Release Notes, WBI DK 4.4

New Features

The graphical user interface (GUI) features an improved request processing view. In addition to the previous features, it now displays megs that are invoked by another meg by using the forwardRequest() method. Furthermore, exception messages and stack traces are displayed after an exception occurs during a meg's handleRequest() method.
A version of FetchUrl.fetch(...) which takes a SystemContext as an argument. This allows the invocation of this method outside of a handleRequest() method.
The get/setUserData(...) methods are added to SystemContext, allowing a way for plugins to exchange data and provide services to each other outside of the context of a transaction.
New database persistence API
KeepOnServerEditor is a new bean which rewrites links to explicitly pass requests through the WBI server. This is useful if the browser is not configured to use WBI as a proxy.
RedirectFollowEditor is a new bean which internally follows redirects (HTTP 301 & 302) and fills in relative URL's. This might be useful in reducing latency if WBI is being used to proxy for a device on a slow link, or if writing a lightweight browser that uses WBI for some of its plumbing.
Translations for the WBI console and message logging are provided for the following languages and locales: de (German), en (English), es (Spanish), fr (French), it (Italian), ja (Japanese), ko (Korean), pt_BR (Portuguese in Brazil), zh (Chinese), and zh_TW (Chinese in Taiwan). Consult your operating system and Java platform documentation for information on how to set your locale to take advantage of these translations. English is the default if your language/locale is not listed above. No translations are provided for the GUI.

Bug fixes

Ordering of startup of plugins and sublayers fixed so that no requests are processed until all plugins loaded, and plugins can use sublayers at any time, including initialization.
Parsing problems in HtmlEditor/HtmlTokenizer/HtmlTag fixed.
For a URL generated by HttpRequest, if the "name" portion (the part after the "#") is null, then it used to print #null, now it doesn't add the name part at all.
Some changes were made to the way WBI buffers streams between Megs. WBI should no longer run out of memory when downloading a very large file.

Porting

No porting should be necessary in most cases, as the transition from WBI DK 4.3 to WBI DK 4.4 involves mainly the addition of features and functionality.

See our notes on using the new Persistent Store scheme.

Some changes were made to the way streams are buffered between Megs. If your Meg ever throws a RequestRejectedException you'll probably want to read the new information provided in the docs for that Exception.

Compatibility with IBM WebSphere Transcoding Publisher

We have coordinated our efforts with the IBM WebSphere Transcoding Publisher team. WBI Plugins written for WBI DK version 4.4 will also run on the Transcoding Publisher product.

Reporting Bugs

Please report any problems by subscribing and posting to the WBI developer mailing list. We also monitor the WBI discussion forum on IBM Alphaworks, and the wbi-developer@almaden.ibm.com email address.