Apache Royale Blog

Apache Royale v0.9.10 released!

by Yishay Weiss on May 31, 2023

The Apache Royale community is pleased to announce the release of Apache Royale 0.9.10.

The Apache Royale project is the next generation of the Apache Flex SDK. It lets developers use MXML and ActionScript 3 to generate HTML/JS/CSS applications which can run natively in browsers. The cross-compiled code can also run on platforms like Electron or Apache Cordova (Adobe PhoneGap) to build mobile applications.

This release should be considered 'beta' quality, although we're very close to a 1.0 release and we have many applications in production at this point. The purpose of this release is to continue to gather feedback about Royale's features and the project's implementation strategies, and to recruit new contributors. We hope to grow the code base into an SDK and tool chain that delivers the highest productivity when developing applications that can run on many platforms. Beta releases, however, may not handle all production needs.

Changes in 0.9.10:

Apache Royale Framework 0.9.10

RoyaleUnit
- Added BDD-style expect() method for natural language assertions
- Added a number of new asserts, including checks for NaN, less than, greater than, less or equal, greater or equal, within range, is of type, throws exception, and matches regular expression.
MXRoyale
- Various bug fixes
Jewel
- Various bug fixes
Dozens of bugs reported, investigated, and squashed. For details of closed bug reports see GitHub Issues list.

Apache Royale Compiler 0.9.10

aslint is a new command line code linter for ActionScript and MXML, with a programmatic API for use in editors and IDEs.
compiler: Added --watch compiler option that keeps compiler active and incrementally compiles when changes to .as and .mxml files are detected. You may exit with Ctrl+C.
compiler: Added support for ?? null coalescing operator to ActionScript.
compiler: Added support for ?. null conditional operator to ActionScript.
compiler: Added support for @"" verbatim strings to ActionScript.
compiler: Fix JS output for chained Date setter initialization, like date.minutes = date.seconds = 0.
compiler: Fix <![CDATA[]]> handling in MXML for properties with [CollapseWhiteSpace] metadata.
royaleunit-ant-tasks: The <royaleunit> Ant Task can now use Playwright to run headless tests in HTML/JS. Set the player to chromium, webkit, or firefox.
royaleunit-ant-tasks: Added a new commandArgs attribute to the <royaleunit> Ant Task. It may be used to pass extra command line arguments to the executable specified in the command attribute.
formatter: Can load configuration options with -load-config+=path/to/file.xml, similar to compiler.
formatter: If a file named asformat-config.xml appears in the current working directory, automatically load it with -load-config. To disable this behavior, use -skip-local-config-file=true.
formatter: Fix issue where more than one new line might appear at the end of a file.
formatter: Fix indentation between opening and closing parentheses/brackets on separate lines.
formatter: Fix detection of Script elements in MXML when line endings are CRLF.
formatter: Fix exception when file starts with UTF BOM character.
formatter: Fix issue where ternary operator inside if condition was formatted incorrectly.
formatter: Fix missing formatting for finally block.
formatter: If a case or default clause in a switch contains only a block, indent is not increased.
formatter: If formatting is skipped because compiler errors are found, display those compiler errors.

For additional information on recent issues that have been closed, see Github Issues List

You can download a binary distribution, the source code or browse our GitHub repositories. If you're a NPM user you can check Apache Royale at NPM.

As well, you can help us filing bug reports for issues you encounter in the framework or compiler.

For questions about how to use Royale, send email to mailto:users@royale.apache.org. For questions and feedback on the development of the source code in the release, send email to dev@royale.apache.org.

Enjoy! 🙂

Apache Royale v0.9.9 released!

by Yishay Weiss on March 30, 2022

The Apache Royale community is pleased to announce the release of Apache Royale 0.9.9.

Changes in 0.9.9:

Apache Royale Framework 0.9.9

MXRoyale
- MXRoyale has been split 2 libs : MXRoyaleBase (mostly non-UI code) and MXRoyale (mostly UI code). Users of MXRoyale should see no immediate changes as the build of this swc remains the same.
- Listen to children's resize events to fix some layout issues
- Various fixes to measured sizes (ComboBox, and other UI components)
- Fixes to labels in item renderers not displaying correctly
- ComboBox prompt fixes
- ArrayCollection.refresh() updating lists
- Various fixes to labels in item renderers not showing correctly
- Add option to add custom header renderers to data grids
- Fix issues with Menu.show() when receiving non-null parent arguments
- Improve emulation of ADG's expand/collapse behavior
SparkRoyale
- ComboBox sizing improvements
Basic
- Improvements to DragBead's out of bounds behavior
RoyaleUnit
- Fix coercion error in MetadataRunner when expecting an exception in a test, like [Test(expected="RangeError")]
Reflection
- getQualifiedSuperclassName() can find the superclass of a Class object in JS, matching the behavior of SWF
Examples
- Ace example running in Maven
- Added Jewel TriStateCheckBox example in Tour De Jewel
Jewel
- Improved:
  - Added emphasized and secondary sass settings for Jewel CheckBox / Switch
- New:
  - Added Jewel TriStateCheckBox and some associated beads: TriStateCheckBoxTooltipState, TriStateCheckBoxState
  - Added ComboBoxReadOnly bead
Icons
- Icon constants have been added to MaterialIconType and FontAwesome5IconType
Dozens of bugs reported, investigated, and squashed. For details of closed bug reports see GitHub Issues list.

