CHANGELOG.markdown

Nitrogen 2.x

Nitrogen 2.4.0 (in development)

• Cache Handler is finally implemented.
• Added wf:cache/[1,2,3], wf:set_cache/[2,3] and wf:clear_cache/[1,2]
• Improved performance by no longer relying on mochiglobal in templates (which was very slow for sets, but plenty fast for gets), replaced by using the new cache candler, which is very fast for both gets and sets.
• Added wf:parse_qs/1, which takes a URL-Encoded query (or post) string and returns a proplist.
• Nitrogen template callouts now be used to render variables, rather than just function calls. For example: [[[MyVar]]]

Nitrogen 2.3.2 (in development)

• Fix a handful of issues related to unicode
• Fix a process leak in comet and #sync_panel{}
• Upgrade to SimpleBridge 2.0.2 (Fixes a potential tail-call related crash - or rather a crash caused by a poorly written function that wasn't tail-call optimized)
• Upgrade included rebar to 2.6.0
• Removed a number of erlang:now() calls for support for Erlang 18.
• Added wf_test:[en|dis]able_autoadvance, preventing a test from advancing to the next test on its own - this facilitates relying on the page itself manually initiate the redirect.
• Added test_options to the test system, allowing to specify certain options for initializing and running the test.
• Currently, the only test_option is base_url for setting prefix of the URL (ie, https://my-domain-name.com).
• Fix Bert encoding for string longer than 65535 characters.
• Added binary builds for Raspberry Pi again.
• wf:url_encode/1 will now properly handle floats.
• Refactor wf_render_elements:render_element/1 from a single monolothic function into a bunch of smaller parts.
• Fix wf:json_encode/1 issue related to some structures not properly removing {struct tuples.
• Fix bug related to improperly selected elements in a #dropdown{} element (Stuart Thackray)

Nitrogen 2.3.1

• Make return values of wf_convert:parse_ip/1 consistent.
• Update to SimpleBridge 2.0.1 (Fixes an inets header bug)
• Fixed issue where clicking a link to download a file would stop the event loop on the client.
• Added a URL to the error message printed by the debug_crash_handler.

