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".