ABP v2.8.0 Releases & Road Map

hikalkan

4 years ago, 6022 views, 6 comments

ABP v2.8.0 Releases & Road Map

The ABP Framework & and the ABP Commercial v2.8 have been released. This post will cover what's new with these releases and the middle-term road maps for the projects.

What's New in the ABP Framework 2.8?

You can see all the changes on the GitHub release notes. This post will only cover the important features/changes.

SignalR Integration Package

We've published a new package to integrate SignalR to ABP framework based applications.

It is already possible to follow the standard Microsoft tutorial to add SignalR to your application. However, ABP provides a SignalR integration packages those simplify the integration and usage.

See the SignalR Integration document to start with the SignalR.

SignalR Demo Application

We've also created a simple chat application to demonstrate how to use it.

See the source code of the application.

Console Application Startup Template

The new console application template can be used to create a new console application that has the ABP Framework integrated.

Use ABP CLI to create a new console application, specifying the console as the -t (template) option:

Thanks to the contribution of @realLiangshiwei for this template.

RTL Support for the MVC UI & Arabic Localization

@kgamalseif has contributed a RTL implementation for the MVC UI which looks pretty fine:

He also localized all the framework and module resources. Thanks to him for this great contribution.

Others

Some other highlights from this release:

• Converted HttpApi.Client packages of the modules to .netstandard 2.0 to be compatible with other kind of applications.
• Improved the object extensibility system to better handle UI, localization and validation.
• Implemented disabling background job execution for HangFire & Quartz intergrations.
• New JsTree integration package for the MVC UI.
• Moved all samples to the new abp-samples repository and created an index page to see all.

Deprecations

• Deprecated the app.UseMvcWithDefaultRouteAndArea() and introduced the app.UseConfiguredEndpoints() (see #3880).
• Deprecated the UsePostgreSql() and introduced the UseNpgsql() for the Volo.Abp.EntityFrameworkCore.PostgreSql package. Switch to UseNpgsql() if you are using PostgreSQL.

Old methods are marked as Obsolete and will be removed in the next major versions.

What's New in the ABP Commercial 2.8?

The New Lepton Theme

We've completely revised the lepton theme. See with different styles:

Example screenshots from the language management page of the ABP Commercial:

(Default style UI)

(Material style UI)

Create a demo to test all the styles in live. You can change the style from the settings page.

The New Chat Module

The first version of the chat module has been released with this version. It has only the MVC / Razor Pages UI. Angular UI is on the way.

It currently has a simple real time text messaging functionality. More features like group messaging, sending images/files are on the road map.

Others

• Implemented module entity extension system for the Angular UI. Also improved the system to better handle float/double/decimal, date, datetime, enum and boolean properties.
• Managing product groups on a tree view for the EasyCRM sample application.

About the Next Versions

We publish feature releases in every 2 weeks. So, the planned date of the next feature version is June 04 and the version number is 2.9. This (probably) will be the last 2.x version and the following version will be 3.0.

ABP Framework 2.9 & 3.0

Organization Unit System

Organization Unit system for the Identity module was intended to be released with 2.8, but unfortunately we couldn't be sure about the stability of the feature, so deferred it to the 2.9.

gRPC

We planned to work on a gRPC integrated example application. Then we will plan to create gRPC endpoints for all pre-built modules and to the startup templates. We want to use these endpoints with the new planned Blazor UI option (there is a huge demand on a Blazor UI, we know). It doesn't mean that we'll finish the whole work in 3.0, but we are starting and will continue in 3.0+ versions.

Oracle with EF Core

We see that the people using Oracle with EF Core has some pains, independent from the ABP Framework. Because there is no stable & free Oracle provider for EF Core 3.1 yet. We only see the Devart has created a paid package.

@ebicoglu has created a gist to demonstrate how to use it. We planned to work on an integration package to make it even easier.

API Documentation

We are working to create an API documentation for the framework and build a CD pipeline to automatically publish it in every new release. This will make easier to explore the framework classes.

