New Features in Oracle Visual Builder Studio
Here's an overview of new features and enhancements added recently to Oracle Visual Builder Studio (VB Studio).
Topics:
- Release 24.10 - August 2024
- Release 24.07 - April 2024
- Release 24.04 - March 2024
- Release 24.01 - December 2023
As soon as new and changed features become available, VB Studio instances are upgraded in the data centers where Oracle Cloud services are hosted. You don’t need to request an upgrade to be able to use the new features—they come to you automatically.
Release 24.10 - August 2024
Oracle is in the process of provisioning multiple instances of VB Studio for each Oracle Cloud Applications customer. New customers will see this configuration as soon as they are provisioned with Oracle Cloud Applications; existing customers are being migrated to the new landscape over the next several months. For more information, see Before You Begin in Administering Visual Builder Studio.
Area | Feature | Description |
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DevOps | Dark theme | You can now set a preferred color theme for VB Studio pages, switching them from the default light theme to a dark theme more suited for low-light conditions. Previously, this was only possible within the Designer. With this update, your environment's theme can now be set either from user preferences or the Designer and take effect for all pages in the user interface, including the Designer. See Set Your Preferred Color Theme. |
Merge requests |
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Markup toolbar for wikis | A new toolbar that simplifies text/markup formatting is now available for wiki pages. Besides formatting, the toolbar provides options to customize the content editor itself, so you can toggle line numbers on and off, change line wrapping, and show (or hide) the content editor’s minimap. See Use the Markup Toolbar. | |
New software versions | The following new software versions are available for build executor templates:
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Security | OAuth token authorization |
When the Oracle Cloud Applications instance in your environment is not in the same identity domain as your VB Studio instance, you can now use OAuth 2.0 flows to secure programmatic access to the instance. While Basic authentication is still supported, you can set up OAuth from the Environments page to eliminate the use of passwords in service-to-service REST interactions. For extensions, you can also set up OAuth in the Deploy and Delete jobs used by the extension. To add the Oracle Cloud Applications instance using OAuth, you only need the base URL of the instance and user credentials.
To set up OAuth in the Deploy and Delete jobs used by an extension:
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Visual Applications | Opt-in for Core Pack components |
Core Pack components, available under the Early Access category in the Components palette since 24.04, now require an opt-in if you want to use them in your application's pages. If you use these Core Pack components in your app, take note that Core Pack does not support theming at this time. The only way to theme your app is to roll back Core Pack usages in your app to Legacy components and re-implement your application. If you don't ever plan to theme your app, you can choose to enable Core Pack components in the Components palette for use in your app's pages. See Opt In to JET Core Pack Components. |
Option to select existing field for M:1 and 1:1 business object relationships | A new and improved editor is now available when you create many-to-one and one-to-one relationships between business objects. Besides other improvements, the editor gives you the option of creating a new field as the referenced key (default), or selecting an existing field of the correct type. See Create a Many-To-One or One-To-One Relationship.
Many-to-many relationships continue to use the existing editor, now without the ability to change cardinality. A new + Many to Many Relationship option is also added to a business object diagram's context menu. |
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Extensions | Extension lifecycle management |
It's now possible to centrally manage published extensions using a new Manage Extension Lifecycle page. You can use this page to deploy a published extension to a new Oracle Cloud Applications instance, or delete it when no longer needed. See Manage Your Published Extensions. This functionality is also supported in Express mode. See Manage Your Published Extensions. |
Dependency enhancements |
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Global functions editor | If you define JavaScript modules as global functions, it's now much easier to manage the metadata in functions.json . Instead of updating the file's JSON, you can use a more intuitive interface to manage existing JS files (and functions) added to the file as well as create new JS files that contain global functions. See Manage Global Functions.
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Express mode enhancements |
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Common to Visual Applications and Extensions | General availability for business rules | Business rules, which control the logic that determines what's displayed on the page at runtime, are now available for all extensions as well as visual applications. For visual apps, see Use Business Rules With Your Rule Sets; for extensions, see Use Business Rules With Your Rule Sets.
