April 2025 Newsletter (featuring 3.17 announcements)

Announcements
1

Colleagues,

We are happy to announce LEAF’s latest release, LEAF 3.17. This release our team completed the SQL DAO refactor for enhanced usability, LEAFctl Go release for Windows, and additional compatibility improvements.

Continue to the content below for more information about the changes in LEAF
3.17.

LEAF 3.17 Release Highlights :sparkles:

Check out the following highlights of the 3.17 release and visit our detailed release notes:

  • A comprehensive refactor of SQL DAO, including support for PostgreSQL, MySQL, and H2 databases, is included in this release. This refactor delivers a more intuitive approach for defining new FieldMetadata and offers enhanced customization options, including the ability to add fields that generate their own tables. The existing SQL DAO remains available to support existing systems. The new SQL DAO implementation includes the following additional features:

    • SQL Views

      • The new isView attribute can be used on BeanMetadata to create Views, virtual tables in a database, that simplify complex queries or present data in a specific format without modifying the actual data stored in the database.

    • SQL backed DataObjectLedgerService

      • Support was added for LedgerServices backed by PostgreSQL and MySQL. A DataObjectLedgerService processes DataChangeEvents from an operational DataObjectService to persist all versions of every DataObject in your application while also providing full query support for the persisted DataObjects.

  • Service Generators have been updated to use LEAF’s new SQL DAO when they support persisting data to a SQL data store.

  • LeafPlugin toString() handlers were added for Accumulations, GroupedAccumulations, and FieldMetadata. These handlers allow users to customize the output of a LEAF object’s toString() method. For more information, visit the LeafPlugins Page.

  • OVERWRITE was added as a new UpdateType to allow for import-like updates that will keep all system fields the same without having to delete and re-add DataObjects.

  • The DataObjectTreeEditor has been updated to include the option to allow users to automatically expand and focus on a desired child DataObject within the tree.

  • LEAFctl Go now supports running natively on Windows.

  • LEAF added support for running in a cluster using Kubernetes 1.30.x.

  • The leaf-framework, leaf-app, and leaf-platform libraries were upgraded to React 18 with backwards compatibility for older React versions.

Announcements

  • Updated Release Cycle Schedule: Starting with LEAF 3.18, the LEAF team will migrate to a semi-annual release cadence with releases in the spring and fall. Our team remains committed to maintaining the quality and value of the product. As such, we will continue to complete regular security scans and respond to bug reports in unscheduled patch releases as they arise. To begin the new release cycle schedule, the LEAF 3.18 release in the fall of 2025 will also be a Long Term Support release.

  • Documentation Restructure: Our team has been hard at work restructuring the LEAF Knowledge Base (LKB) to make our docs more accessible. This documentation improvement initiative will continue throughout 2025, including the addition of new documentation and the revision of existing pages.

Support

Get the support you need by participating in our LEAF community on Discourse or by visiting the LEAF Service Desk.