New Features in Oracle Visual Builder Studio
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Oracle® Cloud
What's New in Oracle Visual Builder Studio
21.10.2
F44112-02
October 2021
New Features in Oracle Visual Builder Studio
Here's an overview of new features and enhancements added recently to Oracle
Visual Builder Studio (VB Studio).
Topics:
• Release 21.10.2 - October 2021
• Release 21.10 - August 2021
• Release 21.07 - May 2021
• Release 21.04.1 - March/April 2021
• Release 21.04 - February 2021
As soon as new and changed features become available, VB Studio instances are
upgraded in the data centers where Oracle Cloud services are hosted. You don’t need
to request an upgrade to be able to use the new features—they come to you
automatically.
Release 21.10.2 - October 2021
Area Feature Description
Visual New format required Starting in August 2021, Google requires that all new
Applications for Android apps applications uploaded to Google Play use the Android
App Bundle (.AAB) format. To create an .AAB file for
your Android app, see Build an Android App Bundle for
Google Play. You can continue to upload updated
versions of your existing apps in the .APK format.
Release 21.10 - August 2021
Some new Visual Builder Studio features can’t be used until you’ve upgraded your
Visual Builder Runtime and/or Server to 21.10. See 21.10 Feature Dependencies for
more information.
1Area Feature Description
DevOps Build options to export You can now take advantage of VB Studio's CI/CD
and import Oracle capabilities to automate export and import of Integration
Integration archives artifacts when you want to share code between different
Oracle Integration instances. See Import and Export
Oracle Integration Artifacts Between Environments.
New UI for Build VM The Build VM tab on the Organization page—now
management renamed the VM Build Executors tab—has been
redesigned to improve build executor management. See
Add and Manage VM Build Executors.
Alongside this update, we've introduced some terms for
better consistency throughout the product and
documentation:
• Old term: Build VM
New term: VM Build Executor
• Old term: VM template
New term: Build executor template
• Old term: Free VM
New term: Free build executor
See What Are Build Executors and Build Executor
Templates?
Improved tooling for Improved filtering and additional views allow reviewers
MRs with large to better respond to Merge Requests that have large
numbers of diffs numbers of diffs through the UI without having to use
external tools. See View Commits and Changed Files.
Updated software New software bundles are available. See Software for
bundles Build Executor Templates.
Identity/ Group support for Support for adding VB Studio and IDCS groups to
Access protected jobs protected jobs has been added in the Build
Control Administration UI. Previously, only individual users could
be added. See Configure a Job's Privacy Setting.
Local VB Studio VB Studio enables non-administrative project members
groups with read/write roles to create local VB Studio groups.
Previously, only organization administrators could create
VB Studio groups (and create/import IDCS groups).
Non-administrative group members can manage local
groups they've created (add/remove members, delete
the group, add the group to or remove the group from a
project), but cannot modify VB Studio groups created by
administrators. See Manage Local VB Studio Groups.
Automatic sync with Automatic synchronization of imported IDCS groups
imported IDCS groups allows IDCS group membership changes made by the
IDCS administrator externally to be seen in VB Studio
within a few minutes. No action is required on the VB
Studio side. See Manage Project Users and Groups.
2Area Feature Description
Visual PWA support for web We've extended our PWA capabilities to support web
Applications apps apps, in addition to mobile apps. This option allows you
to create responsive web apps that your users can add
to their mobile devices as mobile apps. To enable PWA
support for a web app, you use the new PWA tab in a
web app's Settings editor.
We also provide an offline fallback page that you can
display to users when your PWA-enabled app isn't
connected to the Internet. The default
offlinePage.html uses a Redwood-theme
template, but you can customize it to suit your
requirements. See Configure Progressive Web App
Support.
Page flow • Revamped page flow diagram
enhancements The Page Flow tab, used to display an application's
structure at the application and flow levels, has
been revamped to use the Redwood design
language. Now called Diagram, this view provides
a hierarchical view of an application's flows and
pages within a flow. It also allows you to view
default pages, navigation flows, and more. See Use
the Diagram View.
• Nested flows shows only when flows exist
We've streamlined the Navigator view for a web or
mobile app so that the nested flows node shows
only when a flow is created. To create a new flow,
you'll now need to click + next to the application
node. To create a subflow, you click + next to an
existing flow. See Create a Page Flow.
Redwood icon gallery Visual apps that use the Redwood theme now leverage
Redwood's comprehensive icon library and are available
to you right from an app's icon gallery. As a part of this
update, we added the icon's stylesheet to an app's
imports, so you'll always see the latest Redwood icons
when new versions of the icon font are released. You
access the icon gallery as usual, say when you add an
icon to a page or a navigation list component. See Add
an icon component to a page.
3Area Feature Description
Action chain • Action chains in separate JSON files
enhancements To optimize performance and reduce Git merge
conflicts, we've moved an action chain's source
from the artifact JSON to its own JSON file. While
action chains created with version 21.10 will use
separate JSON files by default, you have the option
of migrating action chains created in earlier
versions. See Create an Action Chain and Migrate
an Action Chain.
• Deprecated actions
We've deprecated two built-in actions: The
takePhotoAction is deprecated for web apps while
the transformChartDataAction is deprecated for
both web and mobile apps.
It's now possible to view actions that have been
deprecated in a release by selecting the Show
Deprecated menu option in the Actions palette.
See Built-in Actions.
Any action chains that use the previously
deprecated navigateToPageAction action
will be automatically migrated to the new
navigateAction when you upgrade your app
to version 21.10.
Data provider We've added some design-time options that you can
enhancements configure from a built-in data provider's properties on the
Variables tab:
• Text Filter Attributes and Fetch by Offset for SDPs
For Service Data Provider (SDP) type variables, you
can now configure the Text Filter Attributes field
when you want user-specified text to filter results
shown in a list component like Select Single. See
Filter Component Data by Text. This field was
previously added to an Array Data Provider
variable's properties.
