In Rob's dm Server Roadmap blog entry, last April, we introduced two new artefact types: “plan” and “configuration file”.

Here is a short screencast demonstrating configuration files, in particular we show how to reference them from a plan.

First, a small web application picks up properties from a configuration properties file—deployed separately from the application. Second, the application and the properties are placed in the repository and a plan is constructed and deployed which installs and starts both the web application and its properties in one step.

Configuration Properties (5:59)

• QuickTime Screencast (42.9 MB)

Source Code

The repository configuration-properties in the samples project contains all the code shown in the demonstration.

Git - git://git.springsource.org…

Since Andy's announcement of the early alpha version of a new and improved Groovy Eclipse plugin, we have received very good feedback from early adopters out of the Groovy and Grails community. Judging from comments and twitter buzz there really is a big interest in good quality Groovy language support on the Eclipse platform. Andy and Andrew made good progress during the last weeks and are heading towards an M1 release which is not far off; check out JIRA for more details on when to expect it.

We'd like to thank everybody who tried out the early version and took time to report problems and…

Today, we make another significant announcement. SpringSource is launching an enterprise Java cloud—SpringSource Cloud Foundry.

This initiative is a logical extension of our integrated Build/Run/Manage approach to unifying the application lifecycle, extending our vision of simplifying enterprise Java beyond the traditional data center. As cloud computing becomes more important, we want to ensure that Java developers can take full advantage of it. We believe that our leadership in Java development, coupled with our strength in the runtime and management phases, enables us to provide a…

This release got overshadowed by some of the recent news this week, but I want to tell the community that Spring 3.0.0.M4 is now available.

Download | Reference Documentation | Change Log

This release includes some documentation changes, updated OSGi manifest information, a number of other improvements, along with some small revisions to supported frameworks like Hibernate, Tiles and others. Thank you to all of the dedicated community members that have given feedback and identified issues.

If you want to understand at a strategic level what the implications of VMware’s recently announced acquisition of SpringSource are, there are several good sources, including Steve Herrod’s (CTO of VMware) blog post, Rod Johnson’s commentary, Paul Maritz’s press and analyst call, and Darryl Taft’s insightful piece in eWeek.

In this post I will focus more on what this all means at a technical level, to give you an idea of the kinds of capabilities you can look forward to.

Firstly, let me reiterate that nothing changes with respect to our open source projects and  SpringSource product offerings. Nothing changes that is, apart from the fact that we’ll have even more opportunity in the future to add exciting new features to them. Spring 3.0 is coming soon, and we just released milestone 4. dm Server is making rapid progress towards a 2.0 release, and we have some very cool stuff up our sleeves for a forthcoming release of tc Server. The Eclipse tool support for Groovy is generating masses of interest, Grails is pushing on towards a 1.2 release…

Today I want to share some exciting news. We have signed a definitive agreement with VMware, who will acquire SpringSource. Subject to regulatory approval, we expect the transaction to close in Q3. SpringSource will become a division within VMware. I will continue to lead SpringSource, reporting to VMware CEO Paul Maritz.

Today I would like to explain the vision and careful reasoning behind this deal: why it’s natural and logical; why it can lead to the creation of amazing technology that will immensely benefit users; why it’s good for Spring and other technologies SpringSource leads or contributes to; why it’s good for the Spring community…

I'm pleased to announce a new screencast for SpringSource Slices. This screencast walks through the creation of the menu-bar sample application. It shows how a host can use a collection of slices to populate a menu bar dynamically without restarting and can be completely de-coupled from the knowledge of exactly what items might be in the menu-bar. In addition, the slices only provide their specific content, and include formatting and other window content from the host bundle.

Slice Menu Bar (5:19)

• QuickTime (24.1 MB)

Source Code

• Package - Download
• Git - git://git.springsource.org/slices/slices.git

Dear Spring Community,

I am pleased to announce that the Spring Web Flow 2.0.8 release is now available.

Download | Reference Documentation | Change Log

This release includes a number of small bug fixes and minor improvements, along with a few updates to the documentation. We would like to extend a sincere thanks to our active and dedicated community, as several of the issues were resolved with the help of community-contributed patches.

Jeremy Grelle
Spring Web Products Team

SpringSource Tool Suite 2.1.0 is now GA and ready for download. Christian Dupuis' blog post covers all the new features included in the best development tool for building Spring powered applications:

• Eclipse 3.5 (Galileo) support and platform specific installers for Windows/Mac OS X/Linux
• Support for milestones of Spring 3.0 including XML editing and validation, support for @Configuration and @Bean annotations
• Support for milestones of SpringSource dm Server 2.0, RFC66 web modules and SpringSource Bundlor integration
• Integration of Spring Roo for rapid application development
• Optional integration of the new alpha Groovy Eclipse Plugin