For [fleXive], the 3.1 release completes the shift from a general Java EE persistency and web development framework towards a next generation enterprise grade content repository.
The feature list of [fleXive] 3.1 can be split into three categories:

Content Repository:

• Dynamic mapping and definition of hierarchical XML-like data structures to relational databases featuring 17 multilingual data types
• one of the first content repositories supporting the CMIS standard for interoperability
• Internationalization of data and user interface
• Versioning / History / Auditing / Locking
• Security using access control lists (ACLs) supporting mandators, roles, groups and users at the granularity level of your choice: type, instance, workflow and property permissions
• Manage and conveniently access your data in a virtual tree-like file system
• Mandator and ASP support

Web Development JSF Toolkit:

• Loads of ready to use JSF components supported by Yahoo! User Interface (YUI)
• Create secure and data centric web applications in no time
• Manipulate content instances
• Render query results
• Render content trees
• Embed documents and other binaries in content instances

Administration Interfaces:

• Administer and prototype your applications using an intuitive and comprehensive backend
• Visual editors for structure definition, content handling and query definition
• Easy to extend with plugins

Supported Databases:

• MySQL
• H2
• Postgres
• Oracle (commercially available)

The development of [fleXive] did not stop at version 3.1.x. Instead we already have numerous additional features planned to be included in future releases. While the order in which they will be implemented has not been 100% decided yet, we nonetheless want to already give you an idea of what can be expected for upcoming versions of [fleXive]:

• Extended CMIS support (eg. acting as a CMIS client)
• Extended workflow support (eg. jBPM)
• Management of external data sources (eg. access existing tables as FxContent entities with full query support)
• Private working copies and workspaces
• Relations: UI for definition and editing
• Splitscreen UI for multi-language contents
• Batch-processing
• Integration (WebServices)
• Full JSF 2.0 support (currently only in 1.2 compatibility mode)
• Support for more databases and application servers

If you think we should prioritize or add features we would be happy to receive your feedback.

[fleXive] version 3.0 is the first Open Source major release supporting the Java EE 5 platform. The current version 3.0.3 is a bugfix and maintenance release.

Features include:

• Dynamic mapping and definition of hierarchical XML-like data structures to relational databases featuring a lot of (optionally multilingual) data types
• Content manipulation with no need to create custom DAO’s
• Internationalization (data and user interface)
• Versioning / History
• Import and export of content and data structures
• Workflows
• Security using access control lists (ACLs) ruling mandators, roles/groups/users at the granularity level of your choice (type, instance, workflow and property permissions)
• Event based JSR-223 Scripting
• Manage and conveniently access your data in a virtual tree-like file system
• Loads of ready to use JSF components supported by Yahoo! User Interface (YUI)
• Powerful SQL-like query engine
• Caching
• Mandator and ASP support
• Intuitive and comprehensive backend (visual editors for structure definition, content handling and query definition, configuration, extendable administration interface)
• Full Java EE 5 support
• Import / Export of content instances
• Dynamic authentication
• Scripting support for the content tree
• Complete English and German localization

[fleXive] was originally started back in 1999 as a closed source project by UCS – unique computing solutions gmbh. Its aim was to provide a sophisticated J2EE framework to allow for the rapid development of webbased applications like CMS systems, while automatically ensuring high standards of security and flexibility (hence its name) in a way that was not available at the time. This eventually led to the release of [fleXive] 2.0 in 2003, the last official release of [fleXive] up to this point.

During this period as well as the following years many successful projects were implemented using this framework, but no new versions were release and further developments has not been driven forward. One reason for this was, that the existing release suited the needs at that time very well. Another reason was the fact, that a complete reimplementation of [fleXive] would have been necessary for a new release.

The discussion about the future of [fleXive] ended in 2005 when the decision was finally taken in favour of creating a new [fleXive] with state of the art architecture and technologies. But this time as an open-source project, mainly sponsored and developed by UCS in its starting phase. The main reason that led to this decision was the belief, that the great work already existing - both in terms of functionality and technologically - should not be lost but rather given to the community, so that as many people as possible could benefit from it.

There are always a lot of new features on our list of open points. A lot of them are derived from the constant planning of additional functionality as well as the natural evolution of [fleXive] as it is used in various projects and we receive valuable feedback from the community.

Unfortunately we can’t implement all of them at once though, as the number of developers for this project - as for all projects - is limited. Therefore we need to choose a set of features that we plan to implement for each upcoming release. This selection process usually involves ordering the currently planned features into logical groups based on their functionality and priority as seen by us and the community and then choosing as many of them as feasible.

On one hand this means, that you should let us know if you are missing a certain feature on our roadmap or think we don’t prioritize an existing one sufficiently. In most cases we will then do our best to include this feature as soon as possible.

On the other hand however, there are also those situations where you need a specific feature for the implementation of a project based on [fleXive], and you also need it within a given timeframe to meet a certain deadline. For these cases there is always the possibility to sponsor that feature. By doing this, you allow us to add additional programming resources to the project dedicated to implementing your specific feature in the way and timeframe you need it. For more details or a sponsoring request be sure to contact us directly.