Nitrogen 2.3.0

• Upgrade to SimpleBridge 2.0:
  • Eliminate platform-specific code in Nitrogen, relying completely on SimpleBridge for setting up underlying server.
  • Added websockets as an alternative connection mode for wf:comet and its siblings as well as for postbacks. If a websocket connection is unable to be established, AJAX and Comet will be used.
  • Uploads still use AJAX.
  • Remains backwards compatible with versions of Nitrogen prior to 2.3, however, websockets will not be available unless a proper upgrade is performed.
• Added a testing framework that runs on the client and the server through Nitrogen's postback system, ensuring that you can add automated testing which will verify your interface in the browser of your choice.
• To go along with the testing framework are a number of initial tests to test the core of the Nitrogen framework. These can be found in the src/tests directory of the NitrogenProject.com repository.
• Significantly improve the comet/async reconnection system, including a default notice at the top of the page, and the ability to specify manual reconnection actions (if you so desire). This is done with #comet.reconnection_actions attribute.
• Update the build process to support PROJECT and PREFIX variables to create a new project. By default, the build process (make rel_X without any variables specified) will create the app at ../myapp.
• Added "Smart Extensions" to the default route handler (controlled by application configuration) which allows specifying custom entry points into page modules depending on the extension of the submission, as well as a JSON smart extension.
• Added a simple REST behaviour to the default route handler. Adding -behaviour(nitrogen_rest) will will enable entry functions into the module based on the request type (example: GET requests will call PageModule:get/0, etc).
• Added #sync_panel element, which allows for simple real-time content synchronization over comet/websockets.
• Added #progress_bar element.
• Added a debug_crash_handler, which is enabled by default in new Nitrogen projects. This will print stacktraces to the reply, or to the client's console.log (if the borwser supports it). Helps with debugging.
• Updated and improved the #upload element, adding progress bars, delete buttons, and proper enforcement of the multiple option.
• Added #qr element for simple QR code generation (which uses Google Charts).
• Added wf:set_multiple/2 call and related #set_multiple action for setting multiple values in #dropdown.multiple elements.
• Added html_id and title attributes to all elements, corresponding with the HTML id and title attributes (Amos Oviedo)
• Normalize the next attribute on input elements to use tab instead of enter, and also add next to elements where it was previously missing (Stuart Thackray)
• Added role attribute to remaining HTML5 elements. (Aaron Frantisak)
• Added #iframe{} element. (Aaron Frantisak)
• Update Bert.js and #api{} action to use binaries for proplist keys instead of atoms inconjuction with the safe option for term_to_binary preventing possible crash related to atom table limit.
• Added distance and options attributes to #draggable to minimize accidental clicking and dragging when the cursor only moves a few pixels.
• Improved Unicode handling - messages between client and server will always convert UTF8. Update Bert.js to support unicode strings.
• Improve template system to use binaries instead of strings, improving template rendering performance.
• Allow validation to be applied to #radiogroup element.
• Added unless_has_value option to the #is_required validator, which links multiple fields together, allowing options such as "Please enter either FieldX or FieldY".
• Added when_empty attribute to the #js_custom validator, giving the option to validate a custom javascript validator even if the value is empty.
• Added trap_tabs attribute to #textarea to allow user to specify if the tab key should move focus to the next element (default behavior) or insert a tab into the textarea.
• Added wf:to_qs/1 function for converting a proplist of elements into a URL-encoded querystring.
• Added wf:to_existing_atom/1.
• Added wf:json_encode/1 and wf:json_decode/1.
• Added wf:download_as/1 convenience function for specifying the Content-Disposition header so the client will download a page with specified filename.
• Added wf:protocol/0 function to retrieve the protocol used (http or https)
• Added wf:url/0 function to get the full request path, including protocol and host name.
• Added a #click{} action, which when called will initiate a click on the target element.
• Added an enter_clicks attribute to #button{} which will allow simpler form submission, as pressing "enter" when the element is selected will click the linked button, initiating a postback or other action as necessary.
• Added a helper script for fixing a Nitrogen slim release if the version of Erlang installed on the machine and the version of Erlang the slim release depends on are different.
• Updated wf:html_encode to be more flexible (preventing crashes when a user accidentally puts tuples, records, or anything else in an element's text field). Also added some tests for html_encode.
• Added wf:encode/{0,1} to specify any custom response encoding to be applied before sending to the client.
• Added body to #radio and #restful_submit (Stuart Thackray)
• Added button_class to #recaptcha{} (Stuart Thackray)
• Added minified versions of included javascript versions as well as non-minified versions.
• Added Nitrogen.$eval() to nitrogen.js to allow you to control when to evaluate postback responses.
• Significantly reworked the #textbox_autocomplete{} element to simplify its implementation (no more {struct tuples for mochijson compliance) and rework the associated demo to NitrogenProject.com.
• Fixed rendering bug in #upload when it would start hidden by CSS.
• Fixed issue with POST size in Yaws (Steve Vinoski)
• Updated to work with Erlang/OTP 17+
• Fixed the use of wf:qs/1 with #dropdown{multiple=true}
• Improve a handful of error messages (comet pool unexpected death and action module failing to load).
• Fixed default configuration for Yaws to allow larger POST values
• Fixed compatibility issues with Windows Bash and the dev script. (Alex Popov)
• Fixed issue with the combination of a REST handler combined with the HTTP auth security handler (Xue Hongwei)
• Update to jQuery and jQuery UI 1.11.1
• Update to jQuery Mobile 1.4.4 (Alex Popov)
• Add jQuery Touch Punch for better touchscreen support for drag, drop, and sort.
• Webserver Upgrades:
  • Cowboy => 1.0.1 (Amos Oviedo)
  • Mochiweb => 2.9.1
  • Yaws => 1.9.8
  • Webmachine => 1.10.6
• More documentation improvements and new demos on the homepage.

