New Eclipse Helma plugin project

The helma4eclipse project provides a set of plugins for Eclipse, building a perspective for Helma 1.x based web app development. The features implemented so far by Franz Philipp Moser include a preferences pane, the ability to start/stop Helma from Eclipse, logging to the Eclipse console (you need to set "logdir = console" in server.properties) and the ability to browse the running apps, including their prototypes and skins, in a live outline. You can grab that very first version here .

Is the Bespin web-based code editor the ideal future ServerJS IDE?

Bespin is currently running on a python based backend, but I can see this project as a likely candidate for a backend implemented using the future standard library that the ServerJS group is attempting to build. Bespin together with Firebug and an integrated remote Rhino-Debugger seems capable of turning the web browser into the perfect Client-/Server-JavaScript IDE.

Server-Side Javascript Standard Library

Kevin Dangoor asks what Server Side JavaScript needs and launches more talk about a standard library for Javascript on the server-side.

Having a unified API for libraries in different environments would in my opinion be nice especially because it would allow higher level modules to be shared between different server-side javascript environments. One problem that has slowed this from happening in the past has been that in Java-based environments like Helma , Sling and Xjs , Rhino makes the direct scripting of Java packages so easy, that some stakeholders don't believe the added burden of maintaining an additional API layer in javascript is reasonable for the benefit they would get from it.

Some pointers to current server-side javascript library projects in the realm of the Helma project and to other efforts for a standard library for JS:

The current Helma 1 versions come with two libraries containing several modules. The HelmaLib provides modules for core functionality such as Database, File, Ftp, Http, Smtp and SSH, some that extend built-in prototypes, and a few others. The Jala library adds further modules such as DNS, MP3 and XML-RPC and utility modules such as i18n, image manipulation, captcha, HtmlDocument, RemoteContent, Podcast, Rss and other XML related modules.

Modules are included either via a configuration file or at runtime via a method call. A module is only loaded once, even if included multiple times. In the context of Helma 1, modules are loaded into the global scope and they need to be nice and restrict themselves to a save namespace.

For Helma NG , the way modules are included is changed to eliminate any possible namespace conflicts. Each module in Helma NG lives in its own scope and can selectively import other modules or portions thereof into its scope. Here again, when modules are imported in different scopes, each module is only actually loaded once.

There has been some discussion with the goal of a unified library/ modules architecture between different projects over in the Helma NG group. One of the major goals in Peter Michaux's xjs project is to provide a standard library and a shared module loading mechanism.

First Soleil on Mont-Soleil

Le premier Soleil sur le Mont-Soleil dans le soleil de soirée: "The Twins" - a siamese warrior or siamese warriors?

Helma turns 1.6.3

Helma is 1.6.3 and ready to be downloaded ! With over 10 years of development history, she is now more mature and more stable than ever. The latest list of refinements is a testament to that. The release isn't as minor as it sounds. Helma is just very conservative about her version numbers. This is really more like a 6.3 release than a 1.6.3. She is ready for your projects! For those of you that haven't already, it is now time to get serious about Javascript on the server-side .

Helma 1.6.3-rc3 ready for testing

The third release candidate can be taken for a spin . Again, see the Helma 1.6.3 Changelog for an updated list ofchanges included in the new version.

Release Candidate 3 contains some additional important changes, such as the totalUploadLimit value now being applied also to ordinary form post requests, as well as preventing a potential problem with the insertion order and making it easier to run Helma in other servlet containers.

Helma 1.6.3 Release Candidate 2

A second release candidate is ready to download . Please take a moment to check for any remaining problems with these packages.

See the Helma 1.6.3 Changelog for detailed information about the changes included in this new version.

>>> Release Candidate 1 of Helma 1.6.3