OOW15: New features in ADF 12.2.1

The whole stack of Fusion Middleware 12c  was launched just before open world. This means there is also a new, cooler and better version of Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) out! It was not too hard to follow all the session about ADF on open world this year, there were not that many to begin with. 

So what is new? To start with, the infrastructure, we can now use JDK 8 in ADF and WebLogic Server version 12.2.1, which is also Java EE7 complaint. It also fully integrates with the Java Cloud Service (JCS) and the Developer Cloud Service (DevCS). JCS supports ADF version 12.1.3 & 11.1.1.7.1 and you can deploy to JCS directly from JDeveloper. The JDeveloper IDE also fully integrates with the GIT repository on the DevCS. You can track and update tasks and issues:

In ADF Business Components (ADF BC) there is now REST support. You can expose your Application Module as a REST service by simply following a wizard. You can also consume REST services by using the REST Data Control in JDeveloper, it can consume both REST JSON or REST XML. It has a declarative approach, as you would expect from ADF and security supports for OWSM policies.

On the view side, the Alta UI is now enabled by default, there is also a browser based theme editor application. You have a visually modification of the look and feel, create ADF skins and import the jar this application create in your application to use the skin in your ADF application. Next to the skinning, there are more, better and newer Data Visualization Components (DVTs) as well!

There is a cool new feature that allows you to call Remote Regions, this means that you can call a taskflow that is deployed in another application, possible even on a totally different server. Both the consuming as well as the publishing application need to be made aware of these feature. This means that you can reuse taskflows, without the need of consuming a library in the consuming application. The remote region will be loaded parallel (in the other application). You can pass parameters to the region, just like you are used to.

Last but not least, ADF Faces got a lot better at being responsive! They added the so called ‘Masonry Layout’, this is not a new component, but you create responsiveness by adding predefined style classes to your components. ADF now also supports the media tag, with this you can now change properties on your ADF Faces components based on the media query results.