We've also added Fetch by Offset to the list of
Fetch Capabilities to provide random access for
endpoints that support querying using a specified
offset.
• Sort Comparators for ADPs
For Array Data Provider (ADP) type variables, you
can configure the Sort Comparators field to
specify your own comparators for sorting.
4Area Feature Description
Business object • New Groovy timeout override
updates When you use Groovy code for business logic, you
can now override the default Groovy timeout if you
think your script's processing time will overrun the
default duration. You can change this setting via the
Timeout Override option when you use Groovy
expressions to define formula fields, default values,
and business rules. See Override the Default
Timeout for Groovy Scripts.
• New Create options to add formulas and aggregate
functions to fields
You can now create aggregate and formula fields
directly from a business object's Fields page.
Previously you had to create a field, then edit it to
add a formula or an aggregation function. See Add
a Field for Aggregating Data and Add a Formula to
a Field.
• Fields display in diagrams changed
We've changed how fields display by default in
business object diagrams. They now show by
attribute names, rather than display labels, to match
what you'll use in REST API calls or Groovy code.
You can still view fields by their display labels by
turning off the Show Field Names option. See
Work with the Business Object Diagrammer.
Other Designer • New debug mode for preview
updates You can now troubleshoot runtime issues with your
application using a new Debug Preview option that
uses the debug variants of the Visual Builder
runtime and Oracle JET libraries. See Preview an
App in Debug Mode.
• Changed default for Page Designer screen setting
Fit to Canvas, the option that resizes the canvas to
always take up all available space between the left
and right panes in the Page Designer, is now the
default screen option. See The Page Designer
Toolbar.
Application Improved support for A filter for polymorphic objects was added to the layout
Extensions polymorphic objects editor that can help you see which fields are defined by
each discriminator sub-type. See Work with Polymorphic
Objects in a Layout.
Additional support for polymorphic objects was also
added to the rule set editor. When a rule condition
specifies a discriminator sub-type value, that value is
used to filter the object's fields when you open the rule's
associated layout in the editor.
Rule conditions The condition builder in the Rule Sets editor now
display list of values displays a drop-down list of valid values for a field when
the values are specified in the service definition. See
Determine What's Displayed at Runtime.
5Area Feature Description
Added listenable You can now create event listeners for the
vbBeforeEnter and vbBeforeEnter and vbBeforeExit lifecycle events in
vbBeforeExit events an extension page. See Create Event Listeners for
Events.
Support for fields with For app extensions that define a component context for
component context a dynamic component, you can now use variables
defined in the component context in a component's rule
set conditions and expressions. See Use Application
Variables in a Layout.
Before deploying an app extension to production, your team members may want
to deploy and test it on other Oracle Cloud Applications development and test
instances. If you're looking to publish an app extension to multiple dev and test
environments, see Set Up the Project to Deploy to Other Development and Test
Instances for details on how to configure your project to deploy the app
extension to other Oracle Cloud Applications instances.
Git Stash or unstash You can now temporarily stash uncommitted changes in
changes your workspace and revert to a clean working copy
based off a branch's last commit. This option lets you
switch context to work on something else when your
changes can't be committed yet, then unstash them
when you're ready to pick up where you left off. Look for
the Stash and Unstash options in your workspace's Git
menu. See Stash Your Changes.
Other enhancements • View diff of changed files
You can now view the diff of changed files when you
want to compare data in your repository with
another data source. You can compare changes in
your workspace with your last commit in the current
branch (Compare with HEAD), or compare a file
against a revision, a branch, or between two
revisions (Compare with Revision). Comparable to
the git diff command, both options show for
changed files in the Git Panel. See File
Management Commands.
• Select files to add
When you use the Git All link in the Git Panel to
add files, you can now select the files you want to
add or add all files. See File Management
Commands.
21.10 Feature Dependencies
This release of VB Studio uses Oracle JET 10.1.x libraries and components. We
recommend that you upgrade your VB Studio applications to this latest JET version, as
well as to the 21.10 Visual Builder Runtime, to take advantage of the full spectrum of
21.10 features. For example, JET 10.1.0 provides chroming options for buttons out of
the box, including a new one called danger, to help you draw a user's attention to
important actions on your UI. To see everything that's new in JET 10.1.0, see the
Release Notes.
6Some features also require the latest version of the Visual Builder server, which hosts
your apps, business objects, and database, and provides the REST service proxy.
You'll get the latest server version automatically when Oracle upgrades your Visual
Builder or Oracle Integration server based on the upgrade window you chose for your
instance.
Here are the features that require the 21.10 VB Runtime/Server:
Feature Description Runtim Server
e
PWA support for web To help you build apps that scale from desktop to ✓
apps tablet to mobile, we've expanded our PWA
capabilities to web apps, in addition to mobile apps.
To enable PWA support for a web app, you now use
the new PWA tab in a web app's Settings editor.
See Configure Progressive Web App Support.
We also provide a default offline page that you can
display to users when your PWA-enabled app isn't
connected to the Internet. The default offline page
is based on a responsive Redwood page template,
but you can customize it to suit your requirements.
Action chains in To optimize performance and reduce Git merge ✓
separate JSON files conflicts, we've moved an action chain's source
from the artifact JSON to its own JSON file. While
action chains created with version 21.10 will use
separate JSON files by default, you have the option
of migrating action chains created in earlier
versions. See Create an Action Chain and Migrate
an Action Chain.
Deprecated actions We've deprecated two built-in actions: The ✓
takePhotoAction action is deprecated for web apps
while the transformChartDataAction is deprecated
for both web and mobile apps.
It's now possible to view actions that have been
deprecated in a release by selecting the Show
Deprecated menu option in the Actions palette.
See Built-in Actions.
