Vaadin Flow 2.2.0.alpha16 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.alpha16

• Reverted back to npm for the default frontend package manager
  • to keep using pnpm, you can use
    • the pnpm.enable configuration property (remember vaadin. prefix for Spring apps)
    • <pnpmEnable>true</pnpmEnable> configuration parameter for Vaadin Maven plugin.
• Now pnpm is installed only once per system to .vaadin folder inside the home folder and reused from there in all Vaadin projects like with Node.js
  • in case it is already installed globally, that is reused
• The default width for the body element is now 100 % instead of 100vw
  • this fixes an issue with unnecessary scrollbars appearing in certain scenarios

For all changes, see changes since alpha15

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
  -> This change applies also for npm since 14.0 or 14.1
• No migration needed, see differences here for more information about what has changed
• For running pnpm on a CI server, please see details here

NOTE: npm is still used by default, so you need to explicitly enable pnpm

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

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.

Portlet 3.0 support for Pluto portal

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

Minor improvements in 2.2

• Full resynchronization of the client and server (#7631) (alpha14)
• Shortcuts 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)
• Certain constants that are not meant for public usage in Constants are now deprecated

Dependency Updates in 2.2

• Following webpack dependencies have been updated:
  • webpack-cli 3.3.0 -> 3.3.11
  • webpack-dev-server 3.3.0 -> 3.10.3
  • webpack-babel-multi-target-plugin 2.1.0 -> 2.3.3
  • copy-webpack-plugin 5.0.3 -> 5.1.1