Vaadin, the open-source platform for building business-oriented single-page web applications, has announced the release of Vaadin 24.1.0. This latest version brings a host of new features and improvements, further enhancing the platform's capabilities and providing developers with more tools to create robust, high-performing web applications.
One of the most notable changes in Vaadin 24.1.0 is the raised Gradle support to version 7.6, as required by Jackson. This update aligns Vaadin with one of the most recent Gradle versions, ensuring compatibility and smooth operation for developers using Gradle in their projects.
Vaadin 24.1.0 introduces a pre-compiled frontend bundle for production builds. This feature allows developers to build Vaadin Flow projects more quickly without the need to install Node.js and npm dependencies. This is an extension of the frontend dev bundle feature introduced in Vaadin 24.0, but it is now available for production builds.
The new release also brings production bundle loading optimizations. A production build now scans for Routes and lazy loads the components used in the routes when navigated. This optimization enhances the performance of Vaadin applications, making them more responsive and efficient.
Another exciting feature is the Hot Module Redeployment, which allows changing styles immediately without a page reload. This includes modifications to styles injected into shadow roots, changes to theme styles.css in bundle mode, and the ability to watch all active themes in development bundle mode. However, a full reload is still required when altering component themes due to the current theme injection implementation. This feature can significantly speed up the development process, as developers can see their changes in real time without the need to refresh the page.
Vaadin 24.1.0 also introduces new features in the Design System. A new SideNav component has been released under a feature flag. If a project is using vcf-nav, it is recommended to migrate to vaadin-side-nav. The Design System also includes new Map features, such as a styleable label for markers and drag-and-drop markers.
The release also brings enhancements to the Observability Kit, which now includes Frontend Observability to instrument client-side code and collect traces from the browser. The SSO Kit gets its own client-side libraries for both Lit and React when used in Hilla apps and provides an API to require authentication for specific routes for both Vaadin and React routers.
For more information about the new features and improvements in Vaadin 24.1.0, developers can refer to the official Vaadin release page.