Hi everyone!
A status update regarding Vaadin Designer is long overdue, so I’ll try to summarise what’s up, what has been going on, and what’s next.
But first a
big thank you
to all of you trying out (the sometimes rough) alpha versions!
The feedback and encouragement you guys have been giving is greatly appreciated.
(I’m sorry I don’t always manage to answer in a timely manner - but I do read every single mail!)
As you recall we released the Labs version quite some time ago, and though quite buggy and limited, it showed great potential, and we got some great feedback.
We quite quickly realised that in order to realise the vision we now had for the Designer, and to put that kind of effort into it, it needed to be a commercial - and thus the Designer quite quickly “graduated” from Labs.
Armed with a solid plan, a decision to make the Designer a commercial product, and a dedicated team, we pressed ahead and made schedules. You may have heard some approximate dates at GWT.create or elsewhere…
But as often happens in software projects, those dates have passed already. Why? Well, in our case, making the Designer work exactly as we wished has some side-effects as well (in addition to being a generally challenging effort). For instance, Vaadin Designer uses the declarative format supported by the Vaadin Framework itself, which is just the way we want it - but as it turned out, we also wanted features that the format did not yet support (Responsive, to name one). We looked hard at the situation, but in the end only one thing made sense:
The schedule for Vaadin Designer is now aligned with that of Vaadin Framework 7.5.
In practice this means the Vaadin 7.5 Beta should arrive within two weeks, and Vaadin Designer 1.0 Beta follow after a hopefully minimal delay.
All things considered, we’re quite pleased with this decision, and the end result will be much better for it.
To summarize:
- Vaadin Designer 1.0 will be commercial; included in Pro Tools subscriptions, or as a stand-alone purchase.
- An Alpha version is available today, it comes with the Vaadin Plugin from
https://vaadin.com/eclipse
(
Help > Install New Software > [Vaadin update site]
) - Schedule aligned with Vaadin 7.5, the Designer will depend on that version
- Keep your eye out for the Beta, do
Help > Check for Updates
Again, thanks to all you guys trying it out!
We’re extending your trial-licenses
, you should receive an email shortly. You’ll should be able to use your trial license at least a month after the 1.0 final release. Please keep the good feedback coming!
So head over to
https://vaadin.com/designer
, install the soon-to-be-beta, and hit me with feedback!
Best Regards,
Marc Englund, Product Manager