I'm happy to announce that RadRails 1.0 has been released today. This release has been a long time coming and includes a lot of new features and polish. We're especially proud of the progress we've made here at Aptana since we took over the project. RadRails 0.7.2 users will definitely want to check out this new release - it offers a more stable environment, full Rails 2.0 support, support for JRuby, and a boatload of new features. For those who want the comprehensive list of changes since the 0.9.3 release, you can find the changelist in ASAP.

The highlights include:

• A new Rails Shell console - A screencast dedicated to this feature is available at aptana.tv.
• Bundled auto-installing gems for rails development
• A Ruby profiler for Pro users
• An RDoc preview view
• Extended RHTML/ERb color preferences
• Code completion for ActiveRecord model fields and finders
• Code completion suggesting method call arguments
• Significant expansion of code warnings and analysis, including syntax changes from Ruby 1.8 to 1.9
• An improved look and feel

These new features join an already impressive set of functionality:

• A Fast Ruby debugger
• RHTML, YML, HTML, JS, and CSS editors with code assist.
• Unit testing integration and GUI
• Refactoring
• Code analysis and warnings
• IDE Scriptable via Ruby
• Much, much more!

Please note that unless you've been using 1.0.0 nightlies Aptana/Eclipse will not automatically update you to 1.0. You'll need to force an install of RadRails 1.0 via the Start Page, Plugins Manager, or Software update mechanism that you used to initially install RadRails. For those who prefer to use the Software Update route, the update site URL for RadRails is: http://update.aptana.com/update/rails/3.2/

This past week we released another point release of Jaxer, version 0.9.3, updating the standalone server as well as the one packaged within Aptana Studio. Of course there were bug fixes, performance improvements, and API enhancements. Perhaps most important, this was our first release to officially support Linux. Supporting Linux isn't trivial because of the multitude of variants, but it is very strategic as the deployment platform of choice for many people. Look for more distros being supported and more forms of distribution, from buildable source drops to tarballs and installable packages and even to complete EC2 and VMWare images. And thanks to the community for already helping us with supporting Linux distros.

So where are these releases leading — what are some things on the immediate roadmap for Jaxer?

• An even more Ajax-y experience: the callback environment will be made more natural, server-side support for Ajax libraries will expand, mashups will be easier to implement, etc.
• Scalability and performance: we'll release some interesting benchmarks on current Jaxer performance and stability, illustrate how it scales, and make some significant improvements.
• More APIs: we'll make database, file, network, and native interfaces more powerful while maintaining clean APIs that feel at home in JavaScript and HTML.
• More integration: we're creating a true bridge to Java by leveraging DWR (Direct Web Remoting) server-side, in addition to our current support for Tomcat (and other servlet containers); we'll expand the list of supported web servers from the current Apache 2.x and Jetty to IIS, Apache 1.3, and perhaps others; and we'll work on other database drivers.
• Deployment: we're working on making one-click deployment a reality, so you can develop your Ajax apps in Studio, leveraging Jaxer for the server side, and click to deploy your app to a hosted, managed, monitored, and scalable environment.
• Tooling: How about seamless end-to-end debugging of your Ajax app — step through your program starting on the server, move to the browser, go back to the server for a callback, then back to the browser for processing the result...
• Real-world apps: in the spirit of eating our own dog food, and supporting dog food consumption in the community, look for complete applications written on Jaxer and en expansion of our web site and of Studio so you can share your snippets, samples, projects and applications.

Oh, and the time frame? We're not exactly the patient type, so for many of these think weeks rather than months. Want something specific to come out even faster? Join the discussions on the forums, join the effort (some folks are supporting Linux distros, others are building persistence frameworks, some are putting together samples), or join our team.

This past week, the Aptana development team released a patch release that provides support for the Jaxer server on Linux. Read on to learn more details about this release.

