Free OpenXava Java Web App Framework Modernized

The OpenXava project's open source channels have been ramped up and updated in this month in news that sees the arrival of the 4.8 release targeted at web-focused enterprise developers.

The cross platform OpenXava is an AJAX Java framework for rapid development such that programmers only have to write the domain classes in plain Java to get a web application ready for production — it is offered via a GNU Lesser General Public License.

This business component framework exists to give programmers an opportunity to establish, define, classify, and record all the software artifacts information they need to detail a business concept in one central location.

Once a business concept is agreed upon and defined, the OpenXava framework is used for its core UI, its data access functionality, and also as a source to centralize upon for the default behavior of the app itself.

OpenXava 4.8 has new features such as: nested actions in a drop-down menu in the button bar by means of subcontrollers, many new improvements in "My reports", and improvements in list mode.

This framework will allow developers to handle so-called CRUD (create, read, update, and delete) modules for persistent storage and report generation. It can also be used for complex real-life business applications. OpenXava creates Java EE web apps that are deployable in any Java Portal Server as portlet applications.

These are the "My reports" improvements: the user can modify the column labels; the columns shown use the labels instead of the property names; hidden columns can be used for filtering and ordering but are not shown in the report; and the default value for comparators is "=" or "starts with".