2.0EA1 - so close you can smell it

It's quite a while since I last blogged, but we're making swift progress towards the first Early Access (EA) release of OpenQuote 2.0. If the term EA doesn't mean anything to you, there is a page on the wiki that explains all.

So, since the last post, here's what we've been up to:

• The configuration reset mechanism has been enhanced so that it a) happens automatically when the system is first started up, and; b) can be invoked via a web service. OpenQuote has always had some support for web services, but we're building that out to cover more services for 2.0. For the EA release this will include the ability to reset configurations and clear caches.
• The 1.4 integration tests now all pass in 2.0. So we now have both unit tests and integration tests working. This just leaves the product tests, of which the widget showcase test is already passing. Most of the problems found by the integration test were related to class loading. The accessors and the factories do quite a bit of reflection and were, for the most part, picking up the wrong classloaders for use in JBoss 7.
• The Quotation portlet is now working. This was a major step forward. The configuration of the portlet (i.e. the way in knows which product to quote for) has been much simplified. Rather than editing the portlet XML files as the product developers has to do in 1.4, you now simply switch the portlet to edit mode and select the product that you want from a drop down menu. Much simpler.
• The Sandpit portlet is now working. This, again, was a major step forward. Though not as much work as it reuses the Quotation portlet. However, this now means that we're in a position to run all of the product tests.

What's left before we call it an EA? Well, we need the cache manager portlet to be working. Using the web service to do this is okay, but a bit painful for everyday use. The product catalog portlet also needs to be ported across from 1.4. These are both quite simple portlets, but I want to move them on from the current JSF implementations into the brave new world of GWT. There isn't a huge advantage to using GWT in such simple portlets, but we have more extensive places for GWT in future so it makes sense to cut our teeth on something simple first.