Nitrogen 2.2.2

• Fix an infinite loop bug in #mobile_grid.
• Plugins now support more OTP-compliant static directory structure with priv/static instead of just static on the root of the plugin directory.
• Plugins now support importing templates from priv/templates, added template_dir option to plugins.config
• Modify #checkbox to render the HTML checkbox inside its associated label for better semantics.
• Bugfix for AES pickling when signkey specified is incorrect size for AES.
• Update to SimpleBridge 1.4.0

Nitrogen 2.2.1

• Add Secure Pickling with AES (the core of the operation inspired by N2O's version, though changes had to made to ensure backwards compatibility with R15B, including an include generator for dealing with crypto changes from R15B to R16B01)
• Add fields that were intended to be added in 2.2.0 to #datepicker_textbox to make it consistent with #textbox.
• Fix bug in #upload that was emitting the wrong formatting for multiple attribute
• Fix bug in dev script related to slim releases
• Fix in #make_writable and #make_readonly
• Added and updated docs

Nitrogen 2.2.0

• Added plugin system for specifying Nitrogen elements as rebar dependencies, and then copying static resources, and linking in necessary headers.
  • Available plugins: https://github.com/nitrogen/nitrogen/wiki/Nitrogen-Plugins
  • Sample Plugin: https://github.com/nitrogen/sample_nitrogen_plugin
• Added Module:transform_element/1 as an alternative to Module:render_element. transform_element assumes the element is defined in terms of other Nitrogen elements, and will not incur the overhead associated with rendering an element twice.
• Added support for Erlang Slim Releases, which don't include the full ERTS system. Created with make slim_X where X is yaws, cowboy, etc. (e.g. make slim_mochiweb)
• Added official support for embedding Nitrogen into existing Erlang applications by using the embed script found in the root of the nitrogen repository.
• Added Binary distributions for FreeBSD (9.1-RELEASE) and Raspberry Pi with Raspbian. Added Webmachine builds to Windows.
• Added new crash handler for specifying custom page for dealing with page crashes (rather than simply printing "Internal Server Error").
• Removed support for any version of Erlang below R15 (due to the addition of the use of -callback instead of behaviour_info in handler definitions.
• Added typespecs to all built-in elements, actions, and validators. Added function specs in many places. Added -callback specs to handler behaviours.
• Added generalized #confirm_same validator for validating that two fields have the same value (useful for confirming entered email addresses match, etc). #confirm_password validation redone to use this #confirn_same validator.
• Added dependency_js attribute to the base action, allowing any actions that require certain javascript files to load the specified dependency first, then execute the action. This can help with load times by only loading javascript files on demand.
• Added type attribute to textbox to allow HTML5 textbox types. #password reworked to use this.
• Added height and width attributes to the #image element. (Maxim Sokhatsky)
• Added wf:defer and wf:eager variants to wf:wire to help ensure wiring order, and modify many helper functions (e.g. wf:insert_after) to specify priority (eager, normal, or defer).
• Added enhanced validation handling to allow advanced functionality to be executed (both server or client side) when a postback is cancelled due to a validation failure. (Jonas Adahl)
• Added module_alias option to #template, which allows aliasing a referenced module within a template, allowing templates to be "remapped" to more than one different modules. (e.g. In making a template call like layout:some_layout_fun() have layout be remapped to any module you want. (Joshua Pyle)
• Added image and body attributes to #button to allow simple iconification of a button, or to specify a general body in terms of HTML or Nitrogen Elements for button.
• Added #enable, #disable actions for dynamically enabling and disabling form fields. Added wf:enable and wf:disable convenience functions to go along with those.
• Added #make_readonly and #make_writable actions for dynamically toggling the readonly attribute on fields.
• Added data_fields attribute to the base element, and added support in all elements where it makes sense to support.
• Added #sparkline element for making quick inline graphs.
• Added text and html_encode attributes to the HTML5 #mark element.
• Added make dialyzer to nitrogen_core, nprocreg, and NitrogenProject.com as well as generated releases to help with debugging apps using the new record and function typespecs.
• Added wf:redirect_to_login(Url, PostLoginUrl) for specifying a destination URL after login that is not necessarily the current page.
• Reworked #recaptcha element: application variables are no longer required (instead those values can be specified in the element itself). General event/1 callback replaced with recaptcha-specific recaptcha_event/2 callback more consistent with other elements that work similarly.
• Reworked wf:peer_ip/1-3 to use IPv4 and IPv6, as well as making them always use tuples for IP Addresses, even if provided IP Addresses are strings/binaries.
• Fixed Comet such that navigating back to a page that previously had comet running, and if the comet process itself is still alive (has not yet timed out on the server), the page will properly restore the comet connection (Dmitriy Kargapolov)
• Fixed inplace_textarea and inplace_textbox to ensure they will always revert to the last set value when the cancel button is pressed.
• Fixed wf:js_escape/1 will now also escape single quotes "'".
• Fixed #grid_clear{} so it will no longer crash if it's the last element in a #container_X element.
• Fixed a bug in the #range element causing a crash when data attributes were set.
• Fixed html_encode=whites to be allowing of line-breaks. That is, not all spaces should be converted to  .
• Removed the annoying debug messages from the action_continue.
• Removed the #hgroup HTML5 element, as that element was removed from the HTML5 spec. Not a big deal, since it was never documented in Nitrogen anyway.
• Update Mochiweb to 2.7.0
• Update Yaws to a version greater than 1.96 (with a fix for crypto:sha)
• Update Cowboy to 0.8.6 (Thanks Roman Shestakov for doing SimpleBridge's API changes from 0.6 to 0.8)
• Update Webmachine to 1.10.4p1
• Update jQuery Mobile to 1.3.1
• Added a Contribution guide

