JDev/ADF 11g goes into production!

14 Oct 2008 by Simon Haslam (in ADF)

With what is probably the most important advancement of Oracle's flagship development tool since their rewrite of JDev 3.2 to create JDev 9i, the production version of JDeveloper 11g (and ADF) is now available.

This version includes numerous significant new features - a rich client (AJAX) user interface for web apps, task flows, templates, an improved IDE layout, etc. Most notably JDeveloper 11g is running the WebLogic Server 10g R3 for its Java test environment. JDeveloper also uses the WebLogic installer, rather than being just an unzip, which has both command line and graphical versions. There's also a new online documentation area.

The IDE has been revamped (apparently with the help of external UI specialists) - the most obvious change for me was that the ADF BC data bindings have moved from the right to the left (there are probably many more changes but as the Technical Previews have been out of a year I've already started to forget!).

As those of you following the Technical Previews will know, SRDemo has been usurped by a new sample application called Fusion Order Demo (FOD). This is a web store application showing off the fancy new features (like the charting components - see below):

Again this demo is running quite happily on my integrated WebLogic Server 10.3 rather than OC4J. Whilst this demo covers many of the capabilities of the new ADF environment I'm hoping we'll ultimately also get a "11g-style" SRDemo (i.e. using task flows and templates) which is easier for ex-Forms developers to pick up.

Anyway, that's all for now. There are plenty of good ADF blogs out there providing hints and tips (Frank Nimphius, Steve Meunch, Andrejus Baranovski, Edwin Biemond, Avrom Roy-Faderman and Chris Muir are probably my favourites) and if you are embarking on a new ADF project be sure to make a start on JDev 11g!