New Groovy timeout When you use Groovy code for business logic, you ✓
override can now override the default Groovy timeout if you
think your script's processing time will overrun the
default duration. You can change this setting via the
Timeout Override option when you use Groovy
expressions to define formula fields, default values,
and business rules. See Override the Default
Timeout for Groovy Scripts.
You can upgrade to the latest JET and Visual Builder Runtime versions from your
visual application's Settings editor. See Manage Runtime Dependencies for Visual
Applications.
Release 21.07 - May 2021
7Area Feature Description
DevOps Private key support Password parameters and named passwords were
extended to password updated to allow private key values everywhere that
parameters and private key values or password values could be used in
named passwords VB Studio. See Use a Named Password/Private Key and
Use Build Parameters.
Shallow copy of See Archive Artifacts for the correct way to perform a
archived artifacts shallow copy of archived artifacts.
Updated software New software bundles are available. Some software
bundles from public repositories will be automatically updated.
See Software for Build VM Templates.
Deployments tab on The Deployments tab on the Environments page can
the Environments display V1 application extensions that have been
page deployed to the Oracle Cloud Application's instance. For
each app extension, the page displays its ID, name,
version, and status. See View the Deployed Application
Extension.
Default VM templates The lock icon next to system VM templates helps
differentiate them from other non-system VM templates.
See Create and Manage Build VM Templates.
Group support in VB Studio added support for user groups in merge
merge requests requests. You can create groups of users and handle
these groups at the organization as well as the project
level. Groups defined at the project level can be used in
many areas, such as in protected branches and merge
requests. The merge request will also allow a group to
be added as a reviewer. See Create and Manage a
Merge Request, Add or Remove Reviewers, and Set
Review and Merge Restrictions on a Repository Branch.
Project ID You can now get the project ID in Project Preferences,
under Project Administration. See Get a Project's
Unique Identifier.
Passphrases in Fn The passphrase information has been removed from the
build steps documentation for the Fn OCI option in the Fn build
step. See Configure a Job to Run Fn Commands. The
OCIcli documentation that the Fn OCI option references
now cautions against using a passphrase with a private
key. See Use OCIcli to Access Oracle Cloud
Infrastructure Services.
View build information If a JS package was published to the project’s NPM
for JS packages registry through a build job, the NPM page’s Details tab
published with a build will show build information/details for that package. See
job Browse and Search Packages in Your Project's NPM
Registry.
Automatically create In a newly created VB Studio instance that has no
the first build VM for projects and no build VMs, the first build VM will be
the first project automatically created when the first project is created. If
the project isn’t the initial one, the VM will have to be
created manually. See What Are Build VMs and Build
VM Templates.
8Area Feature Description
Workspace events The activity stream on the Projects page now displays
log events related to workspaces. See Manage
Workspaces.
Group support VB Studio added support for groups of users in projects.
See Add and Manage Project Users and Manage Your
Organization's Groups.
Revised Run Build VMs in Another Compartment’s VCN and
documentation for Subnets now focuses on subnets so customers
running VMs in shouldn’t see failed builds caused by errors that were
Compartments and encountered when the build system tries to find the
Subnets VM’s subnet.
Visual Custom theming for This release bundles Oracle JET 10, and with that
Applications Redwood-based web comes the ability to customize your application's
apps Redwood theme. You do this using CSS variables right
within the Designer, though only for web applications
that use the Redwood UI: From your application's
Settings editor, create a separate CSS file with the
default JET CSS variables, then uncomment and update
the variables you want to change. See Style VB Studio
Applications and Customize the Redwood Theme for a
Web Application.
Enhanced upgrade When you upgrade your application to a newer release,
and migration VB Studio now makes changes to your app to better
align it with the new release. As a part of this migration,
it provides a list of changes, so you get an idea of how
your app is evolving. See Manage Runtime
Dependencies for Visual Applications.
Page Designer toolbar The Page Designer toolbar has a new Custom option
changes that lets you resize the canvas to whatever size you
want. The Auto option, introduced in the previous
release, is now renamed as Fit to Canvas. See Page
Designer Toolbar.
Oracle JET Dynamic You can now add dynamic tables and forms to your
Components visual applications. Dynamic components let you control
what’s displayed at runtime based on the conditions that
are true for the current user or device accessing the app.
For example, you might configure a dynamic table so
that certain columns are hidden and others are added
when the user viewing the page is a manager. Dynamic
containers, which let you display your own content in
regions within the container based on conditions that are
evaluated at runtime, are also available in 21.07. You
can install all three dynamic components from the
Component Exchange; just search on “dynamic”. See
Add Dynamic Components to Pages.
9Area Feature Description
Action and action • We've introduced a new Navigate action
chain updates (navigateAction) that lets you navigate from a
page to another page and also to another flow. With
this update, the previously used
navigateToPageAction, now labeled
Navigate (Legacy) on the Actions palette, is
deprecated. See Add a Navigate Action.
• It's now much easier to build your apps to scan
barcodes and QR codes: simply drag and drop the
new Scan Barcode action (barcodeAction)
from the Actions palette to an action chain. The
action accepts an image of a barcode or QR code
and will return its value. See Add a Scan Barcode
Action.
• For the Navigate Back action
(navigateBackAction), a new Parameters
field has been added to help you pass parameters
to the previous page. See Add a Navigate Action.
• For the Call REST action, the Response Body
Format field (which lets you override the standard
REST behavior) now supports the formData option.
See Add a Call REST Endpoint Action and Call
REST Endpoint Action.
• The action chain editor now has a new toolbar,
which lets you search your action chain, especially
when it includes hundreds of actions. You can enter
any search text—variable name, endpoint ID, action
ID—to find what you're looking for. An Overview
icon also provides a visual view of your action
chain, with the nodes that match your search text
highlighted. Both features work together to help you
quickly search and navigate your action chain. See
Create an Action Chain.
