• All WebORB editions (Standard, Professional and Enterprise) are merged into one.. All licensing restrictions have been removed and the product license has been changed to zero ($0.00). Starting with 3.4 WebORB for .NET is a FREE product offering the BEST integration on the planet between rich clients and .NET
  
  
• Significant improvements in the AMF3 protocol compliance
   
• RTMPT support
  http://www.themidnightcoders.com/doc30/?t=1704
  
  
• Support for the RTMP bandwidth detection
  http://www.themidnightcoders.com/doc30/?t=1705
   
• DataTable/DataSet row serialization configuration
  http://www.themidnightcoders.com/doc30/?t=1501044
   
• NHibernate proxy serialization support
  http://www.themidnightcoders.com/doc30/?t=1501045
   
• ArrayCollection serialization support
  http://www.themidnightcoders.com/doc30/?t=1501042
   
• Configurable support for Enum type serialization
  http://www.themidnightcoders.com/doc30/?t=1501046
   
• WebORB configuration hot deployment
  http://www.themidnightcoders.com/doc30/?t=553
   
• VideoChat example now has audio support

• WebORB management console includes real-time messaging information for open client connections, shared objects and media streams
• Flex integration documentation is available in the user guide
• WDMF supports database views. A view can be added to a data model and is represented by an ActiveRecord class
  
• WDMF no longer requires full closure of the related tables. Dependency on the related tables can be turned of in the model designer.
  
• WebORB configuration file (weborb.config) is 'hot-deployable'. Any change made to the file is automatically picked up by WebORB
  
• WebORB configuration file includes a setting controlling response buffer (see the 'performance' section of the config file)
  
• Service browser has been redesigned to provide a per-assembly view of the deployed services

• WebORB Data Management Plugin for Flex Builder.
  Read instructions.
• WebORB-based Implementation of Flex Producer/Consumer APIs
  Product distribution includes Flex component with an implementation
  of the Producer and Consumer API. If you are using Flex pub/sub with
  WebORB, make sure to add weborb.swc from [WEBORB INSTALL]/weborbassets/wdm to your Flex Builder project library.
• WebORB Data Management (WDMF) now generates unit test cases.
  WDMF code generator can now optionally add unit test cases for all the
  generated code. The test cases can be executed from the Flex Builder project.
• WDMF Console improvements (menu/task-based layout)
  The new WDMF Designer console layout makes it easier to perform tasks like
  code generation, code retrieval and assembly deployment
• WDMF client auto-reconnect
  If the WDMF client disconnects from the server, it will attempt automatic reconnect.
• WDMF generated assembly can be automatically deployed.
  The auto deployment option makes it easier to deploy the compiled assembly
  to the current virtual directory.
• Improved WDMF data model validation.
  Included checks for missing related tables and missing primary keys.
• Custom Flex channel implementation for RTMP messaging
  Weborb SWC component for Flex now includes a custom channel for the RTMP messaging.
  If you are getting a message WeborbMessagingChannel is not defined, make sure to add weborb.swc from [WEBORB INSTALL]/weborbassets/wdm into your Flex Builder project
• Automatic GZIP response compression
  WebORB will automatically compress responses using GZIP or Deflate compression algorithms when the response size is over the pre-configured limit. See the <compression> node in weborb.config for more details.
• Support for custom security roles provider
  WebORB can be configured with a custom roles provider. The role provider is
  responsible to provide a list of available roles to the WebORB management console. Additionally it is used by the default principal implementation to check if a user belongs to a role.
• Support for Windows Forms Authentication
  WebORB includes instructions and API to support Windows Forms Authentication. See Logon.aspx and Global.asax for details.
• Changed IWebORBAuthenticationHandler to return System.Security.Principal.IPrincipal. The CheckCredentials method has changed to return an instance of IPrincipal. The principal is associated with the calling thread, thus individual method can be secured using .NET's standard code access security (CAS) mechanism.
• Added support for Flash Remoting style of DataSet object serialization
  WebORB serializes instances of DataSet class using the same data structure as
  Flash Remoting. Previous serialization format can be turned on in weborb.config.
  See the <datasets> node for more details.
• Changed the WDMF base object (Weborb.Data.Management.DomainObject) to be serializable. This change allows persistence of the WDMF generated classes.
• Changed WDMF generated classes to use inheritance vs. partial class implementation. This change provides greater flexibility when overriding default WDMF methods.
• Changed log time to use current locale (used to be GMT-0)
  All log entries now use local server time.