If you already work with business rules, you can now configure dynamic tables using a new type of business rule, called a Collection rule, which allows you to show or hide table columns when the dynamic table is first rendered. For visual apps, see Create a Business Rule for Tables; for extensions, see Create Business Rules for Tables. You can also now use two special types of nested business rules: If/Else rules and Switch rules. For visual apps, see Use Nested Rules; for extensions, see Use Nested Rules. |
Enhancements for JavaScript action chains |
Note: The option to toggle between JSON and JavaScript action chains in the Action Chains tab is no longer available. This change does not impact existing JSON action chains, which you can continue to edit—but all new action chains default to JavaScript. Further, you can no longer create new tests for JSON action chains, though existing tests will continue to run. |
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Option to create branch based on remote parent branch | When creating a branch based on a parent branch, you now have the option to pick which branch to use as the parent – either the local branch or the remote branch, if one exists. For visual apps, see Create or Switch a Branch; for extensions, see Create or Switch a Branch. | |
Upgrade support for imported resources | Resources that are using an older set of runtime dependencies when your app is imported can now be made compatible with the app's current runtime version. For visual apps, see Upgrade Imported Resources; for extensions, see Migrate Imported Resources. | |
Dependent fragment property for display | When curating fragment properties for display in the Properties pane, you can now use an item's Dependent On field in the Design Time tab to specify other items that this item depends on for its data. This way, when the fragment is used on a page or container, the dependent item won't show in the Properties pane until the other items have their value. For visual apps, see Section Fragment Properties for Display in the Properties Pane; for extensions, see Section Fragment Properties for Display in the Properties Pane. |
24.10 Runtime Version
This release of VB Studio uses Oracle JET 16.1.x libraries and components. We recommend that you upgrade your VB Studio apps to this latest JET version, as well as to the 24.10 Visual Builder Runtime, to take advantage of the full spectrum of 24.10 features. JET 16.1.x is primarily a bug fix release, but it does include some visual and behavior changes. To see a list of what's new in JET 16.1.x, go to the JET Release Notes and select v16.1.0.
You can upgrade to the latest JET and Visual Builder Runtime versions from your app's Settings editor. See Manage Runtime Dependencies for Visual Applications.
Release 24.07 - April 2024
Area | Feature | Description |
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DevOps | Jobs and pipelines |
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Git and merge requests |
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New markdown parser | VB Studio now uses a new markdown parser to ensure that markdown is rendered consistently throughout the user interface. See Working with Markup Languages in VB Studio. | |
Toolbar for merge request comments | Users entering MR comments can take advantage of a new toolbar that simplifies many text formatting tasks, entering links, working with lists, and adding images and files to those comments. See Add an Attachment (Image or File) to a Merge Request Comment and Use the Toolbar to Add an Image to a Merge Request. | |
New software versions | The following new software versions are available for build executor templates:
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Visual Applications | Dark theme for web apps | When you create a new web app using the default template, you can now customize the app's theme to show components against a dark background, instead of the default light background with dark text. You can even let your users choose between a Light and Dark theme. CSS variables to override the default Redwood look and feel are still supported—only now you make those overrides in the CSS files specific to the Light and Dark theme. See Customize a Web App's Appearance. |
Extensions | Option to bypass CI/CD pipelines for deployment | You now have the option of deploying your extension directly to your development environment without using CI/CD pipelines. CI/CD pipelines provide advanced functionality, for example, they allow you to deploy dependent artifacts to the target environment in parallel or delete extensions to clean up the environment. If you don't need this functionality, you can opt to disable pipelines for deploying your extension. See Enable or Disable the CI/CD Pipeline for Publishing. |
Option to isolate extension workspace/repo by pillar | When you use the Edit Page in Visual Builder Studio option to customize Oracle Cloud Applications, it's now possible to isolate extensions by product family (pillar) into separate workspaces and repositories. For example, you can use one workspace/repo for editing all HCM pages and another workspace/repo for editing CX pages—though you can still edit all of your pages in the same workspace/repo, if that's what you want.
With this update, the default workspace name generated when you switch over to VB Studio typically uses the pillar of the page you're trying to extend, for example, |
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Dependencies grouped by pillar | Dependencies are now grouped by pillar in the Dependencies pane, making it much easier to find the one you want to add to your App UI. See Add a Dependency. | |
Core Pack replacement for Legacy components |
Note: This feature requires Oracle Cloud Applications 24C or later (with JET 16.x).oj-c-input-text has replaced oj-input-text . While this change does not impact an existing extension, dragging and dropping one of these components afresh from the Components palette will use the Core Pack version in your extension's pages. See Work With JET Core Pack Components.