• Similar to variable and type usages, you can now
view an action chain's usage information in the
Properties pane. Look under Usages to see (for
example) which pages use the action chain. See
Create an Action Chain.
10Area Feature Description
Variable updates • A new filter field has been added to a variable's
Expression editor in the Properties pane to help you
search and find variables. You can also resize the
left panel, which is useful when a variable's name is
long.
• For common filtering scenarios in components like
select-single, a new Text Filter Attributes
field has been added to an Array Data Provider
variable's Properties pane. Use this field to specify
an array of attributes on which the filter should be
applied.
• For complex variable types like an Object, a new
diff property has been added to the variable's
onValueChanged event listener to show properties
within the variable that have changed.
Business object • It is now possible to delete business objects even
changes when they are referenced by other business
objects. When you try to delete a business object,
from the Objects tab or the Diagrams tab within
Business Objects, any relationships to other
business objects will be shown in a confirmation
dialog. If you confirm the selection, the fields
referenced in the other business object will also be
deleted.
• Prior to 21.07, number fields returned in a business
object endpoint response were presented in
scientific format (for example, 1E3), unless the
response was processed by a JSON parser (either
directly or on the business object's Data tab). Now,
however, the numbers are returned in standard
notation, making it possible for numbers to display
consistently even without parsing.
Note:
If your application is already deployed,
make sure you redeploy your application
to leverage this update. See Share a
Visual Application or Update the Live
Version of an Application.
11Area Feature Description
Service connection Last release, we gave you the option of creating a
enhancements dynamic service connection to retrieve a service's
OpenAPI definition from the source URL. While this
option always fetches the latest service definition for
your app, it may impact performance. To optimize
metadata retrieval performance, we've introduced the
Copy minimal OpenAPI to the application option for
ADF Describe-based services like Oracle Cloud
Applications. This option stores minimal service
metadata locally in the application's sources, but
dynamically retrieves the parameter or request/response
schema whenever required. See Service Connections:
Static Versus Dynamic.
No matter which metadata retrieval option you choose
when creating a service connection, you can now
change your selection later on. See Convert a Service
Connection.
Export user-role When you update user-role mappings for a shared or
mappings deployed application, your changes always take effect in
your IDCS environment, not in the application's source
file (user-roles.json). This means your source for
user-role mappings can become stale. Now, you can
refresh this information by exporting the role-mapping
definition from IDCS to your application's source, then
commit the changes to your Git repo. Subsequently,
when the application is deployed anew or a new
workspace is created by cloning this repository, the
mappings from the refreshed source file are used. See
Export User Role Mappings.
Application Virtual fields You can now create virtual fields in a dynamic UI, a new
Extensions type of custom field that allows read-only and write
access to multiple referenced fields. A virtual field is a
compound field bound to a field template, which allows
access to each of the fields referenced by the virtual
field. See Create a Custom Virtual Field.
Added listenable You can now create event listeners for the vbExit and
vbExit and vbAfterNavigate lifecycle events in an extension
vbAfterNavigate page. See Start an Action Chain From a Lifecycle Event.
events
Added You can now create a value change listener for variables
onValueChanged defined in the base application. An Events tab was
event for variables added to the Properties pane for variables defined in the
base app, allowing you to quickly select the action
chains that are triggered when the variable changes.
See Start an Action Chain When a Variable Changes
Improvements to The UI for displaying form templates in the template
template editor editor has been improved. See Control How a Form
Layout is Rendered
Types defined in base Types defined in the base app and marked as
app exposed in app "extendable" can now be read and used in application
extensions extensions.
12Area Feature Description
Git Default Git branch We've aligned with recent changes in the Git community,
name renaming a Git repository's default branch from
master to main. When you now create a new
workspace or a new Git repository, the name of the
default branch created for the Git repository is main,
not master. You'll see this change wherever the
branch is referenced, for example, on the Git page.
Along with this update, deploying changes to the Git
repo using the Publish option will now merge your
changes to the default branch, whatever its name. So if
the default branch is master (as in the case of Git
repos created prior to 21.07), changes will continue to
be merged to the master branch; if the default branch
is main (as in the case of newly created Git repos),
changes will be merged to the main branch. See
Deploy a Visual Application in VB Studio.
Git History You can now keep track of Git actions you've performed
in a workspace. Click the new Git History panel at the
bottom of your workspace to check the sequence of
recent actions and their details, especially when
troubleshooting issues with version control. See View
Git History.
New Git commands We've extended Git commands within a workspace to
help you:
• Cherry-pick a commit from another branch and
apply it to your current branch. See Cherry-Pick
Commits Between Branches.
• Roll back changes made to a file since its last
commit to the current branch. See File-
Management Operations.
• Add one or more files to mark them for inclusion in
your next commit to the current branch. See File-
Management Operations.
Visual Builder Runtime and Oracle JET Version
for 21.07
This release of Visual Builder Studio uses Oracle JET 10 libraries and components.
We recommend that you upgrade your Visual Builder applications to this latest JET
version, as well as to the 21.07 Visual Builder Runtime, to take advantage of the full
spectrum of 21.07 features. For example, JET 10 introduces support for rendering
some components on dark backgrounds through the use of JET classes. To see
everything that’s new in JET 10, see the Release Notes.
You can upgrade to the latest JET and Visual Builder Runtime versions from your
visual application's Settings editor. See Manage Runtime Dependencies for Visual
Applications.
13Release 21.04.1 - March/April 2021
Area Feature Description
Visual Index a business You can now index a business object field to add a non-
Applications object field unique index to the field's database column and improve
performance when you search for the field's value via
REST requests or Groovy code. See Index a Field.
Identity/ Automatic VB Studio Some Oracle Cloud Applications roles are now
Access access with some preconfigured to grant VB Studio IDCS roles to users.
