integration. In this blog we'll highlight key new features in this release.

Dark Mode

You can now change your Visual Builder environment to dark mode.

This will change the background and text in all of the VB editors with the exception of the Page Designer canvas.  Page Designer will continue to display using a lighter theme.

Visual Builder Dark Mode

You are able to set your environment to dark mode, light mode or have it sync with your desktop settings.

theme app ui

For more information:


This functionality is also supported in Express mode.

FavIcon for light and dark themes

You can now select a different FavIcon for dark and light mode in your application settings.

App Settings

Setting the FavIcon at the application level with apply to all of the pages and flows within your app.

Buffering Data Provider type

The Oracle JET Buffering Data Provider is now an available type included in Visual Builder.  A Buffering Data Provider will temporarily store your data change in a buffer until you are ready to commit them.  You can create variables based on a Buffering Data Provider type and use them in components that accept data providers.

Buffering Data Provider

For more information:

Visual apps, see Create Variables to Temporarily Store Data in a Buffer
Extensions, see Create Variables to Temporarily Store Data in a Buffer

Global Functions

You can now add JavaScript Modules As Global Functions that can be saved in a function library and reused across your applications, pages, fragments and other containers.  After you add a global function you will be able to use it in a Call Function action and also in the advanced expression builder when you're creating Business Rules.

Global Functions

Advanced Condition Expressions

For those times when you need more than a simple business rule, you can Build Advanced Expressions with a visual editor.  Use the Design mode to create more complex expressions by simply dragging actions from the Actions palette onto your canvas.  Visual Builder will create the expression for you, but as always, you can switch to code view to make sure it's exactly what you want.

AdvancedExpression Builder

This functionality is also supported in Express mode.

Backend and service improvements
(Basic Auth and OAuth2 authentication support)

A backend can now have up to three different server definitions to provide flexibility on which server definition is used during an application’s development, test, and deployment stages.

Backend Diagram

Also, there are more security options for the service connections in your Visual Builder Extensions.  You can now use fixed credentials like Basic Auth, OAuth 2.0 Client Credentials and OAuth 2.0 Resource Owner Password when you create a service connection to external REST APIs.

Express Mode Editors

Some of the Advanced mode editors are now available in Express mode.

Revert a Merge Request

Visual Builder Studio now has the option to Revert a Merge Request with a single click.  A new branch will be created with the reverted changes and a new Merge Request will be created for the new branch.

 

Revert a merge request

 

Improvements for Search Engine Optimization

Your pages will now be pre-rendered and cached.  When a web crawler indexes your site, Visual Builder will return a fully rendered page to help the search engines understand your pages better.

Also, you can improve the response times for web crawlers with the vb-prerender-cache-warm Grunt task to "warm the cache" for URLs listed in your application's sitemap.  Web crawlers will receive better information at a much faster speed.

See Optimize Your App for Search Engines.

Learn More

As always there are many other new features in this release. Make sure to read the "What's New" documents for Visual Builder and Visual Builder Studio  for a complete list and pointers to more detailed information.