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Improved usability of condition builder |
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Support for $objectContext parameters |
The condition builder for business rules and validation messages now supports parameters defined in the $objectContext. Parameters in the $objectContext can also be used when creating conditions in the Advanced Expression editor, and in expressions for setting the default values in business rules. In Advanced mode, you can view the list of the Object Context parameters and their definitions in the Context tab. See Use Context Parameters in Extensions. |
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Default value in business rules support LOVs |
The Business Rules editor now supports setting a default value for fields controlled by an LOV by selecting a name in a list of values. For extensions in Advanced mode, see Set a Default Value for a Field, in Express mode, see Set a Default Value for a Field. |
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Express mode enhancements |
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Common to Visual Applications and Extensions | Enhanced variable and type creation | We've optimized the process of creating multiple variables and types, so each variable or type is generated with a default name. You' d then use the Properties pane to update the name and other properties as needed. For visual apps, see Create Variables and Create Types; for extensions, see Create Variables and Create Types.
With this update, the ability to create a custom type that defines a list of enumeration values is deprecated. See Deprecated Features. |
Single environment auto-selected during workspace creation | When your project has only one environment, it is now automatically selected for you when creating a Visual Application or Application Extension workspace. For visual apps, see Create a Workspace; for extensions, see Create an Extension. | |
New dirtyDataStatus property in vbBeforeExit payload
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If you track changes in a variable's state to detect unsaved changes, you can now use the vbBeforeExit event listener's dirtyDataStatus payload (instead of the Get Dirty Data Status action) to check whether navigating away from a page will result in the tracked variable losing its data. For visual apps, see Add a Get Dirty Data Status Action; for extensions, see Add a Get Dirty Data Status Action.
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Duplicate option in JS action chains |
You can now duplicate an action, or a code block within an If, Switch, or Run in Parallel action. For visual apps, see Create Action Chains in Design Mode as well as Add an If Action, Add a Switch Action, and Add a Run In Parallel Action; for extensions, see Create Action Chains in Design Mode, Add an If Action, Add a Switch Action, and Add a Run In Parallel Action. |
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Usability improvements |
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24.07 Runtime Version
This release of VB Studio uses Oracle JET 16.0.x libraries and components. We recommend that you upgrade your VB Studio apps to this latest JET version, as well as to the 24.07 Visual Builder Runtime, to take advantage of the full spectrum of 24.07 features. To see a list of what's new in JET 16.0.x, go to the JET Release Notes and select v16.0.0.
You can upgrade to the latest JET and Visual Builder Runtime versions from your app's Settings editor. See Manage Runtime Dependencies for Visual Applications.
Release 24.04 - March 2024
Area | Feature | Description |
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DevOps | Security |
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Builds and pipelines |
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Merge requests |
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Visual Applications | Application resource optimization | You can now optimize an application's resources when your visual application is ready to be shared in order to reduce load times and network traffic. Optimization minifies application images and stylesheets, and creates RequireJS bundles in an embedded build server. See Optimize Your Application for Sharing. |
Prerendered pages for improved SEO | In an effort to improve search engine optimization (SEO), VB Studio now prerenders and caches your application's pages, returning a fully rendered page to web crawlers for indexing. To further improve response times, use the vb-prerender-cache-warm Grunt task to warm the cache for URLs listed in your application's sitemap, so web crawlers always get the fastest possible response when requesting those URLs. See Optimize Your App for Search Engines.
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Page header fragment | New pages in web applications now include a page-header fragment to hold page-specific boilerplate content that appears above the page's visual stripe. While you won't work with the fragment directly, you can customize the fragment to create a custom page-level header. See Customize Page Headers.
Note: Pages created with version 24.01 or earlier will not be affected. These pages will maintain their original structure even after your app is upgraded to 24.04. |
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Favicons for light and dark themes | With support for a dark theme, favicons can now be set independently for light and dark themes for each application in your visual application. You can set the favicon to any image in the image gallery by simply changing the favicon in the application's Settings editor. See Manage App Settings. | |
Support for OCI Process Automation |
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Process Automation, a service that quickly automates business approval workflows, can now be integrated in VB Studio. To leverage this functionality in your application, create an OCI Process Automation backend, then create service connections for the REST APIs you want to use. See Connect to Oracle Process Automation APIs. With OCI Process Automation now supported, the following Process-related features are deprecated:
See Deprecated Features. |
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Grunt option to redeploy a visual app from another project | If you've already deployed a visual application to the Visual Builder runtime instance in your environment, you can now use the forceProject option with the vb-deploy Grunt command to deploy the same app from a different project and/or Git repo. See vb-deploy.