Control Oracle Cloud After a user is assigned a preconfigured role, there's no
Applications roles need to assign a VB Studio IDCS role manually. Oracle
Cloud Applications automatically synchronize user
updates with IDCS, but it may take up to 12 hours. As
soon as the sync is complete, the Oracle Cloud
Applications user can access VB Studio. See Set Up VB
Studio Users.
Release 21.04 - February 2021
Some new Visual Builder Studio features can’t be used until you’ve upgraded your
Visual Builder Runtime to 21.04. See Features Requiring Visual Builder Runtime 21.04
for more information.
Area Feature Description
DevOps Auto-create Creating a new project is now simpler when your
environment using tenancy includes only one Oracle Cloud Applications or
single instance in a Visual Builder instance. Instead of having to select your
tenancy instance and specify other values, the New Project
wizard automatically creates your environment using this
instance and populates default values for the Git
repository, workspace, and branch. See Create a Project
for Application Extensions and Create a Project for
Visual Applications.
Trust certificates for You can now add trust certificates to your environment's
your environment Visual Builder instance for external service connections.
If your service or endpoint requires a special certificate,
you can get it from the service you're trying to connect
to and upload it from the Certificates tab on the
Environments page. See Manage Trust Certificates in an
Environment Definition.
Guidelines for using Several recommendations are offered to help you
large files and binaries understand the choices you need to make when storing
large files and binaries in projects. See Best Practices
for Storing Large Files and Binaries.
Publish JS packages You can now manually upload JS packages to a
to NPM registry project’s NPM registry from the NPM page, instead of
using the command line. See Publish JS Packages to
VB Studio's NPM Registry.
14Area Feature Description
More options for In the New Merge Request wizard, users can now avoid
default reviewers populating Reviewers with all default reviewers. They
can select default reviewers for protected branches
individually, instead of en masse. See step 11 in Create
a Merge Request.
Project deletion More users would delete their projects when they are
done with them if they could find the Delete button more
easily, not just under Project Administration >
Properties. Owners can now also delete projects from
the Projects tab on the Organization page. See Delete a
Project from the Organization Page.
New look for usage Usage statistics under Project Administration > Usage
metrics Metrics have a new easy-to-read card-based layout. See
View Your Project’s Usage Metrics.
Build VMs • Oracle Linux 8 support for VM templates
Oracle Linux 8 and supported software packages
are now available for VM templates.
• Default Java version for VM templates
By default, VB Studio now only provides Java SE
1.8.x in a VM template. If you want other Java
versions, you must add them manually to the VM
template.
• Software for build VM templates
New and updated software bundles are available.
This includes Helm 3.4.0 support for Oracle Linux 6
and 7. Helm support for Oracle Linux 8 will be
available in the next release.
See Software for Build VM Templates.
Webhook build trigger In addition to build triggers based on branches and tag
based on directory names, users can now trigger builds in a Jenkins
filter pipeline when changes to files in directories are
detected too. See step 10d in Configure a Webhook in
VB Studio to Trigger a Jenkins Job on a Git Repository
Update.
15Area Feature Description
Other updates • In the Add Build VM dialog box, instead of
displaying the specified shape's VM quota and the
number of VMs running, VB Studio now displays the
number of available VMs. Here's an example:
• The Disk Usage column in the Organization page's
Projects tab now shows only the project's disk
usage. It no longer shows the usage percentage.
Here's an example:
16Area Feature Description
Visual Service connection • New navigation for service connections and
Applications and backend backends
enhancements The Services tab in the Navigator (previously the
Service Connections tab) has been enhanced to
show catalog backends as well. Within this tab,
Service Connections now show under the Service
Connections tab and backends show under the
Backends tab. Previously, all backend settings
were managed from the Services tab in the Settings
editor. See Work with Services.
• Support for custom backends
In addition to the built-in Integration, Process, and
Oracle Cloud Application backends, it's now
possible to create backends that map to other types
of custom servers. You can use any OpenAPI/
Swagger service specification or point to an Oracle
ADF Describe to create a custom backend. See
Create a Custom Backend.
Service connections for custom backends can be
created by service specification or by endpoint
URL.
• New dynamic service connections
You can now create a service connection to
dynamically retrieve the service's OpenAPI
definition, instead of copying the definition and
storing it as part of your visual application's
sources. A dynamic service connection creates a
pointer to the service definition at a remote location.
This keeps your application in sync with the latest
service definition and enables you to re-use
external definitions that aren't customized for your
app. See Service Connections: Static Versus
Dynamic.
• Smart URL and information banners
Several updates were made to enhance the
workflow when you create a service connection by
specification or by endpoint, key among them:
– A new + Service Connection button enables
you to create a service connection from an
existing backend.
– The URL input field displays a drop-down list of
existing backends and filters the list based on
the text you enter. A new Detach button ( )
lets you use the URL that the services resolves
to, rather than the vb-catalog URL.
– An information banner helps you more easily
identify service connections that are "derived"
from a backend.
17Area Feature Description
Key usability • New Publish button
improvements
The Publish Changes icon used in your
workspace header in earlier versions is now
replaced with , a new button that more
easily distinguishes it from the Preview icon .
• Auto setting for screen size
The screen size setting that determines how your
canvas displays in the Page Designer toolbar now
includes an Auto option, which resizes the canvas
to take up all available space between the left and
right panes.
Extended Git You now have additional options within a workspace to
functionality help you manage your application code branches in a
Git repository:
• Select the files you want to commit, instead of
committing all changed files
• Change the name of your local branch, then push
the renamed branch to the remote repository
• Delete a local branch that you no longer need
See Manage Your Visual Applications in Git.
Declarative support to It's now much easier to use your own type, such as a
create custom types type class written in JavaScript or a typescript class,
from code with a variable in VB Studio. Using a new From Code
option in the Types editor, you can import your type
definition to declaratively plug in any Oracle JET type
class or a custom type class and create an instance of
that type class, then use it with a new category of
variable known as an InstanceFactory variable. See
Create a Custom Type From Code.