New Release

Earlier this week, Aptana released new "nightly" builds of both Aptana Studio (v.1.1.3) and the Jaxer server (0.93). Aptana Studio 1.1.3 contains several bug fixes. Jaxer 0.93 contains several major new additions including support for Linux and integration with Amazon's EC2 technology. You can read more about these developments on our blog:

• Jaxer Server Now on Linux
• Jaxer Server now on EC2

Community Buzz

Frequent visitors to the Aptana web site may have noticed some changes recently. We've been in the process of re-organizing some of our documentation in order to make things easier for the community to find. One recent major addition that we've made is the Book of Jaxer, which is now the main landing page for all of our Jaxer documentation. Additionally, we've compiled a new FAQ page for Aptana Studio, which should answer most of your questions about Aptana Studio licenses and otherwise help you get started with Studio.

If you're having trouble finding a certain piece of information or notice that we're missing a Help topic on something, please file a new request in ASAP, and we'll try to get the information added to the site as quickly as we can.

Tips and Tricks

Are you new to Jaxer development, but aren't quite sure how to get started? Our new Jaxer Quick Start Guide is a fast and easy way to walk through the entire process. This guide covers all of the basic information that you'll need to get started with Jaxer, including installation, creating your first Jaxer project, and resources for learning more.

Are you looking for a quick and easy way to deploy your Jaxer applications? You can now take advantage of the cloud technology provided by Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (also known as EC2). EC2 provides you with a fast way to get going with Jaxer and to deploy it on a hosted infrastructure. With your own EC2 instance, you can make your Jaxer applications available for both private and public consumption.

The Jaxer Team has set up a CentOS image with Jaxer pre-configured and ready to go. Find out how to get your own instance running (and more) on the Running an EC2 Instance of the Jaxer Server page.

We'd love to hear about what you're building with Jaxer, so if you're working on a Jaxer app or just have a few questions about Jaxer, we'd like to invite you to participate in our Jaxer community forums.

The Jaxer Team is proud to announce that we now support Jaxer for several Linux platforms:

• Ubuntu
• CentOS
• Fedora

To learn how to get up and running on Linux, see the Jaxer Standalone Installation guide for Linux.

We've been working with volunteer beta testers within the Jaxer community to bring you these distros, and we plan to support additional distros in the future. However, this is our initial release for Linux support and because the various Linux platforms have so many nuances, some Linux platforms could likely still have some issues. Our Linux support is very community driven, so we invite you to participate in the platform vote on the forums to voice your opinion about your preferred platform:

http://forums.aptana.com/viewtopic.php?t=4844

If you have Jaxer up and running on a platform that we have not listed, let us know so we can add it to the list of supported platforms. Additionally, if you need help troubleshooting issues with Jaxer on your Linux platform, post your questions on the Jaxer forums.

Earlier this week, the Aptana team released the first patch for Aptana Studio 1.1. This patch should be available to all users now as the "1.1.1" release.

New Release

As mentioned above, we released Aptana Studio 1.1.1 earlier this week. This patch release contains fixes for issues with character encoding, code assist for the prototype library, and a number of other bug fixes. Concurrently, we also released Jaxer 0.9.1, which contains several bug fixes for the Jaxer server.

Jaxer lets you use your full stack of Ajax technologies — HTML, JavaScript, DOM manipulation, XHR, etc. — on the server, to make web application development a lot smoother and more natural.

With the excitement of the 0.9 release of Jaxer and the Aptana Studio 1.1 release behind them, the Aptana development team spent the past week working on the first patch release for 0.9/1.1. The Aptana community should have access to these patches early next week.

New Release

The upcoming Aptana Studio 1.1 release will be a patch release that fixes several bugs in 1.1, including the following issues:

We are pleased to announce that our Adobe AIR plugin for Aptana Studio now supports beta 3 of the Adobe AIR SDK.

This release requires Aptana Studio 1.1 or later which can be downloaded here.

What's new in this release:

• Inclusion of the AIRIntrospector.js allowing inspection of running applications by pressing F12
• Updated sandbox samples for both application and non-application models
• New fields added to the application.xml wizard page making it easier to create the initial configuration of your application

Wow, it’s been a long road getting to this release date, but I am very excited and proud of our team, and I'm happy to say that today we released our beta 1 of Jaxer -- what we believe to be the first true Ajax Server product.

So what is an “Ajax Server”? Simply put, we unify the development model for Ajax developers. That is, write “Ajax” code client AND server. The same APIs, the same JavaScript, the same HTML and best of all, manipulate the DOM on the server.