Sample Application: Using SignalR on a Tiered/Distributed system

Using SignalR on a distributed/microservice system can be tricky since the services are not connected to clients and can not directly call client functions from the server. One way to overcome this problem is using a distributed message bus (like RabbitMQ) that transfers the message from the service to the web application to deliver to the client.

We will create an example application and document it to demonstrate such an architecture and how it is easy by using the ABP Framework.

While this topic is not directly related to the ABP Framework and the problem is not unique to an ABP based application, we find useful to create such guides to developers.

And...

We will spend more time to write more documentation, implement performance improvements, make more tests, creating more extensibility points and so on.

ABP Commercial 2.9 & 3.0

Organization Unit Management UI

In parallel to the OU system in the ABP Framework (mentioned above), we are creating a UI to manage the organization units, which will be released with the 2.9.

Angular UI for the Chat Module

The Chat Module (mentioned above) only has the ASP.NET Core MVC / Razor Pages UI now. We are working to create the Angular UI for this module.

New Module Idea: File Management

We are looking to create a File Management Module that is used to manage (upload/download) and share files between users. You may think as a very simple and lightweight Google Drive :).

Easy CRM Angular UI

Easy CRM is a sample application we've released with the previous version of the ABP Commercial. In this version, we've added more features to this application. In the next version, we will work on the Angular UI for it.

We found this application very useful since it is very close to a real world application compared to the simple BookStore example.

And...

We are working to improve current modules, themes and the tooling to provide a more comfortable developer experience with the version 3.0.

The Road Map

We are frequently asked about the road map of the ABP Framework and the ABP Commercial. While we've answered to it in various platforms, with this release, we've adding road map pages for these products to their documentation:

• ABP Framework Road Map
• ABP Commercial Road Map

I am also writing the road map here, in the following sections;

ABP Framework Road Map

You can always check the milestone planning and the prioritized backlog issues on the GitHub repository.

While we will continue to add other exciting features, we will work on the following major items in the middle term:

• gRPC integration and implementation for all the pre-built modules.
• Blazor UI for the framework and all the pre-built modules.
• .NET 5.0! As Microsoft has announced that the .NET 5.0 will be released in November 2020, we will prepare for this change before and move to the .NET 5.0 just after Microsoft releases it. We hope a smooth transition.

ABP Commercial Road Map

We will work on the same items in parallel to to ABP Framework to implement them in the ABP Commercial side:

• gRPC integration
• Blazor UI
• .NET 5.0

In addition, we will be working on the following items in the middle term:

• A startup template to create microservice solutions (that has Ocelot, Redis, RabbitMQ, ElasticSearch, IdentityServer... etc. pre-integrated and configured).
• More module extension points.
• Dynamic dashboard system.
• Real-time notification system.
• Subscription and payment system for the SaaS module.
• More authentication options.
• New application modules (we have tens of module ideas and will share by the time - the "file management" announced above was one of them).
• New themes & theme styles (including public/corporate web site themes).

BONUS: ABP.IO Platform Road Map

While the ABP Framework and the ABP Commercial are the fundamental components of the ABP.IO Platform, we want to create a much bigger platform to bring the .NET community together to create reusable modules, share knowledge, help each other by taking the advantage of the ABP Framework's unified and standardized development model.

So, we have new *.abp.io web site ideas I want to share with the community

market.abp.io

A platform that is used by developers/companies to publish their reusable application modules, themes, libraries and tools base don the ABP Framework. There will be free/open source and commercial products on this web site.

jobs.abp.io

We are getting too many emails from companies want to hire developers or other other companies to build their products based on the ABP.IO Platform. We, as Volosoft, want to stay in the product side rather than customer basis projects. We generally lead them to experienced developers and companies.

We have a plan to create a web site to meet each side, so you can find developers for your projects or you find short or long term works to do.

Follow the ABP!

Follow the social media accounts to get informed about happenings on the ABP.IO Platform:

• @abpframework: ABP Framework official Twitter account
• @abpcommercial: ABP Commercial official Twitter account