New UI to manage It is now possible for you to add, update, or delete
resource imports imported resources, such as custom CSS files,
modules, and components. You can create references to
these imports at the page, flow, and application level
using the new Imports tab from the Settings editor. See
Import Components, CSS, and Custom Modules for an
Application.
Enhanced support for It is now easier to call custom functions defined in
JS functions JavaScript modules and imported module objects.
These functions become available for selection in an
action chain using the Call Function action and in a
component's property (both in the Expression editor and
the Variables picker). See Work with the JavaScript
Editor.
18Area Feature Description
Code editor The code editors in the Designer—HTML, JSON,
improvements JavaScript, and Code view in the Page Designer—are
now based on Monaco, the same editor that provides
extensive code-editing capabilities in Visual Studio
Code.
The HTML and JSON editors leverage this update as
follows:
• The HTML editor provides code completion for
Oracle JET snippets. For example, when you want
to add a JET combo box, typing ojcb in the editor
will present a list of component tags that match the
text. You can then select the ojcbo tag in the code
completion window to insert a combo box code
snippet and add it to your HTML file.
• The JSON editor provides insights based on the
file's associated JSON schema to provide tooltips,
hints, and key/value completion.
Note that code insight has changed—you now need to
trigger it in an editor by typing Ctrl+Space or by typing a
trigger character, such as the dot character (.) in
JavaScript. See Work With Code Editors.
Improvements to the When you define an action's properties in an action
Action Chain editor chain, its default ID is now regenerated to provide a
more descriptive identifier. For example, a single Call
REST Endpoint action added to a chain has an initial ID
of callRest. If you configure the actions endpoint,
say, to call the Petstore getPetById endpoint, the
action ID is automatically updated to
callRestGetPetById, making your code more
readable and easier to maintain and debug.
IDs are regenerated for the following actions: Call Action
Chain, Call Function, Call REST, Fire Event, Navigate,
and Call Component.
Improvements to the • Create a variable from the Types editor
Variables and Types You can now use a shortcut to create a variable for
editors a specific type: select a type in the Types tab, right-
click, and select Create a variable.
• Keep track of variable and type usages in the
Variables and Types editors
You can now view variable and type usage
information under the Usages section in the
Properties pane. You can also click a usage to
navigate there easily.
Business object When your business object includes a reference type
relationship field, you can now view and edit the relationship directly
from the referenced field's properties.
19Area Feature Description
New camera You can now use the new camera component when you
component want your application to access the camera capabilities
of the devices on which it is installed. The camera
component offers more configuration options than the
Take Photo action, and does not require you to add a
separate action to trigger taking a photo. See Add
Camera Component to a Page.
Application Enhanced support for You can now add one-to-many sub-object fields and
Extensions objects in layouts polymorphic objects and their discriminators to layouts
in rule sets, and modify the order that the object's fields
are rendered in the component. See Create a Layout for
a Dynamic Form or Table.
Duplicating base app You can now duplicate templates defined in the base
templates app and use them as the basis for a new template.
When you duplicate a template, the event listeners and
action chains used in the template are automatically
copied to your app extension. Variables referenced in
the template are also automatically modified to work in
the extension app.
Added listenable You can now create event listeners for the vbEnter
vbEnter event lifecycle event in your dynamic component and use them
to trigger action chains when the page is opened. See
Create Event Listeners for Events.
Improved support for It is now easier to create, import and edit resources
adding and using such as JavaScript, CSS and image files in your
resources extension application:
• Create and import resources using tools in the
resources folder in the Navigator's Source View.
See Add Custom Resources.
• Create custom JavaScript functions to use in
dynamic UI artifact field properties. The Fields tab
of dynamic UI artifacts has a JavaSript editor you
access from the Properties pane. See Call Custom
JavaScript Functions.
• Add images to your resources from the Properties
pane when the Image component is selected
• Use the Variables picker and Expression editor in
the Properties pane to help you select resources
Features Requiring Visual Builder Runtime 21.04
This release of Visual Builder Studio uses Oracle JET 9.2 libraries and components.
We recommend that you upgrade your Visual Builder applications to this latest JET
version, as well as to the 21.04 Visual Builder Runtime, to take advantage of the full
spectrum of 21.04 features. For example, in JET 9.2, new slots (Action, Navigation,
and Quarternary) have been added to the List Item Layout component, making it even
easier to produce great-looking content for your ListViews. To see everything that's
new in JET 9.2, see the Release Notes.
Here are the features that require the 21.04 VB Runtime:
20Feature Description
New dynamic service You can now create a service connection to dynamically retrieve the
connections service's OpenAPI definition, instead of copying the definition and
storing it as part of your visual application's sources. A dynamic
service connection creates a pointer to the service definition at a
remote location. This keeps your application in sync with the latest
service definition and enables you to re-use external definitions that
aren't customized for your app. See Service Connections: Static
Versus Dynamic.
Declarative support to It's now much easier to use your own type, such as a type class written
create custom types in JavaScript or a typescript class, with a variable in VB Studio. Using a
from code new From Code option in the Types editor, you can import your type
definition to declaratively plug in any Oracle JET type class or a
custom type class and create an instance of that type class, then use it
with a new category of variable known as an InstanceFactory variable.
See Create a Custom Type From Code.
You can upgrade to the latest JET and Visual Builder Runtime versions from your
visual application's Settings editor. See Manage Runtime Dependencies for Visual
Applications.
New Features in Oracle Visual Builder Add-in for
Excel
The Oracle Visual Builder Add-in for Excel version bundled in VB Studio 21.10 is 2.6.
See documentation for details of what's included in version 2.6.
Supported Browsers
VB Studio supports most modern HTML5–compliant browsers.