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Extensions | Global functions | When your application routinely uses similar JavaScript functions to transform or manipulate data, you can now extract those functions as global functions and reuse them in pages (fragments or any other container), both within and across extensions. See Add JavaScript Modules As Global Functions. |
Changes to App UI settings |
The Show in Ask Oracle property in the flow-level Settings editor, which adds a flow to the Oracle Cloud Application or Ask Oracle Navigator menu, is now changed as Add to Oracle Cloud Applications menu. This property has also been removed from the page-level Settings editor. The Add to Oracle Cloud Applications menu property is now automatically enabled for an App UI's default flow, so the default flow always appears in the Navigator menu. For non-default flows, you must still make this selection manually. Further, when the Add to Oracle Cloud Applications menu property is selected to display a flow (default or otherwise) in the Navigator menu, the Let other App UIs navigate to this flow property is also selected, so navigation from other App UIs is always enabled to the default page in that flow. |
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Support for External FlexFields in business rules |
EFF (External FlexField) segments are now listed in Regions and Fields for business rules. A user can now configure the Required, Hidden, and Read Only properties of an EFF segment. See Set Properties for Regions and Fields. |
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Advanced Expression editor |
You can now create more complex expressions in JavaScript using a new Advanced Expressions editor. The editor's palette contains a set of actions based on JavaScript functions, and also supports the extension's global functions. The editor can be used in Validation rules to create conditions, and in business rules for creating conditions and defining default values. See Build Advanced Expressions. This functionality is also supported in Express mode. |
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Support for Validation message | You can now add rule-based validation messages to dynamic layouts in pages that use business rules. Validation rules allow users to configure rule-based validation error and warning messages. You create conditions for Validation rules using a conditon builder (as in the Business Rules editor), and define the messages that are displayed when the conditions are met.See Display Messages When Conditions are Met This functionality is also supported in Express mode. |
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Express mode enhancements |
Express mode now supports editors that were only available in Advanced mode:
You can now view and edit page constants directly in the Properties pane. See Work With Constants. |
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Common to Visual Applications and Extensions | Dark theme | You can now personalize the Designer's theme to switch from the default light theme to a dark theme more suited for low-light conditions. You can also sync your environment's color palette with your OS settings. For visual apps, see Tour the Designer; for extensions, see What is the Designer? This functionality is also supported in Express mode. |
Buffering Data Provider type | Oracle JET's Buffering Data Provider, which temporarily stores data changes in a buffer until they are ready to be committed to the data source, is now available as a type out of the box in VB Studio. You can create variables based on the Buffering Data Provider type and bind them to tables, list views, or any component that accepts a data provider. For visual apps, see Create Variables to Temporarily Store Data in a Buffer; for extensions, see Create Variables to Temporarily Store Data in a Buffer. | |
Build-related logs | You can now troubleshoot build-related issues that prevent your app from being shared or deployed. Build logs are available in a new Logs tab at the bottom of your browser. For visual apps, see Troubleshoot Build Issues; for extensions, see Troubleshoot Build Issues. | |
Audit improvements | We've made several improvements, including performance updates, to enhance the auditing experience, key among them being:
For visual apps, see Audit Application Code; for extensions, see Debug and Audit Your Code. |
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Event and action chain changes | We've made several enhancements to improve the design-time experience when working with events and action chains. We also renamed the Actions tab as Action Chains. Other enhancements include:
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Quick start enhancements |
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General improvements |
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24.04 Runtime Version
This release of VB Studio uses Oracle JET 15.1.x libraries and components. We recommend that you upgrade your VB Studio apps to this latest JET version, as well as to the 24.04 Visual Builder Runtime, to take advantage of the full spectrum of 24.04 features. To see a list of what's new in JET 15.1.x, go to the JET Release Notes and select v15.1.0.
You can upgrade to the latest JET and Visual Builder Runtime versions from your app's Settings editor. See Manage Runtime Dependencies for Visual Applications.
