Development environment enhancements

The WebSphere Commerce development environment contains several enhancements from Version 6 to Version 7. These guidelines can help you work with your customized code when you use WebSphere Commerce Developer in Version 7.

• Deprecated featureThe Rational Application Developer software stack was upgraded to Version 7.5. For more information, see Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software, Version 7.5 releases: new featuresand enhancements .
• WebSphere Commerce now supports Rational Application Developer Version 8.0.4.2 iFix 1, or a higher Version 8.0 fix pack.
• The Dynamic Web Projects project no longer exists as a container for your projects. All projects are now in the root directory of WebSphere Commerce Developer.
• Several menus changed from Version 6 to Version 7. For example, New > Other > Simple > File is simplified to New > File.
• The consumer direct sample store is no longer published by default with WebSphere Commerce. You must publish the consumer direct sample store to work with your customized code and complete several tutorials.
• The WC_eardir directory in WebSphere Commerce Version 7 now contains xml and properties directories. In WebSphere Commerce Version 6, the directories were in the WCDE_installdir/xml and WCDE_installdir/properties directories.
• WebSphere Commerce Version 7 supports Apache Derby instead of Cloudscape. If you are using IBM Cloudscape, upgrade to the recent release of Apache Derby.
• When you work with OpenLaszlo .lzx files, the property value of an element cannot contain a blank space. If a blank space is present, an invalid JavaScript identifier warning is displayed and causes the view display to fail. For example, in RecipeInstructionsPropertiesView.lzx, the Instruction Properties name value changes to InstructionProperties.
• The pattern that was based on the design pattern toolkit (DPTK) was upgraded to use Java Emitter Templates (JET). It is part of Rational Application Developer 7.5 instead of an external add-on.
• The Catalog service was updated. The catalog service XPaths are changed to be successful in the tutorials.
• The Madisons starter store supports more colors by default in WebSphere Commerce Version 7. The customization code assets in WebSphere Commerce Version 6 for Feature Pack 5 must be updated to reflect the new number of default colors.

Management Center programming model enhancements

Before WebSphere Commerce Version 7 Feature Pack 2, OpenLaszlo classes were used to declare tool definitions, object definitions, search definitions, properties views, and list views. Each time a change was made to one of these classes, the OpenLaszlo Project had to be rebuilt and compiled into the Management Center Flash binary file (ManagementCenter.swf). The OpenLaszlo compiler then compiled this binary file into Flash 8-byte code.

The OpenLazslo compiler has now been upgraded to compile the Management Center Flash binary file into Flash 10-byte code. This new byte code version offers improved performance and garbage collection in the Flash player, increasing productivity with a more responsive Management Center.

Note: When using WebSphere Commerce Version 7 Feature Pack 2 and above, ensure you use the correct WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool that matches the installed version of Management Center.

The Management Center programming model has also now been enhanced to reduce the frequency with which you must rebuild the OpenLaszlo Project. OpenLaszlo classes that define configuration information have been converted into XML files that do not must be compiled into the Management Center Flash binary file (ManagementCenter.swf). These new XML files replace the OpenLaszlo classes that declared tool definitions, object definitions, search definitions, properties views, and list views.

Support for Rational Application Developer Version 8

WebSphere Commerce now supports Rational Application Developer Version 8.0.4.2 iFix 1, or a higher Version 8.0 fix pack.