This month we are rolling out the new version of Visual Builder and Visual Builder Studio – version 2304. This version brings in a host of enhancements to the way you develop applications and extensions. Note that if you are not using the Visual Builder Studio workspaces to develop your applications but rather rely on the design time available in the standalone Visual Builder or through Oracle Integration Cloud, then in this version you'll also get the new features introduced in the VB Studio design time in the November release. Here are some key new features:
Page Templates with Redwood Templates and Patterns
With the new release we made it simpler to base a new page that you create on the templates and patterns that Redwood defines for various scenarios. If you start your application using the Redwood Starter App template, or if you are developing an AppUI extension to Fusion Cloud Apps , you'll notice new options showing up when you create a new page allowing you to choose what template to base your page on. This functionality requires that you'll use Redwood components from version 2301 or higher.
Once you create a page using one of the templates, it is also possible to then switch the page to be based on another template easily.
Fragments Enhancements
Input parameters that you pass to a fragment can now be marked to write back the value – which automatically will pass new values they are assigned in the fragment to the containing page. In addition new pages can be created based on existing fragments if the fragment is marked to allow this. You can also directly create a fragment from the component palette in your visual editor.
Instance Usage Metrics
New charts in the Visual Builder service admin page show you information about CPU usage, concurrent users, and database storage usage. With these points of data you can better plan your scalability needs. Whether it is scaling up or down the number of CPU nodes serving request, or switching to an external database.
Soft Delete for Apps
We modified the behavior of your Visual Builder instance to use a "Move to Trash" approach for deleting apps. When you move an app to the trash it is still available for you to restore before you permanently delete it. This should help with accidental deletion cases. Also note that you can now select multiple apps to delete in one go.
Offline Support for Web PWA apps
This is another step in consolidating our mobile functionality into the web application development. When you mark a web application you build to support PWA, we can now cache resource such as the HTML, JS, and CSS code to be available to the app when the device is offline too. Make sure you use the VB Studio package build step (or the equivalent grunt task) to get this functionality for your app.
Business Objects Enhancements
Change columns data types – you can now modify the data type that initially got assigned to a field in your business object.
Custom Audit Fields – you can map new columns that will be automatically filled with audit information such as the last updated date and user who did an update on a record. This is especially useful for cases where you base your BOs on existing tables that already have fields meant for this purpose.
REST Service Enhancements
Type structure preview – when you provide a sample JSON response while defining a REST service, VB will now show you a preview of the object type returned from the service
IP usage auditing – VB will now warn developers who use hard-coded ip addresses when defining service connections, encouraging them to use DNS-server based address instead.
OAuth 2.0 User Assertion support for AppUI Extension connection – You can now leverage OAuth 2.0 identity propagation authentication for REST services through IDCS in your Fusion Cloud Apps extensions.
CI/CD Enhancements
Pipelines redesign – a better experience creating and managing pipelines that automat your CI/CD. The pipelines list now shows up as a searchable/sortable table that makes it easy to locate your pipeline and also directly navigate to the jobs that are part of it. Easy access to the current pipeline queue and the details of the running pipeline instances. The visual editor is now accessible and relies on right-click on jobs to create and edit the flows between them.
Manage Integration's Lookups and connections lifecycle – new steps to export/import and delete lookups defined in Oracle Integrations as well as managing connections extend CI/CD automation capabilities for integration projects.
Mark build parameters as mandatory – prevent situations where build jobs are missing key parameters needed for proper execution.
Daylight Saving Time support – scheduled build jobs can now be set to adjust to changes in daylight saving times.
Accessibility
The Visual Builder design time was enhanced to be accessible for developers relying on screen-reader and keyboard navigation. This will help more developers to enjoy the benefits of Visual Builder's productivity.
There's More
There are various other enhancements you'll notice in the service – from the inclusion of all the JET components in the components palette, to new information on size and line of codes for files in the git repository. To learn about the complete list of features check out the What's New documentation chapter for VB Studio and the links it provide for specific new features.