MODULESTUDIO

It is finally here, the ModuleStudio 0.5 release! This version brings many visible and invisible innovations and has been developed with different objectives.

The first huge topic is stability and cross platform compatibility. One of the big delay for this release was making ModuleStudio stable under different platforms. We spent a lot of time on build and release engineering in particular, to stabilise the project for future versions. All components have been upgraded to Eclipse 3.6 Helios and according Framework versions. We created a Continuous Integration Server setup to be able to execute different builds and tests automatically. This system enables future releases to come more frequently and with more stability. ModuleStudio is built only one time as a repository for all platforms and it has a new easy installer which downloads the most up to date components from the internet.

ModuleStudio produces fully Zikula 1.3.0 compliant modules. ModuleStudio has been rebranded with logo, splash screen, about screen and an own font for all four editions. Guite and Zikula project have formed a strategy alliance so that development on both projects can go on hand in hand. All transformations and generators have been outsourced into a Zikula project. This simplifies development and communication in the team and supports synergy effects. It is already possible to see both projects growing together. On startup, ModuleStudio shows a welcome area which beside other things, displays news from the Zikula project.

The main focus of ModuleStudio 0.5 has been stability together with compatibility for the new features in Zikula 1.3.0. ModuleStudio now integrates versioning of the modeling language. All changes at the language are stored in a history from which a migrator component can be created for updating existing models automatically.

Since ModuleStudio 0.5 the two areas for data layer and business logic have been merged with each other on Model level. The generator creates separated artifacts for both areas in the generated application though. Furthermore we adapted the complete terminology of the modeling language to common MVC terms.

ModuleStudio does now support multiple generators. ModuleStudio has different cartridges for code generation. It is intended to support different versions of Zikula as well. Further details can be found in the tutorial about using the generator. The zclassic generator creates applications which use the new functions of Zikula 1.3. Also the generator component itself has new extensions, for instance there is a PHP beautifier, adapting the format of generated source codes to the Zikula Coding Styles. Beside this we activated a profiler as an additional component, whose results are generated as well and can be helpful for performance optimisations.

The last large innovation in ModuleStudio 0.5 affected all areas. MOST now fully supports Doctrine 1.2 in the data layer. One can model different data types and relations, in the same way as validators, behaviors and event listeners. More details are in the tutorial about the Doctrine integration.

A newly created model automatically contains the required basic elements in the main editor. This simplifies the modeling process and saves several minutes for each model.

For the beginning we recommend the tutorial for installation which shows how to get started with ModuleStudio.