Release 24.01 - December 2023
Area | Feature | Description |
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DevOps | Option for project owners to change workspace ownership | A project owner can now change the ownership of any workspace that no longer has an owner. This is useful, for example, if the owner leaves the company or is unavailable when a merge conflict arises. See Manage Workspaces. |
Email notifications for user group changes | Email notifications are now sent to users in a particular user group when that group is added to or removed from a project, or when that group's membership privileges are changed. See Manage Local VB Studio Groups. | |
Job and pipelines |
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Default Wiki home page | VB Studio now supports a default Wiki Home page. You can create the Wiki Home page when you start working on pages for the project or, if you already have several wiki pages, you can provide a more coherent structure under a new Wiki Home. You’ll also now find the My Drafts button on the Wiki Home page, which you can quickly access using the page’s breadcrumbs. See Create and Manage Wiki Pages. | |
Templates for merge requests | You can now use a description template to improve the quality of the descriptions used with merge requests. Templated descriptions help focus the reviewers’ attention on the changes made in the branch’s code. See Use Templates to Improve MR Descriptions. | |
Regular expressions in webhooks for event notifications | Regular expressions can now be used to define matching patterns for branches in the Slack, Hudson/Jenkins Build Trigger, and Hudson/Jenkins Git Plugin webhooks. You can still use the selector to choose a specific branch for configuration. See: | |
Visual Applications | Business objects |
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Extensions | Improvements for Edit Page in Visual Builder Studio workflow | When you use the Edit Page in Visual Builder Studio option to customize Oracle Cloud Applications, you can now take advantage of these enhancements:
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Support to customize constants/components displayed in Page Designer's properties | You can customize how constants and dynamic components are organized and displayed in the Page Designer's Properties pane. Instead of an alphabetical list of extendable components and constants that show in separate tabs, you can now use a new page-level Design Time editor to organize items in a particular order, even group them in sections. See Organize How Constants are Listed in the Properties Pane. | |
Business rule enhancements |
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Role-based security for App UIs | You can now use roles defined in your Oracle Cloud Applications instance to control access to your App UI, as well as to individual flows and pages in the App UI. See Control Access to Your App UI. | |
Extension ID in Deployments tab | The Deployments tab now includes the extension ID, which you can use in a build step to delete an extension. Previously, you had to retrieve the identifier from the vb-extension.json file. See step 12 in Configure a Job to Delete an Extension.
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Classic application extensions no longer supported | Classic application extensions are no longer supported. With this change, you can no longer create new classic extensions from the Workspaces page or the New Project wizard. If the older version of your Oracle Cloud Application has been migrated to the newer App UI structure, you can find the new version of your app, which typically has a URL in the format <hostname>/fscmUI/redwood/<appname> . Once you do, click the Edit Page in Visual Builder Studio option to start building and configuring App UIs. Contact Oracle support if you need help.
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Common to Visual Applications and Extensions | Page Designer improvements |
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JavaScript action chain enhancements |
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New behavior type for custom events | The transform behavior type for custom events is deprecated and replaced by the new tranformPayload behavior type for new event listeners. The change does not impact existing apps with events configured to use the transform type, but the new tranformPayload type addresses issues with invoking event listeners in the correct order. You are, therefore, encouraged to switch to the new behavior type for your existing apps. For visual apps, see Choose How Custom Events Call Event Listeners; for extensions, see Choose How Custom Events Call Event Listeners.
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Fragments |
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24.01 Runtime Version
This release of VB Studio uses Oracle JET 15.0.x libraries and components. We recommend that you upgrade your VB Studio apps to this latest JET version, as well as to the 24.01 Visual Builder Runtime, to take advantage of the full spectrum of 24.01 features. To see a list of what's new in JET 15.0.x, go to the JET Release Notes and select v15.0.0.
You can upgrade to the latest JET and Visual Builder Runtime versions from your app's Settings editor. See Manage Runtime Dependencies for Visual Applications.
New Features in Oracle Visual Builder Add-in for Excel
The version of Oracle Visual Builder Add-in for Excel bundled in VB Studio 24.10 is 4.0. To see what's new in this release, go to the add-in's documentation page and click 4.0.0.
Supported Browsers
Visual Builder Studio supports the latest version of the Chrome browser running on Mac OS X and Windows. Other browsers and platforms are not supported.
Applications created using Visual Builder Studio can run on any browser supported by Oracle JET. For details, see What platforms are supported by Oracle JET?
JavaScript must be enabled for the browser.