VB Studio complies with the Oracle Software Web Browser Support Policy and
supports the latest version of the browser available, and in the case of IE and Safari,
one previous major release. Oracle support is available for all platforms that the
browser vendor supports. For mobile device operating systems, Oracle provides
support only for the most recent browser delivered by the device operating system.
The following table describes the platforms supported by the Visual Builder runtime:
Operating Chrome Firefox Microsoft Safari
System Browser
Android Supported* Not Supported N/A N/A
iOS Not Supported Not Supported N/A Supported
21Operating Chrome Firefox Microsoft Safari
System Browser
Mac OS X Supported Supported N/A Supported
Windows Supported Supported Supported Not Supported
* Chrome for Android only, not native Android browser
JavaScript must be enabled for all browsers.
Note:
The Visual Builder Studio Designer is supported by the Chrome browser
running on Mac OS X and Windows. Other browsers and platforms are not
supported.
Note:
Visual Builder runtime has deprecated the use of Internet Explorer 11. Users
who try to access a deployed Visual Builder application from Internet
Explorer will now see a deprecation warning. In addition, Oracle Support will
no longer address issues pertaining to Internet Explorer 11.
Deprecated Features
Take note of features that have been deprecated and are no longer supported in VB
Studio:
Area Feature Description Release
DevOps Wercker support Support for using Wercker in the VB 21.07 - April 2021
dropped Studio build system has been deprecated.
The Wercker build step is no longer
available and should be replaced with VB
Studio pipelines in your job
configurations. OCI recommends using
VB Studio pipelines while they develop
their own OCI CI/CD services.
OCI Classic OCI VB Studio no longer offers an option to 21.07 - April 2021
accounts create OCI Classic OCI accounts in new
organizations. The OCI Classic option is
also no longer visible when setting up the
OCI Connection in VB Studio.
22Area Feature Description Release
Oracle ACCS VB Studio no longer supports deployment 21.04 - February
deployment to Oracle Application Container Cloud 2021
Service (ACCS). An ACCS service
instance can't be added to an
environment and ACCS deployment can
no longer be configured from the Oracle
Deployment build step.
OSN webhook VB Studio dropped webhook support for 21.04 - February
Oracle Social Network (OSN), after the 2021
service was decommissioned.
Visual Hybrid mobile In recognition of the increased adoption of 21.07 - April 2021
Applications apps and Apache the Progressive Web App (PWA)
Cordova custom approach for building apps that scale from
plugin desktop to tablet to mobile, Oracle is
focusing on expanding our PWA
capabilities and will correspondingly de-
invest in the mobile hybrid solution offered
in Visual Builder and Visual Builder
Studio. As a result, the use of build
configurations to build native .ipa
and .apk files for distribution to iOS and
Android devices—as well as the Cordova
custom plugin option—are being
deprecated, although they won't be
removed from the products for a minimum
of two years (April 2023). We will continue
to deliver bug fixes for both native builds
as well as PWA until native build reaches
End of Life (EOL).
Internet Explorer Visual Builder runtime has deprecated the 19.4.3 - August
11 use of Internet Explorer 11. Users who try 2020
to access a deployed Visual Builder
application from Internet Explorer will now
see a deprecation warning.
Oracle Support will no longer address 21.04 - February
issues pertaining to Internet Explorer 11. 2021
Upgrade Policy
When you create a new visual app, VB Studio automatically sets your runtime
dependencies to the latest Visual Builder Runtime and JET versions. If you’ve already
an app, however, it’s up to you to decide when to upgrade, as long as you do so within
a certain time period. As a general rule, VB Studio supports applications built on the
current Runtime Version, as well as the two previous versions. For 21.10, for example,
VB Studio supports not only the 21.10 Runtime Version, but also apps built with 21.07
and 21.04. Once 22.01 comes out, however, support for the 21.04 Runtime Version
will drop off, so we'll ask you to upgrade those apps before you can work on them in
VB Studio. If you choose not to upgrade at that time, you run the risk that newer
browser versions will break your app. You also won’t be able to take advantage of any
23important security and performance improvements. For all of these reasons, we
encourage you to build time into your development cycle to keep abreast of current
changes, and to make sure you upgrade your app (you should version it first) before
support for your current runtime version expires.
Getting Oriented
VB Studio brings you all the functionality previously available with Oracle Developer
Cloud Service. You also get the ability to build web and mobile applications in the
Visual Builder Designer, as well as to extend certain Oracle Cloud Applications to
customize the UI for your business needs.
VB Studio offers end-to-end functionality for your development team, from planning
releases and managing development backlog, to hosting source code in Git, to
designing, building, testing, and deploying cloud-native applications to your Oracle
Cloud Applications and Oracle Cloud instances.
For Former Developer Cloud Service Users
If you were a Developer Cloud Service user, the following table will help you
understand the primary differences between Developer Cloud Service and VB Studio:
How Developer Cloud Service and VB Find out more:
Studio Differ?
You don’t need to migrate your Developer Using Oracle Developer Cloud Service has
Cloud Service projects. A VB Studio instance been restructured and rewritten for VB Studio
replaces your Developer Cloud Service and is now called Managing Your Development
instance, and you can continue to use your Process with Visual Builder Studio. If you’re an
existing projects and corresponding DevCS administrator, you’ll want to check out
features just as they are, without any impact to Administering Visual Builder Studio as well.
you.
VB Studio comes equipped with the Designer, Building Web and Mobile Applications explains
a graphical user interface that enables you to how to use the VB Studio Designer to build
develop web and mobile apps using web and mobile apps.
components from the Oracle JavaScript
Extension Toolkit (JET). To test these
applications, or to release them for production,
you must deploy the apps to a separate Visual
Builder instance, which serves as the runtime
environment.