Nitrogen 2.1.0

• Split dependent projects into separate .git repos, including nitrogen_core, nprocreg, and simple_bridge
• Move Nitrogen project (plus sub-apps) to github.com/nitrogen
• Remove ./apps directory.
• Update sample project (built using make rel_*) to start up using a first-class Erlang application.
• Sync has been split into its own dependency
• Add jQuery Mobile support and elements (with help from Mattias Holmlund)
• Add Mobile sample page to default installation
• Improved Windows compilation, including official support for Mochiweb on Windows
• Added ability to clear validators
• Added RESTful form elements (Steffan Panning)
• Added an html_id attribute to most elements that would need to specify an HTML id attribute (Jeno Hajdu)
• Fixed a critical comet bug causing comet processes to not die
• Add file drag/drop and multi-file capabilities to #upload element
• Add RECAPTCHA element (Steffan Panning)
• Add support for HTML5 data attributes for select elements
• Resurrect the #wizard{} element
• Add module_prefix configuration option (James Pharaoh)
• Fix bug where continuations didn't keep the original context
• Add slide up and down actions
• Make html_encode more forgiving
• Add helper functions for wf:q - wf:mq, wf:q_pl
• Add helper attribute click to #button{}
• Add wf:join
• Add make upgrade to generated releases to simplify the upgrade process from one version of Nitrogen to another
• Ensure label, p, span, and panel all support both body, text, html_encode
• Add more functions: peer_ip, insert_before, insert_after,
• Added lots of documentation, including handlers, configuration, mobile elements, and restful elements.
• For improved compabitility, removed the .ez files from releases
• Added Disqus coment system to all documentation pages
• Add improved options for Webmachine routing dispatch
• Update Mochiweb dependency to 2.3.1
• Update Yaws dependency to 1.94
• Update to jQuery 1.8.2 and jQuery UI 1.8.23
• Add Cowboy 0.6.0 Webserver Support (with help from Tuncer Ayaz)
• Add Minified versions of standard Nitrogen-provided Javascript files

Nitrogen 2.0.4

• Implement wf:flash(FlashID, Elements) so that flash notice can be manipulated/closed/etc.
• Add support for running Nitrogen underneath Webmachine. This makes it easier to run Nitrogen and Webmachine side-by-side, and allows the use of Webmachine dispatch table to route requests to Nitrogen.
• Add ability to generate Nitrogen-Webmachine packages.
• Update Mochiweb dependency to 1.5.0.
• Update Yaws dependency to 1.89.