Deprecated Features
Take note of features that have been deprecated and are no longer supported in VB Studio:
Area | Feature | Description | Notice of deprecation | End of support |
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Visual Applications | Alta theme |
Apps created on VB Studio version 20.07 or earlier were created with Oracle JET's Alta theme as the base theme. The Alta theme was deprecated in JET 10 and will not be supported beyond JET 13. To be able to publish new versions of an Alta-based app beyond January 2024 (when JET 13 reaches End of Life), we strongly urge you to transition your app to use the Redwood theme. Starting with JET 14, only best-effort support will be available for Alta; no bug fixes or new features will be provided for Alta-only issues. To check the theme used by your web or mobile application, navigate to the application's Settings editor and look for the Theme field. If Theme is set to Alta, take time to redesign your app using the Redwood theme before support for the Alta theme ends. |
22.01 - Dec 2021 |
Planned for 2024 |
Custom enumeration type | The ability to create a custom type that defines a list of enumeration values is now deprecated. Instead of creating an enumerated list as a type, you can create a variable, then use the Subtype option in the variable's Design Time tab to define your enumerated list. See Create Variables. |
24.07 - April 2024 |
24.10 - July 2024 |
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Implicit grant for backends and service connections |
The Enable implicit grant for Service Connections option used for backends and service connections in a web app has been deprecated. The change does not impact existing apps that enable this option—though it won't be available for new web apps starting from June 2024. If your existing web apps use the Enable implicit grant for Service Connections option, we recommend updating them. The Enable implicit grant for Service Connections option was used in conjunction with the Delegate Authentication setting found in a backend or service connection's server configuration. It enabled a direct Implicit OAuth flow with IDCS for Oracle Cloud Application REST APIs when a service connection used by the web app was configured for Delegate Authentication. Implicit OAuth is no longer a recommended option. If your existing apps use this option, take action as follows:
No action is needed if your web apps don't have Enable implicit grant for Service Connections enabled and if none of your backends/service connections are set to Delegate Authentication. |
24.01 - Nov 2023 |
Planned for November 2024 |
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transform behavior type for custom events
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The transform behavior type for custom events is deprecated and replaced by the new tranformPayload behavior type. The change does not impact existing apps with events configured to use the transform type, but the new tranformPayload type addresses issues with invoking event listeners in the correct order. Where possible, users are encouraged to switch to the new behavior type.
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24.01 - Nov 2023 | 24.01 - Nov 2023 | |
Mobile apps | Functionality relating to mobile applications has been deprecated and removed from the product. Starting with 23.10, you will no longer be able to create a new mobile app, but you can import an existing mobile app and deploy it as a PWA. You can continue to use your existing mobile apps until July 2024 when mobile apps, including PWA-enabled ones, reach End of Life (EOL). To use your mobile PWAs beyond July 2024, we strongly urge you to transition your mobile app as a web app and deploy it as a PWA for use on mobile devices. | 23.04 - Feb 2023 | Planned for July 2024 | |
Hybrid mobile apps and Apache Cordova custom plugin | Functionality relating to hybrid mobile applications (deprecated since April 2021) has been removed from the product. This means that the use of build configurations to build native .ipa and .apk files for distribution to iOS and Android devices—as well as the Cordova custom plug-in option—are no longer available. You can no longer create new hybrid mobile apps or new build profiles for existing apps; build configurations for existing apps will be ignored. For apps that target mobile devices, enabling PWA support is the recommended approach for distribution.
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21.07 - April 2021 | 23.07 - April 2023 | |
Select One component | The Select One (oj-select-one) component, deprecated since JET 8.1.0, has been removed from the Components palette and is visible only if you select the Show Deprecated option. Switch instead to Select Single (oj-select-single). | 22.04 - Feb 2022 | N/A | |
Oracle SaaS R13 Light Theme | The Oracle SaaS R13 Light Theme application template has been deprecated, although we will continue to support it until version 22.01 reaches End of Life (EOL). See Updating an Oracle SaaS application template for more information. | 22.01 - Dec 2021 | N/A | |
navigateToPageAction action | The navigateToPageAction action is deprecated in 21.07. When you upgrade your app to version 21.10 or later, any existing action chains that use navigateToPageAction are automatically migrated to navigateAction (introduced in 21.07). | 21.07 - May 2021 | N/A | |
Internet Explorer 11 | Visual Builder runtime has deprecated the use of Internet Explorer 11 since 19.4.3. Users who try to access a deployed Visual Builder application from Internet Explorer will see a deprecation warning. Starting with 21.04, Oracle Support will no longer address issues pertaining to Internet Explorer 11. | 19.4.3 - Aug 2020 | 21.04 - Feb 2021 | |
Processes in VB Studio | The following Process-related features are deprecated:
You can still use these features if you're using an Oracle Integration Generation 2 runtime instance in your environment, but as you plan the transition to Oracle Integration 3, you should leverage service connections instead to interact with Process. To leverage OCI Process Automation (Oracle Integration 3) in your application, create an OCI Process Automation backend based on your instance, then create service connections for the REST APIs you want to use in your visual application. See Connect to Oracle Process Automation APIs for more information. |
24.04 - Feb 2024 | Not available in Oracle Integration 3 and beyond |
Upgrade Policy
When you create a new visual app, VB Studio automatically sets your runtime dependencies to the latest Visual Builder Runtime and JET versions. If you’ve already deployed (shared or published) an app, however, it’s up to you to decide when to upgrade, as long as you do so within a certain time period. As a general rule, VB Studio supports applications built on the current Runtime Version, as well as the three previous versions. So for 24.10, for example, VB Studio supports not only the 24.10 Runtime Version, but also apps built with 24.07, 24.04, and 24.01. Once 25.01 comes out, however, support for the 24.01 Runtime Version will drop off, so we'll ask you to upgrade those apps before you can work on them in the Designer. If you choose not to upgrade at that time, you run the risk that newer browser versions will break your app. You also won’t be able to take advantage of any important security and performance improvements. For all of these reasons, we encourage you to build time into your development cycle to keep abreast of current changes, and to make sure you upgrade your app (you should version it first) before support for your current runtime version expires.
See Manage Runtime Dependencies for Visual Applications for details on how to upgrade.
Getting Oriented
VB Studio brings you all the functionality previously available with Oracle Developer Cloud Service. You also get the ability to build web and mobile applications in the Visual Builder Designer, as well as to extend certain Oracle Cloud Applications to customize the UI for your business needs.
VB Studio offers end-to-end functionality for your development team, from planning releases and managing development backlog, to hosting source code in Git, to designing, building, testing, and deploying cloud-native applications to your Oracle Cloud Applications and Oracle Cloud instances.
For Former Developer Cloud Service Users
If you were a Developer Cloud Service user, the following table will help you understand the primary differences between Developer Cloud Service and VB Studio:
How Developer Cloud Service and VB Studio Differ? | Find out more: |
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You don’t need to migrate your Developer Cloud Service projects. A VB Studio instance replaces your Developer Cloud Service instance, and you can continue to use your existing projects and corresponding DevCS features just as they are, without any impact to you. | Using Oracle Developer Cloud Service has been restructured and rewritten for VB Studio and is now called Managing Your Development Process with Visual Builder Studio. If you’re an administrator, you’ll want to check out Administering Visual Builder Studio as well. |
VB Studio comes equipped with the Designer, a graphical user interface that enables you to develop web and mobile apps using components from the Oracle JavaScript Extension Toolkit (JET). To test these applications, or to release them for production, you must deploy the apps to a separate Visual Builder instance, which serves as the runtime environment.
Of course, you can still use VB Studio to build apps with a third-party IDE or code editor and use VB Studio as the code repository, just as you did with DevCS. You can also use VB Studio to test, deploy, and maintain those apps throughout their lifecycles—nothing’s changed there. |
Building Web and Mobile Applications explains how to use the VB Studio Designer to build web and mobile apps. |
If you purchased Oracle Cloud Applications subscriptions that have front ends built with JET components, you can also use the VB Studio Designer to extend those apps to customize them for your business needs. | See Extending Oracle Cloud Applications. |
Developer Cloud Service used tags to associate service instances with environments. In VB Studio, you’ll need to add service instances again to environments, because the service instances associated with the environments were removed as part of the upgrade. The environments themselves were not removed, just the service instances associated with them. |
For information about how to add a service instance to an environment, see Manage an Environment. |
For Former Visual Builder Users
In VB Studio, you still use the Designer to create your visual applications, but the infrastructure surrounding that process has changed significantly, as described here:
How Visual Builder and VB Studio Differ? | Find out more: |
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In VB Studio, you and your team belong to an organization. Within that organization are projects, which help to organize the work for a given endeavor. A project contains a Git repository, where your source code is stored, along with build jobs that package up your app’s artifacts and deploy them to the target environment. Each project also contains tools to help you manage your visual application’s lifecycle, like an Agile board, issue tracker, team wikis, and more. | What Is Oracle Visual Builder Studio? |
Whereas Visual Builder used to contain the runtime environment where you could test and deploy your visual applications, VB Studio requires you to have a separate Visual Builder instance to serve as your runtime environment, and to establish communication between the two services.