• Flex Messaging integration (support for mx.messaging.Producer and mx.messaging.Consumer)
• Support for remote SharedObject API
• RTMP streaming support
• MSMQ integration for Flex messaging clients
• New cascading security enforcement implementation
• Code-level security configuration panel (See the Services\Security tabs)
• Server configuration panels (Class mappings, Service aliases, Service factories, Abstract class mappings, Custom serializers - See the "Configuration" tab)
• Fixed Cairngorm 2.1 code generation template (the new template does not use old, deprecated calls)
• Added serializer for IEnumerator types

• Completely redesigned Flex-based management console
• Service Browser feature enabling users to inspect the classes deployed in a weborb-enabled application
• Client code generator - enables developers to automatically generate client access code for any server-side class
• TestDrive - provides a mechanism to invoke any server-side method directly from the console. TestDrive has an intuitive interface for entering method argument values
• Support for Flex client security API (RemoteObject.setCredentials)
• New Flex Remoting examples
• Auto-deployment - the console provides a drag-and-drop deployment mechanism for deploying WebORB into any existing virtual directory

• Flex Data Management Services support - basic CRUD - data retrieval, paging, update, create, delete
• Support for flex-remoting-service.xml and flex-data-service.xml. WebORB reads and deploys services and destinations defined in the configuration files.
• Fixed a serialization bug with recursive references in static properties. (The following scenario used to break: serialization of objects of type A with a static property P of type A)
• Fixed a type adaptation bug. (The following scenario used to break: invocation of methods with abstract argument types)

• Major improvements and bug fixes in Flex interoperability
• Auto-Update feature (see feature overview at: http://www.themidnightcoders.com/articles/objectautoupdate.htm)
• Support for pre- and post-invoke handlers through method attributes
• AMF3 implementation
• Support for Flex Remoting Services (a walkthrough is available at http://www.themidnightcoders.com/articles/flextodotnet.htm)
• Major improvements in WebORB Message Server.
  • Message processing using asynchronous IO
  • Support for channel event listeners
  • Support for thread pooling - all created threads are pooled
  • Support for message selectors

WebORB 2.0 GA - 02.07.06

WebORB 2.0 is a major production release.  It includes all the bug fixes introduced during the Beta cycle. Below is the full summary of all changes/new features:

• Major Message Server enhancements.
  • Improved client side APIs
  • Support for both AJAX and Flash clients
  • Universal message delivery. Message Server can deliver any message type (primitives, strings, complex types, arrays) to the supported clients. Messages get automatically formatted to the client environment
  • Full documentation (client API, server architecture)
• WebORB Standard Edition license generation is available to the public. Registered users can generate their own WebORB Standard license keys.
• Safari 2.0 support. The Rich Client System has been fixed to work on Safari. All AJAX examples now work on all major browsers.
• Date and array serialization for the AJAX clients has been fixed
• .NET object property serialization. Beta 2 introduces new way of complex type serialization. The product will serialize only public fields and properties. There is a configuration parameter to turn on serialization of private fields.
• Serialization of circular object references in returned complex types has been fixed.
• Serialization of returned singleton objects has been fixed.
• Fixed an internationalization problem manifested with AJAX clients. WebORB for .NET with a non-US locale failed to parse AJAX requests.
• Added QuickStart guide for ColdFusion Components (CFCs) to the user guide.
• Multi-protocol support. WebORB architecture allows pluggable protocol handlers. There are 2 built-in implementations: WOLF (Web Object Literal Format) - an XML-based protocol for handling AJAX requests and AMF (Action Message Format) - binary protocol developed by Macromedia for Flash-based clients.
• Rich Client System. WebORB includes a set of APIs to simplify object binding and invocation process. In the future the APIs will include support for dynamic widget generation.
• Integration with BlueDragon by New Atlanta and support for ColdFusion Components.
• Ability to map client classes to the server ones and vice versa.
• Type adaptation improvements. Added support for conversion of string-based arguments to the numeric types

WebORB 2.0 Beta 2 - 08.25.05

The Beta 2 release delivers additional stability to the 2.0 version of the product. The release contains the following fixes and modifications:

• Safari 2.0 support. The Rich Client System has been fixed to work on Safari. All AJAX examples now work on all major browsers.
• Added QuickStart guide for ColdFusion Components (CFCs) to the user guide.
• Date and array serialization for the AJAX clients has been fixed
• .NET object property serialization. Beta 2 introduces new way of complex type serialization. The product will serialize only public fields and properties. There is a configuration parameter to turn on serialization of private fields.
• Serialization of circular object references in returned complex types has been fixed.
• Serialization of returned singleton objects has been fixed.
• Fixed an internationalization problem manifested with AJAX clients. WebORB for .NET with a non-US locale failed to parse AJAX requests.
• Server-side exceptions can now contain a fault code delivered to Flash Remoting clients. Use Weborb.Exceptions.ServiceException to propagate exception information to the client side.

WebORB 2.0 Beta 1 - 08.01.05

We extended the scope of supported rich client environments from Flash to JavaScript/AJAX. To reflect the addition of new type of clients the product's new name is WebORB. Support for Flash Remoting remains the same. All the existing and new features equally apply to both types of clients (AJAX and Flash Remoting). The Beta1 release delivers the following new features and bug fixes:

• Multi-protocol support. WebORB architecture allows pluggable protocol handlers. There are two built-in implementations: WOLF (Web Object Literal Format) - an XML-based protocol for handling AJAX requests, and AMF (Action Message Format) - a binary protocol developed by Macromedia for Flash-based clients.
• Rich Client System. WebORB includes a set of APIs to simplify object binding and invocation process. Future releases will provide dynamic user interface widgets, event framework, support for drag-and-drop, messaging client for peer-to-peer and broadcast message delivery.
• ColdFusion Components (CFC) support. WebORB 2.0 introduces integration with the BlueDragon CFML engine from New Atlanta Communications. AJAX and Flash Remoting clients can easily bind and message any CFC component via WebORB and BlueDragon (on either the J2EE or .NET editions of BlueDragon)
• Ability to map client classes to the server ones and vice versa.
• Type adaptation improvements. Added support for conversion of string-based arguments to the numeric types 

FlashORB 1.5 - 03.01.05

Midnight Coders has concluded the Beta program for FlashORB 1.5 and releases the version into production. See the Beta releases history for the details on version 1.5

FlashORB 1.5 Beta 2 - 01.09.05

Beta 2 is a step forward toward the production release of FlashORB 1.5. This release provides bug fixes for the issues reported against Beta1:

• Management console is fixed
• Added support for argument type adaptation for instances of System.Enum
• Added support for type adaptation from flash strings to instances of IConvertible

FlashORB.Net 1.5 Beta 1 - 11.12.04

Version 1.5 introduces improved approach to the application security. It also includes improvements with session activation management and exception propagation.  Summary of changes/fixes:

• Support for 'open system' and 'closed system' modes.
• Support for system level authentication and authorization handlers.
• Support for service level authorization handlers
• Support for session expiration handling for the session activation
• Custom exception propagation is fixed

FlashORB.Net 1.0 - 06.11.04

1.0 is the first production release of FlashORB.Net. It includes all the features and bug fixes reported for all previous Beta and RC releases.

changes:

• FlashORB Management Console is now available at the remoting gateway URL. console.aspx mapping is obsolete and must be removed from web.config.
• In addition to the Development Mode introduced in RC1, FlashORB support a variety of licensing models. Contact Midnight Coders sales to arrange a license key if you need to eliminate the restrictions of the Development Mode.

FlashORB.Net 1.0 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) - 05.30.04

changes/improvements:

• RC1 introduces Development Mode. The product automatically switches into that mode when it fails to find a license key. Development mode restricts the product to process requests only from one IP address and does not allow concurrent request processing. Contact Midnight Coders sales to request an unrestricted license key.
• The product ships with security restrictions defined in the configuration file. The restrictions deny access from any computer other than localhost to Management console and classes in System and Microsoft namespaces.

bug fixes:

• DataSet serialization. Proper serialization of zero-length and 1 row data tables.
• Support for DataTable serialization has been added
• Non-ASCII character serialization support has been added
• When logging categories are enabled/disabled in management console, config file is properly updated
• Support for type adaptation for Enum arguments has been added
• Support for overriding hostname in the console URL has been added
• Handling for host name restrictions for Localhost is working now

FlashORB.Net 1.0 Beta 4 - 04.27.04

Beta 4 is the last pre-production release. Summary of changes:

New features:

• Code-access and feature-access security. Product can be configured to restrict or grant access to individual features, system and user classes. Access restrictions can be IP address (or template), subnet address, host name (or template) and role name.
• Management console. Graphical management console allows to monitor server run-time information, adjust security and configuration settings and perform debugging tasks using invocation monitor.
• Message server. Highly optimized for performance, message server supports several message passing paradigms: broadcast, multicast and unicast. The server can be used for interactive user applications, server data push, or XML message transformations.
• Service factories. Service factories allows to construct remoting classes when the default no argument constructor is not available in the class.
• Argument factories. Argument factories are similar to service factories. They are responsible for creating objects of the method arguments when the default construction mechanism (via no argument constructor) fails.
• Abstract type mappings. Some methods on remoting classes may have formal argument types as interfaces or abstract classes. In cases when there is only one concrete implementation for an interface or abstract class, abstract type mappings provide a mapping between the class and the abstract type. When an invocation for such a method is received, FlashORB uses mapped concrete type and performs type adaptation on it.
• Custom serializers. FlashORB can be configured to use custom serializers for certain types. When an object is returned from a method invocation, FlashORB checks if a serializer is mapped to the object's type or one of the implemented interfaces. If one is found, object streaming is delegated to the serializer, otherwise default serialization mechanism is used.
• Call tracing. Similar to NetConnection debugger, call tracing manages information about invocations. When enabled, information about every single invocation (date/time, arguments, return time, FlashORB handler, invocation duration, etc) is stored in the persistent storage. Management console can be used to browse invocations and perform searches. The framework can be used to programmatically attach invocation listeners to receive call notifications in the run-time.
• Logging policies. Multiple logging policies are supported. Product can be configured to use single log file, date-based logging or log files with pre-configured maximum size. Policies can be configured via FlashORB configuration file or Management console.
• Dataset page size. Product can be configured to specify number of rows to return when a dataset is serialized.

Bug fixes:

• DataSet paging is fixed. Once a dataset is returned, subsequent requests for additional rows are handled correctly.
• DataSet serialization used to return one extra empty row. The problem is fixed.
• Web service inspection is fixed.
• Type adaptation for arguments of the following types is implemented: XmlDocument, XmlElement, XmlNode
• Object structures with circular references can be returned from method invocations.

FlashORB.Net 1.0 Beta 3 - 03.26.04

Beta 3 is the second maintenance release. Summary of changes:

• DataSet serialization with multiple tables is fixed. The issue still remained in Beta2 even though it was announced that the problem is fixed. A new test case has been added to the regression test suite shipped with the product to demonstrate the functionality.
• Assembly files are no longer locked. Previously FlashORB.Net used to lock the assembly files. As a result in order to overwrite the files, IIS had to be restarted. The issue is eliminated in Beta3
• char[] serialization is fixed. Instances of char[] are now serialized as strings. Previously, char[] was serialized as an array.
• Added serialization mappings for System.Xml.XmlNode, System.Xml.XmlElement. This allows serialization of responses for the Doc/Lit bare web service invocations.

FlashORB.Net 1.0 Beta 2 - 03.24.04

Beta 2 is a maintenance release. It includes fixes for the bugs discovered in Beta1. Summary of changes:

• Added support for IConvertible
• Added support for System.Data.SqlTypes
• Introduced new configuration file: flashorb.config
• Added support for named services
• Fixed DataSet serialization problem when the first 2 rows were missing
• Fixed DataSet serialization problem for the datasets containing more than 1 table
• Fixed web service invocation problem for the web services with typed or untyped DataSets

FlashORB.Net 1.0 Beta 1 - 02.13.04

This is the first beta release of the .Net edition. Basic feature set is implemented:

• Inspection and invocation of .Net objects, Web Services, ADO.NET DataSet
• Custom invokers and inspectors
• Extensible dispatcher chain
• Application, session, request and custom activation modes
• Remote references
• Custom serializers
• Object factories

Product Information

• Product overview
• Developer guide
• Product features
• Release history
• Product roadmap
• WebORB FAQ
• System requirements
• Discussion forum (free membership)
• WebORB Blog

Development Resources

• Developer guide
• Interest group
• WebORB Blog

Licensing and Purchasing

• Support packages
• Submit a sales inquiry
• Product license agreement