Finally, TorqueBox 1.0.0.Beta19 is out.

Go download it and read the documentation.

This release first and foremost includes an update to being based upon JBoss AS 6.0.0 milestone 2. To accomplish the upgrade, we’ve reworked the Maven-based build system to be linked at the elbow with the core JBoss AS build.

Additionally, on top of that, in fact, quite exceptionally, TorqueBox now uses JBoss HornetQ to power it’s messaging. Even regular JBoss AS doesn’t do that yet.

This release also sees some major changes and improvements to not just asynchronous tasks, but MQ integration in general. Be sure to check out the documentation, as new features have been added and APIs have changed some. That’s why we call it beta.

The next release will focus on some much-needed internal cleanup, a documentation refresh, and perhaps an examination of Rails 3. So far, this release ships with Rails 2.3.4.

This is what JIRA thinks we’ve accomplished:

Bug

• TORQUE-57 - ActionController::send_data and send_file fail quietly
• TORQUE-59 - Queue payloads object to complex objects

Task

• TORQUE-66 - Update Torquebox download link in documentation
• TORQUE-67 - Upgrade to JBoss AS 6 milestone 2
• TORQUE-68 - Integrate HornetQ for messaging

We’ve just relaunched the TorqueBox website in preparation for our upcoming 1.0.0.Beta19 release.

The site is now generated by Awestruct a Jekyll-inspired site-baking toolkit. The entire website is generated from sources kept in a Git repository, easily forked and contributed to by anyone from the community. Additionally, we’ve enabled comments on news items and release announcements.

We’ve slightly re-organized, such as the addition of the Resources, and FAQ pages. Let us know if you have any suggestions for changes or improvements.

Tonight I’ll be presenting a very Rubyist-centric introduction to TorqueBox at the Asheville.rb meeting at Locomotivity.

Asheville is my old stomping-grounds, so I’m looking forward to an evening amongst the weirdos (Keep Asheville Weird!).

You may grab a PDF copy of the slides or view them here.

TorqueBox 1.0.0.Beta18 is out right now.

Download it and read the documentation.

Mostly this fixes some bugs with the VFS support, queues with complex names, and session identification through URL manipulation (useful for Flash-based uploaders that don’t play friendly with cookies).

Update: Yes, this release is based upon JRuby 1.4.

Here’s what JIRA thinks we’ve done:

Bug

• TORQUE-22 - Report errors better in the case of incomplete tasks specified in jobs.yml
• TORQUE-46 - gems cannot be compiled, mvn install - compilation error
• TORQUE-49 - VFS IO.open(…) does not catch existing files or open them correctly.
• TORQUE-50 - Remove crypto jar from torquebox-core-deployer.jar
• TORQUE-51 - StringUtils.camelize(…) will occasionally enter infinite loop
• TORQUE-52 - rake torquebox:server:run assumes unix and run.sh
• TORQUE-53 - ENV[**] not being set appropriately
• TORQUE-55 - URL-based session-tracking leaves ;jsessionid=X in the REQUEST_URI

Task

• TORQUE-42 - Adjust to Yecht for YML parsing (JRuby 1.4)

Thursday, I drove 666 miles to St. Louis to present at the Strange Loop conference with John Williams. We presented a quick lay-of-the-land view of TorqueBox, hoping to inspire more people to check it out.</p>

View our slides:

or download them