Vaadin Flow 2.2.0.alpha14 is a prerelease of the Java Framework targeted to Vaadin 14.2 that includes a number of new features and enhancements. To try it out, use the latest 14.2 prerelease available from the Vaadin prereleases Maven repository.

Significant Changes Since 2.2.0.alpha13

• Automatic download and installation of NodeJs and npm #6249
• Full resynchronization of the client and server (#7631)

2.2 Feature Highlights

Automatic Node and npm installation

• If no global or local Node installation is found Node will be automatically installed to ~/.vaadin
  • Only requires the first project to install as later can use the same installation
  • No need to have Node installed for CI
• Uses proxy data from
  • System properties
  • {project}/.npmrc
  • ~/.npmrc
  • Environment variables

Better frontend dependency management by using pnpm AKA performant npm

• Packages are by default cached locally and linked instead of downloaded for every project
  -> Faster recurring builds in comparison to npm (benchmarks)
• Only one package.json file used, reducing complexity (previously another file was in /target)
  -> More reliable build when updating Vaadin version
• No migration needed, see differences here for more information about what has changed
• For running pnpm on a CI server, please see details here

Portlet 3.0 support for Pluto portal

• Enabled by using an add-on
• Documentation and demo

Experimental: Fire routing life-cycle BeforeEnterEvent from parent -> child order

This feature may be changed in an upcoming prerelease.
This change affects the ordering of routing events and the timeline when routing components are created.
After this change, routing events are fired in the following order:

1. Global routing handlers are invoked
2. setParameter is invoked for the topmost navigation layer (main layout)
3. BeforeEnterHandler handler is invoked for the topmost navigation layer (main layout) if implemented
4. Next level component instances are created, and steps 2-3 triggered for that layer

Before this change, all routing components were created eagerly, and events were fired from child->parent order with first setParameter invoked, then global handlers and last BeforeEnterHandlers.
This change fixes a design flaw and prevents developers from accidentally compromising application security when routing components are not created if the end-user does not have access to them.
In case this change would break your existing Vaadin 10+ project, please open an issue.

Minor improvements in 2.2

• Shorcuts now support multiple components to listen on (alpha13)
• Improve server start-up time in development mode by skipping ES5 transpilation for webpack by default (alpha13)
• Allow setting custom template parser in npm-mode (alpha13)
• It is easier to create forms with "save-as-draft" type of functionality by using Binder::writeBeanAsDraf(BEAN) (forward ported from vaadin/framework#11833) (alpha12)
• Form bindings can now be triggered between required and non-required state with setRequiredEnabled(boolean) (partly fixes #5030) (forward ported from vaadin/framework#11834) (alpha12)
• HasOrderedComponents now provides access to the child components with Stream<Component> getChildren() without casting it to Component (alpha12)
• VaadinContext accepts attributes for storing based on super types with setAttribute(Class<T>, T) (alpha12)
• In development mode, webpack bundles are not compressed #6662 (alpha12)
• Introduction of VaadinConfig and HandlerHelper for non-servlet environments (replacing ServletConfig & ServletHelper) (alpha7)
• Added Page.open(String url, String windowName) (alpha7)
• Added isIpad() and isIOS() to ExtendedClientDetails to replace non-working WebBrowser versions (both broken for iPads with iOS 13) (alpha7)
• Optimized application server memory usage by reducing stats.json file size
  -> This drops the production stats size for megabundle by default from 40mb to 1.9mb or in Bakery App Starter from 42mb to 686kb (alpha4)

Known Issues and Limitations in 2.2

• pnpm is not able to resolve dependencies to git commits with the "short" hash format. See details and workaround from #7406.

Deprecations since 2.1

• com.vaadin.flow.component.ShortcutRegistration::getOwner is deprecated in favor of getOwners which returns all possible owners
• com.vaadin.flow.router.BeforeEvent::getRouteTargetType is deprecated in favor of getRerouteTargetType
• com.vaadin.flow.server.FallibleCommand is deprecated in favor of com.vaadin.flow.server.frontend.FallibleCommand
• com.vaadin.flow.server.ServletHelper is deprecated in favor of com.vaadin.flow.server.HandlerHelper
• com.vaadin.flow.server.startup.ApplicationRouteRegistry::getInstance(javax.servlet.ServletContext) is deprecated in favor of getInstance(com.vaadin.flow.server.VaadinContext)

Dependency Updates in 2.2

• Following webpack dependencies have been updated:
  • webpack-cli 3.3.0 -> 3.3.10
  • webpack-dev-server 3.3.0 -> 3.9.0
  • webpack-babel-multi-target-plugin 2.1.0 -> 2.3.3
  • copy-webpack-plugin 5.0.3 -> 5.1.0

All Changes since previous 2.2 prerelease

See complete list of changes in 2.2.0.alpha14