Nitrogen 2.0.3

• Implement callbacks to chain Ajax effects (Jonas Ådahl)
• Fix element name normalization (Jonas Ådahl)
• Support for HTML5 semantic elements (Rajiv M Ranganath)
• Fix recv_from_socket bug when running on Yaws (Gregory Haskins)
• Update livevalidation.js dependency, fixes validation bug (Boris 'billiob' Faure)
• Fix bug causing postbacks to continually grow in certain cases (Jonas Ådahl)
• Added rudimentary support for building and running on Windows (Rusty Klophaus)
• Allow creating page, element, and action stubs from Erlang console more easily (Rusty Klophaus)

Nitrogen 2.0.2

• Fixed mochiweb bug that caused other headers to get clobbered when using default content type.
• Fixed typo in nprocreg causing sessions to disappear.
• Added #inplace_textarea element
• Added #textbox_autocomplete element
• Refactored nitrogen.js to be more JQuery-ish
• Fixed bug preventing flash messages from displaying in some cases.
• Added #link.title field.
• Restored missing wf:logout() function.
• Fixed max length validator.
• Throw an error if a template file is not found.

Nitrogen 2.0.1

• Removed mnesia-based process registry, create new distributed process registry. (./apps/nprocreg)
• Fixed Yaws and Mochiweb SimpleBridge to set a default Content-Type. [#60] [#69]
• Fixed Inets SimpleBridge to properly set headers specified as lists rather than atoms. [#60] [#70]
• Disabled Ajax Caching. [#45]
• Ensure site/actions and site/elements directories exist. [#49] [#75]
• Fix page prototype used by "bin/dev page " [#50]
• Update #container_12{} and #container_16{} to use supplied class names and ids [#51]
• Added wf:socket() command [#56]
• Made checkbox readable by wf:q/1 [#58]
• No longer encoding space as &nbsp in html_encode method. [#77]
• Fixed comet timeout value. [#74]
• Updated comet code to prevent spawned process leakage in certain cases.
• Update http_basic_auth_security_handler to protect selective modules. [#76]
• Properly return request_body in Mochiweb SimpleBridge response [#73]
• Fixed "Object Expected" error in IE8 [#57]

Nitrogen 2.0.0 - Big Release/New Features

New Elements, Actions, and API functions

• wf:wire can now act upon CSS classes or full JQuery Paths, not just Nitrogen elements. For example, wf:wire(".people > .address", Actions) will wire actions to any HTML elements with an "address" class underneath a "people" class. Anything on http://api.jquery.com/category/selectors/ is supported
• Added wf:replace(ID, Elements), remove an element from the page, put new elements in their place.
• Added wf:remove(ID), remove an element from the page.
• New #api{} action allows you to define a javascript method that takes parameters and will trigger a postback. Javascript parameters are automatically translated to Erlang, allowing for pattern matching.
• New #grid{} element provides a Nitrogen interface to the 960 Grid System (http://960.gs) for page layouts.
• The #upload{} event callbacks have changed. Event fires both on start of upload and when upload finishes.
• Upload callbacks take a Node parameter so that file uploads work even when a postback hits a different node.
• Many methods that used to be in 'nitrogen.erl' are now in 'wf.erl'. Also, some method signatures in wf.erl have changed.
• wf:get_page_module changed to wf:page_module
• wf:q(ID) no longer returns a list, just the value.
• wf:qs(ID) returns a list.
• wf:depickle(Data, TTL) returns undefined if expired.