Of course, you can still use VB Studio to build
apps with a third-party IDE or code editor and
use VB Studio as the code repository, just as
you did with DevCS. You can also use VB
Studio to test, deploy, and maintain those apps
throughout their lifecycles—nothing’s changed
there.
If you purchased Oracle Cloud Applications See Extending Oracle Cloud Applications.
subscriptions that have front ends built with
JET components, you can also use the VB
Studio Designer to extend those apps to
customize them for your business needs.
24How Developer Cloud Service and VB Find out more:
Studio Differ?
Developer Cloud Service used tags to For information about how to add a service
associate service instances with instance to an environment, see Manage an
environments. In VB Studio, you’ll need to add Environment.
service instances again to environments,
because the service instances associated with
the environments were removed as part of the
upgrade. The environments themselves were
not removed, just the service instances
associated with them.
For Former Visual Builder Users
In VB Studio, you still use the Designer to create your visual applications, but the
infrastructure surrounding that process has changed significantly, as described here:
How Visual Builder and VB Find out more:
Studio Differ?
In VB Studio, you and your team What Is Oracle Visual Builder Studio?
belong to an organization. Within
that organization are projects,
which help to organize the work for
a given endeavor. A project
contains a Git repository, where
your source code is stored, along
with build jobs that package up
your app’s artifacts and deploy
them to the target environment.
Each project also contains tools to
help you manage your visual
application’s lifecycle, like an Agile
board, issue tracker, team wikis,
and more.
Whereas Visual Builder used to If you’re an administrator, see Set Up VB Studio for
contain the runtime environment Developing Visual Applications to find out how to hook up
where you could test and deploy your runtime to VB Studio.
your visual applications, VB Studio If you’re an app developer, see Share, Publish, and
requires you to have a separate Deploy Visual Applications.
Visual Builder instance to serve as
your runtime environment, and to
establish communication between
the two services.
VB Studio manages the runtime
environment instances that serve
as your development, test, and
production environments in the
Environments page. Within the
Environments page, you can view
the status of the various service
instances that have been added to
your environment.
25How Visual Builder and VB Find out more:
Studio Differ?
Your work in the Designer now If you’re an app developer, see Create Visual Applications
takes place in a workspace, which in VB Studio.
is an entirely private area within a
project that only you can access.
The workspace brings together
everything you need to build your
visual app: a private branch within
the Git repository and a VB Studio
environment that points to your
Visual Builder runtime instance.
If you want others to collaborate If you're a project owner, see Add and Manage Project
with you in developing your Users. If you're an app developer, see Manage Your Visual
project's apps, your project owner Applications With Git.
will need to add them to the project
and you’ll need to commit your
workspace to a branch in a Git
repository that is shared with these
project members.
To facilitate collaboration, the
Designer in VB Studio includes
built-in support for Git with a Git
menu in the toolbar that accesses
the Git commands you’re likely to
use most frequently (Pull and
Push, for example). There's also a
new navigator tab (Git Panel) that
provides a view to uncommitted
changes in your workspace, and
tools to resolve issues when your
changes conflict with other
changes in the Git repository
branch that you want to commit to.
In Visual Builder, the Stage and If you’re an app developer, see Share a Visual Application
Publish actions were key parts of and Manage Deployed Visual Applications.
your development cycle. In VB
Studio, however, you use Share to
share your application with others
for testing purposes, and Publish
to push your changes from your
local Git repository to the master
branch of your remote repository
(that is, the project's version) and
deploy it to the Visual Builder
runtime environment.
For business objects, VB Studio See Work with Business Objects.
maintains one database schema
per workspace. As a best practice,
we recommend that you use the
same workspace and branch to
create and edit business objects in
a visual application.
26How Visual Builder and VB Find out more:
Studio Differ?
VB Studio provides the following See Manage Business Object Data During Development.
options to manage your visual
application’s business object data:
• Menu options to import and
export data. You access these
options from the Visual
Applications tab for the
deployed visual application in
the Environments page
• Build jobs to import and export
business object data
You can use the visual applications See Learn About Migrating to Oracle Visual Builder
you built in Visual Builder within VB Studio.
Studio by importing them, then
performing a few post-import tasks.
VB Studio manages connections to See Manage Backend Services in Your Visual Application.
backend services differently to
Visual Builder, where a Visual
Builder administrator added these
services to the Tenant Settings
page.
In VB Studio, the steps to create a
connection depend on the backend
service. If your visual applications
need to access REST services
from an Oracle Cloud Applications
catalog, you add the Oracle Cloud
Applications instance to the
runtime environment.
If the Visual Builder instance that
you use in your environment is
provided by Oracle Integration,
visual applications in VB Studio
inherit the catalog of Integration
and Process backend services.
27How Visual Builder and VB Find out more:
Studio Differ?
The grunt-vb-build NPM If you want to use the Grunt tasks described here to build
package includes tasks to build and deploy a visual application to a Visual Builder runtime
visual applications that you develop instance, see Build and Deploy Your Application.
in VB Studio and deploy to a Visual
Builder runtime instance:
• The vb-process-local task
processes the sources of the
visual application that you
cloned from VB Studio’s Git
repository to your local Git
repository for usage in the
Visual Builder runtime
instance. The vb-process-
local task replaces variables
and placeholders in
index.html, downloads
libraries from the Component
Exchange, and so on. The
archive that the vb-process-
local task produces does not
include absolute links to the
Visual Builder runtime
instance.
• The vb-credentials task
transfers the credentials
(service connection
information and mobile build
configurations) from secure
storage in VB Studio to the
target Visual Builder runtime
instance.
• The vb-deploy task deploys
the environment-independent
artifact that the vb-process-
local task produced to the
target Visual Builder runtime
instance and inserts
environment-specific
information, such as URLs and
Oracle Identity Cloud Service
information. The vb-deploy
task also produces native
mobile packages, if your visual
application includes mobile
applications.
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