The third update of Kajona 4 is available to all users, packed into the release 4.3 code-name “roof-deck???. Kajona V4.3 marks the largest development milestone since the release of version 4 and has an impact on nearly every aspect of the framework.
Besides the enhancement of essential functions such as the portal-editor or the element-structure, many modules have been decoupled and got more independent from each other.
In addition existing modules like the event-manager got new features. Users logged in at the portal may subscribe for single events more easily, the filtering of a list of events is possible directly within the portal.
The charting library flot, used in Kajona V4, is replaced by a rewritten library based on JQPlot. The packages are updated and replaced automatically during the systems’ update procedure.
The portal-editor was refactored for version 4.3 from scratch. It now supports the ordering of elements on a single placeholder by drag n drop. In addition, the moving of elements between placeholders on a page is possible by drag n drop, too. The new features combined with some layout improvements make the usage more comfortable and intuitive than ever.
High-resolution displays such as retina-displays are now fully supported. This is achieved by the consequent usage of font-based icons. In addition, the modified typography, new fonts and refactored user-interface components improve the readability and appearance of the backend in total. The changes and bugfixes to the responsive layout enhance the usability on mobile-devices for many use cases.
The structure of element-classes was adopted to the structure of the common model-classes. This means elements are now configurable by annotations, too. Annotations may be used to control central aspects of the element-lifecycle. The database-synchronization provided by the internal or-mapper is now fully useable, just as well as the annotation based form-generator introduced with Kajona V4 is now available for elements, too.
Two tutorials on www.kajona.de describe the new structures in detail.
When it comes to the module-API, new annotations complement the existing annotations and reduce the complexity to create new classes even more. Many methods required to be implemented are now obsolete and may be configured using annotations.
An overview of all annotations and formentries Kajona provides is available in the projects’ documentation:
Annotations overview http://www.kajona.de/v4_annotations.html
Formentries overview http://www.kajona.de/v4_formentries.html
While being a basic component of the system, the integrated image-manipulation stack was developed and redesigned from scratch. The subsystem is now based on a set of single operations, applied to an image using a batch-operation. Besides a reduced memory-footprint and a faster execution, the new architecture guarantees a better caching of manipulations already applied.
Driven by the software development of ARTEMEON Management Partner GmbH, many of the modules used by Kajona have been decoupled from each other. The usage of Kajona as a plain web application framework is now possible using the backend-parts only. The portal-components are no longer a fixed requirement. A blog-post on www.kajona.de describes the relevant steps on how to use the framework for a rapid development approach.
Since Kajona 4.3 brings several bug fixes, security updates and updates for compatibility with current web browsers and web server systems, the upgrade to 4.3 is recommended to all users. The update is available and recommended via the integrated package-management.
Kajona V4.3 will be the last release fully supporting an update from a V3.4 installation. Users still running a Kajona V3 installation are advised to upgrade to Kajona V4.
High-resolution images are available for download:
http://www.kajona.de/files/images/upload/v43_portaleditor.png
http://www.kajona.de/files/images/upload/v43_backendinterface.png
http://www.kajona.de/files/images/upload/v43_elementapi.png