Apache Royale Compiler 0.9.9

asformat is a new command line code formatter for ActionScript and MXML, with a programmatic API for use in editors and IDEs.
Added a boolean new compiler option compiler.mxml.force-local-id - (short commandline form force-local-id). This is a quick way to avoid propagating id attributes to browser DOM in JSRoyale.
(JS) Added new string compiler options js-getter-prefix and js-setter-prefix to optionally specify different prefixes to use instead of 'get_' and 'set_' for accessors in the generated JavaScript. Useful for integrating with JS libraries/languages that use a different naming convention.
(JS) Fix for @royalesuppressexport feature which had stopped working
(JS) Fix for mx.managers.SystemManager subclass not being generated for applications that were not direct subclasses of the relevant application classes.
(JS) Improvement in output of locale properties files as ResourceBundles. Now using original Flex/SWF parsing approach for improved parity.
(JS) First implementation of multiple-catch support in Javascript
(JS) Added unsafe option for outputting literal javascript (via externally defined jsUnsafeNativeInline function)
Fixed  in MXML being incorrectly detected as an unclosed ASDoc comment, instead of an empty regular comment.
(JS) Improved the generated JavaScript for if, else if, and else statements that contained only a semicolon and no braces.
(JS) Generated JavaScript for parseInt() passes 0 instead of undefined for radix argument to avoid number format exception.
(JS) Fixed several issues with generated JavaScript for E4X expressions when using js-dynamic-access-unknown-members compiler option.
(JS) Fixed a couple of issues with generated JavaScript when using custom namespaces.
Fixed missing [Event] metadata in playerglobal.swc classes generated from documentation.
Fixed parse exception when binding to XML.

For additional information on recent issues that have been closed, see Github Issues List

You can download a binary distribution, the source code or browse our GitHub repositories. If you're a NPM user you can check Apache Royale at NPM.

As well, you can help us filing bug reports for issues you encounter in the framework or compiler.

Enjoy! 🙂

Apache Royale v0.9.8 released!

by Yishay Weiss on September 02, 2021

The Apache Royale community is pleased to announce the release of Apache Royale 0.9.8.

Changes in 0.9.8:

Apache Royale Framework 0.9.8

Core
- Added getClassStyle function that get an Object with all styles in a CSS className.
Basic
- Move getParentEventTarget() from EventDispatcher to UIBase to reduce require dependencies. This allows EventDispatcher to be used in non-GUI contexts, such as Node.js.
- UIBase, added loadBeads hook method
- Added BrowserResizeListener bead that listen for browser resizing and resizes a component accordingly. Old one was renamed to "BrowserResizeApplicationListener"
- StyledUIBase & ClassSelectorListSupport, added replaceClass method
- Added ILabelFunction and LabelFunction bead
- Added LayoutChildren: A bead to trigger layout in children. Added support in StyledLayoutBase.
- Added interfaces for better extension in Basic and Jewel: IColumns, ITableModel, ITableView, ITextButton, IPaddings, IPositioning
- Paddings: New bead to add padding in mxml to a component
- Positioning: New bead to add positioning in mxml to a component
- Add SelectionDataItemRendererFactoryForCollectionView to handle ISelectionModel for components that uses selection and add/remove/update items at runtime.
RoyaleUnit
- Fixed issue where CIListener incorrectly escaped quotes in messages.
- Better error messages when [BeforeClass] or [AfterClass] is detected, but method is not found by reflection.
Jewel
- ASDocs: multiple refactors in many components to document and describe better components
- Item Renderers
  - Refactor to make Basic Layout the default (before was horizontal baked)
  - Initializers now use new Paddings bead. Create a default if no one is found.
  - Remove then minimum height of 34px, so we can have renderers with less height
- New BinaryImage component
- Card:
  - New CardExpandedContent: Used for content that needs to avoid paddings like navigation bars
- Button, CheckBox, RadioButton:
  - add "spanLabel" to separate the text from other decorations like icons and get more control over styling
- Image added "loadComplete" event
  - New ClipImage bead for images to allow clipping
  - New ErrorImage beads
- Added SimpleLoader component that show an indeterminate spin circle
- DataContainer
  - dataProvider is now the DefaultProperty
- List
  - Added label function through beads
  - New ListAlternateRowColor bead (should be temporal until get nth-child css styles work in compiler)
  - dataProvider is now the DefaultProperty
  - Fixes on SearchFilterForList
- ComboBox:
  - Fix Sizing issues
  - Improve open popup faster
  - new ComboBoxItemByField bead that allows to select an item by field
  - dataProvider is now the DefaultProperty
  - add item renderer support at mxml (TLC) level
  - Fixes on SearchFilter
- DateField:
  - Fix Sizing issues
- TabBar:
  - Multiple refactors to decouple functionality in beads and make renderers more flexible. Now we allow vertical layouts and indicator in renderer can be positiones in different places
  - Add "sameWidths" to make all buttons share the same width.
  - dataProvider is now the DefaultProperty
- Table
  - Refactor to get better scrolling and fixed header
  - Added label function through beads
  - New TableAlternateRowColor bead
  - Solve RTE when set columns at runtime
  - Added Initializer
  - New TableAlternateRowColor bead (should be temporal until get nth-child css styles work in compiler)
  - Removed CRUD beads and added new CRUDTableItemRendererFactoryForCollectionView
- DataGrid
  - Multiple fixes in column dimensions to allow more configurations
  - Added sorting through DataGridSortBead
  - Added swap of columns
  - Added label function through beads
  - dataProvider is now the DefaultProperty
  - add item renderer support at mxml (TLC) level
- PresentationModels refactor for List and DataGrid based controls to allow more flexibility
- NumericStepper:
  - Fix Sizing Issues
- New responsive beads: ResponsiveSize, ResponsiveResizeListener and ResponsiveLabelVisibility
- New TileHorizontalLayout and TileVerticalLayout beads
- New ViewLayout for View
- Removed Jewel ControlBar since it was just an HGroup
- Jewel Themes:
  - Lots of changes to accommodate the rest of component development and fixes in jewel
  - Add fluid text sizing responsiveness, so size of text shrinks or grows depending on device to fit on different screens
- Start of VirtualDataGrid component (still has some issues)
Collections
- ArrayList.length now is bindable
Maven Distribtuon:
- The distributions built by Maven should now be equivalent to those of the Ant build.
Maven Archetypes:
- updated royale-simple-application-archetype
- new new royale-jewel-application-archetype
- new new royale-jewel-module-application-archetype
- new new royale-jewel-crux-application-archetype
Dozens of bugs reported, investigated, and squashed. For details of closed bug reports see GitHub Issues list.

Updates to the RELEASE_NOTES made after this file was packaged into the release artifacts can be found here:

https://github.com/apache/royale-asjs/wiki/Release-Notes-0.9.8

Apache Royale Compiler 0.9.8

Fixed issue where problems in .mxml files were sometimes duplicated.
Fixed issue where unrecognized characters in .mxml files were sometimes ignored, and now an error is reported.
Fixed some missing syntax checks for bindable variables that should have been the same as non-bindable variables. This may produce some new errors that weren't there before (such as duplicate variable names), but they should have been.
Fixed issue where a type annotation referencing a class with a private constructor was not correctly resolved.
Improvements/Fixes in Binding support, added support for binding inheritance, similar to Flex.
(JS) Source map debugging paths of SDK classes are updated to allow breakpoints in the original .as or .mxml files in the SDK when debugging in a browser or IDE.
(JS) Added source-map-source-root compiler option to optionally customize the source root of source maps.
(JS) No longer generates @export annotations for exported symbols in debug builds. Exports are smartly generated when creating a release build, and if they are disabled, they will be omitted from framework classes now too. This can help reduce the size of a release build.
(JS) Fixed issue where compiling a .swc library with another .swc library on the library-path did not copy the required .js files to the new .swc library. Only when a .swc library is added external-library-path should the .js files not get copied.
(JS) Improved reproducible builds of .swc library files by ensuring that the paths to .js.map source map files are always referenced with forward slash and never backslash. This matches the existing behavior of references to .js files included with .swc libraries.
(JS) Static getters/setters are not accessed with ["name"] syntax in generated JavaScript anymore, which required them to always be exported, even if the associated export symbols compiler option were disabled.
(JS) When internal namespace is used in ActionScript, the generated JavaScript adds the @package annotation.
(JS) Fixed issue where the Language class was not loaded in the correct order when type coersion is required in a static initializer.
(JS) (Advanced) Added export-internal-symbols and prevent-rename-internal-symbols compiler options to match the existing options for public and protected namespaces.
(JS) (Advanced) Added prevent-rename-public-static-methods, prevent-rename-public-instance-methods, prevent-rename-public-static-variables, prevent-rename-public-instance-variables, prevent-rename-public-static-accessors, and prevent-rename-public-instance-accessors compiler options to provide more granular control when prevent-rename-public-symbols is true (same for protected and internal namespaces too).

For additional information on recent issues that have been closed, see Github Issues List

You can download a binary distribution, the source code or browse our GitHub repositories. If you're a NPM user you can check Apache Royale at NPM.

As well, you can help us filing bug reports for issues you encounter in the framework or compiler.

Enjoy! 🙂

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