NetKernel News Volume 4 Issue 26

November 26th 2013

• Repository Updates
• NetKernel 5.2.1 - Thanksgiving Release

Repository Updates

We're very pleased to announce the immediate availability of a significant refresh of the NetKernel platform.

Updates to both NKEE and NKSE are available in the apposite repositories. Just go to apposite, synchronize with the repos and accept all updates.

The updates are focused on improving the NetKernel tools, modernizing the UI and, especially, an emphasis on usability and reducing the surface area required to develop and work with NetKernel.

Rest assured that the core system and module libraries have not been changed so the update has no impact on production applications.

Here's a summary of the changes you'll discover when you update...

Showcase

UI Modernisation

We've switched to use bootstrap responsive design.

Fonts and icons are refreshed - everything should be lighter and cleaner and consequently clearer.

The control panel and tools now scale for small devices. The documentation is more clearly presented and can now be read on tablets and phones.

(In fact all the tools are usable from tablets and phones)

Reduced Surface Area

Tools now cross-link with appropriate context menus - so you can view a module in the space explorer module listing and immediately create a classpath trace request targeting that space.

Even the space structure diagrams have contextual options - you can click on a space and immediately target a trace resource request to that space...

Trace Resolution Debug

The trace request tool has been updated. You can now use declarative requests...

To help with conceptualising your architectural spaces we've improved resolution reporting.

The low-level capture of debug resolution traces has been completely overhauled. Now every space and endpoint is fully captured.

Request trace visualisations are now fully linked so that any resolution entity can be viewed in its context in the space explorer tools.

Exception Reporting

The exception styling has been decluttered and simplified - showing a clear set of request frames and where necessary expandable Java stack traces.

In the exception report, all spaces and endpoints are now linked into the space explorer tools. Resolution failures get the same visualization as the request trace tool and are therefore also linked to the space explorer...

Visualizer

The visualizer has been refreshed...

When the visualizer is active you get a clear indication in all the control panels - in case you forget about it....

The detail request view has been cleaned up. The request, resolve, execute, subrequest and response phases are now clearly demarked and button links provide fast access to the phase of interest...

Subrequest and representation dependencies are now presented in filterable tables. So now you can find a relevant sub-request by searching for part of its identifier. Or check that a representation has a desired golden thread dependency.

XUnit Testing

The Unit testing tool has been enhanced.

The tool is now less cluttered and supports selective testing with filterable search lists...

A brand new feature provides a testing context menu in the space explorer. Tests associated with a space can be found and set up as a filtered set in the test tool...

Associated tests can be executed from anywhere even in the space structure diagram

Instant Search

Search has been significantly enhanced. Searching is now live (a la Google) so that you can type and see results in realtime.

More significantly the live metadata of the system (endpoint id's, grammars, descriptions, space identifiers and names, module metadata etc) is now presented in search results.

Even better, its live, so changes you make as you develop are instantly reflected in the search...

Documentation Wiki Syntax

The wiki parsers have been updated and so are more accurate than ever.

We've even added Markdown support if that's your preferred format for your documentation.

Summary

We hope you like it. We're pretty pleased with how its turned out. But most importantly we think that by simplifying and unifying the tooling we've made it simpler to concentrate on and understand the loosely coupled ROC solutions that you're developing.

In the next few weeks we'll bring these updates together in a single download as the NetKernel 5.2.1 release. In the mean time please let us know how you get on.