VB Studio manages the runtime environment instances that serve as your development, test, and production environments in the Environments page. Within the Environments page, you can view the status of the various service instances that have been added to your environment. |
If you’re an administrator, see Set Up VB Studio for Developing Visual Applications to find out how to hook up your runtime to VB Studio. If you’re an app developer, see Share, Publish, and Deploy Visual Applications. |
Your work in the Designer now takes place in a workspace, which is an entirely private area within a project that only you can access. The workspace brings together everything you need to build your visual app: a private branch within the Git repository and a VB Studio environment that points to your Visual Builder runtime instance. | If you’re an app developer, see Create Visual Applications in VB Studio. |
If you want others to collaborate with you in developing your project's apps, your project owner will need to add them to the project and you’ll need to commit your workspace to a branch in a Git repository that is shared with these project members.
To facilitate collaboration, the Designer in VB Studio includes built-in support for Git with a Git menu in the toolbar that accesses the Git commands you’re likely to use most frequently (Pull and Push, for example). There's also a new navigator tab (Git Panel) that provides a view to uncommitted changes in your workspace, and tools to resolve issues when your changes conflict with other changes in the Git repository branch that you want to commit to. |
If you're a project owner, see Add and Manage Project Users. If you're an app developer, see Manage Your Visual Applications With Git. |
In Visual Builder, the Stage and Publish actions were key parts of your development cycle. In VB Studio, however, you use Share to share your application with others for testing purposes, and Publish to push your changes from your local Git repository to the master branch of your remote repository (that is, the project's version) and deploy it to the Visual Builder runtime environment. |
If you’re an app developer, see Share a Visual Application and Manage Deployed Visual Applications. |
For business objects, VB Studio maintains one database schema per workspace. As a best practice, we recommend that you use the same workspace and branch to create and edit business objects in a visual application. | See Work with Business Objects. |
VB Studio provides the following options to manage your visual application’s business object data:
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See Manage Business Object Data During Development. |
You can use the visual applications you built in Visual Builder within VB Studio by importing them, then performing a few post-import tasks. | See Learn About Migrating to Oracle Visual Builder Studio. |
VB Studio manages connections to backend services differently to Visual Builder, where a Visual Builder administrator added these services to the Tenant Settings page.
In VB Studio, the steps to create a connection depend on the backend service. If your visual applications need to access REST services from an Oracle Cloud Applications catalog, you add the Oracle Cloud Applications instance to the runtime environment. If the Visual Builder instance that you use in your environment is provided by Oracle Integration, visual applications in VB Studio inherit the catalog of Integration and Process backend services. |
See Manage Backend Services in Your Visual Application. |
The grunt-vb-build NPM package includes tasks to build visual applications that you develop in VB Studio and deploy to a Visual Builder runtime instance:
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If you want to use the Grunt tasks described here to build and deploy a visual application to a Visual Builder runtime instance, see Build and Deploy Your Application. |
Although you’ll now do almost all the administration tasks for your visual applications in VB Studio, someone with administrator privileges for the Visual Builder runtime needs to sign in to the Visual Builder runtime to do certain tasks. Examples include configuration changes to connect your Visual Builder runtime to an Oracle DB instance with more space, or to configure a custom domain if users access an application deployed on the Visual Builder runtime from a custom app URL. | If you’re a Visual Builder runtime administrator, sign in to the Visual Builder runtime to complete the following tasks, that are described in Administering Oracle Visual Builder Generation
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Extending Oracle Cloud Applications
If Oracle built your Oracle Cloud Application using Oracle JET, you can extend that app to customize it for your business needs. You can also create your own pages and page flows based on the Redwood theme, and deploy them alongside Oracle apps in your Oracle Cloud Applications instance.
To find out if you have such an app, see if you have an Edit Page in Visual Builder Studio option in your Oracle Cloud Application’s edit menu. If you do, click it to jump over to VB Studio and start creating your extension. To help you along the way, have a look at What Do You Want to Do in VB Studio?
Like everything built in VB Studio, the source code for your extension is stored within a project’s Git repository, and you work on your own branch of that repo in the context of your own private workspace.
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Access to Oracle Support
Oracle customers that have purchased support have access to electronic support through My Oracle Support. For information, visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=info or visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=trs if you are hearing impaired.
Oracle Cloud What's New in Oracle Visual Builder Studio, 24.10.0
G10859-01
August 2024
Primary Author: Oracle Corporation