Comet Pools

• Behind the scenes, combined logic for comet and continue events. This now all goes through the same channel. You can switch async mode between comet and intervalled polling by calling wf:switch_to_comet() or wf:switch_to_polling(IntervalMS), respectively.
• Comet processes can now register in a local pool (for a specific session) or a global pool (across the entire Nitrogen cluster). All other processes in the pool are alerted when a process joins or leaves. The first process in a pool gets a special init message.
• Use wf:send(Pool, Message) or wf:send_global(Pool, Message) to broadcast a message to the entire pool.
• wf:comet_flush() is now wf:flush()

Architectural Changes

• Nitrogen now runs under other web frameworks (inets, mochiweb, yaws, misultin) using simple_bridge. In other words, you hook into the other frameworks like normal (mochiweb loop, yaws appmod, etc.) and then call nitrogen:run() from within that process.
• Handlers are the new mechanism to extend the inner parts of Nitrogen, such as session storage, authentication, etc.
• New route handler code means that pages can exist in any namespace, don't have to start with /web/... (see dynamic_route_handler and named_route_handler)
• Changed interface to elements and actions, any custom elements and actions will need tweaks.
• sync:go() recompiles any changed files more intelligently by scanning for Emakefiles.
• New ability to package Nitrogen projects as self-contained directories using rebar.

Nitrogen 1.x Changelog

2009-05-02

• Added changes and bugfixes by Tom McNulty.

2009-04-05

• Added a templateroot setting in .app file, courtesy of Ville Koivula.

2009-03-28

• Added file upload support.

2009-03-22

• Added alt text support to #image elements by Robert Schonberger.
• Fixed bug, 'nitrogen create (PROJECT)' now does a recursive copy of the Nitrogen support files, by Jay Doane.
• Added radio button support courtesy of Benjamin Nortier and Tom McNulty.

2009-03-16

• Added .app configuration setting to bind Nitrogen to a specific IP address, by Tom McNulty.

2009-03-08

• Added DatePicker element by Torbjorn Tornkvist.
• Upgrade to JQuery 1.3.2 and JQuery UI 1.7.
• Created initial VERSIONS file.
• Added code from Tom McNulty to expose Mochiweb loop.
• Added coverage code from Michael Mullis, including lib/coverize submodule.
• Added wf_platform:get_peername/0 code from Marius A. Eriksen.

2009-03-07

• Added code by Torbjorn Tornkvist: Basic Authentication, Hostname settings, access to HTTP Headers, and a Max Length validator.

2009-01-26

• Added Gravatar support by Dan Bravender.

2009-01-24

• Add code-level documentation around comet.
• Fix bug where comet functions would continue running after a user left the page.
• Apply patch by Tom McNulty to allow request object access within the route/1 function.
• Apply patch by Tom McNulty to correctly bind binaries.
• Apply patch by Tom McNulty for wf_tags library to correctly handle binaries.

2009-01-16

• Clean up code around timeout events. (Events that will start running after X seconds on the browser.)

2009-01-08

• Apply changes by Jon Gretar to support 'nitrogen create PROJECT' and 'nitrogen page /web/page' scripts.
• Finish putting all properties into .app file. Put request/1 into application module file.
• Add ability to route through route/1 in application module file.
• Remove need for wf_global.erl
• Start Yaws process underneath the main Nitrogen supervisor. (Used to be separate.)

2009-01-06

• Make Nitrogen a supervised OTP application, startable and stoppable via nitrogen:start() and nitrogen:stop().
• Apply changes by Dave Peticolas to fix session bugs and turn sessions into supervised processes.

2009-01-04

• Update sync module, add mirror module. These tools allow you to deploy and start applications on a bare remote node.

2009-01-03

• Allow Nitrogen to be run as an OTP application. See Quickstart project for example.
• Apply Tom McNulty's patch to create and implement wf_tags library. Emit html tags more cleanly.
• Change templates to allow multiple callbacks, and use first one that is defined. Basic idea and starter code by Tom McNulty.
• Apply Martin Scholl's patch to optimize copy_to_baserecord in wf_utils.