Some important info about upcomming 3.2.0 release
When it going to be released?
The release is scheduled on March 31, 2008 (Afternoon, Pacific Time)
What version of JSF will be supported?
RichFaces 3.2.0 is going to support JSF 1.2 only. I.e. it will work with JSF-RI 1.2.x and MyFaces 1.2.x implementations.
What version of JDK will be supported?
JSF 1.2 works only on JDK 1.5 (aka 5.0) and above. So, RichFaces will not support JDK 1.4 and below
Can I try RichFaces 3.2.0 before it is released?
All 3.2.0 release candidates a available from the Jboss Maven Repo:
http://repository.jboss.com/maven2/org/richfaces/ui/richfaces-ui/
My project still use old JSF and JDK. What if I try to update from 3.1.x to 3.2.0?
No any chances. RichFaces uses the JSF 1.2 API that is missing in prior implementations. So, do not spend you time on it.
So, what are my options if I still use JSF 1.1 and/or JDK 1.4?
Stay with 3.1.x. The current release is 3.1.4. We are going to have a maintenance release for 3.1.x. It will be a 3.1.5. It is scheduled on the second half of the April
Will 3.1.5 contain the new components of 3.2.0?
No, It will not. We widely use the JSF 1.2 API for the new components. So, the merging them to 3.1.x branch is not possible. All further changes in the 3.1.x branch are for maintenance purpoce only. I.e. the bug fix that does not presume the structured changes in the code.
Where can I find the list of new components for 3.2.0?
Those are the one that marked for 3.2.0 in the feature matrix - http://labs.jboss.com/auth/wiki/RichFacesFuture
Plus, we are going to ship a set of predefined CSS classes that allow to skinning not RichFaces components and pure HTML tags.
The standard form control will also be skinned (you can turn off this feature in the web.xml)
Where can I find the documentation for 3.2.0?
The documentation for 3.2.0 will be available online March 31, 2008.
Before this date, you can find the documentation released with each release candidate (http://repository.jboss.com/maven2/org/richfaces/ui/richfaces-ui/, see *.bin.zip archive)
Is 3.2.0 backward compatible with previous versions? How it is save to upgrade?
The major point is dropping support with JSF 1.1. So, if you still use it - do not upgrade. The backward compatibility in the rest parts should not be broken. However, how smoothly your concrete project can be upgraded depends of how thickly you use undocumented features and/or workarounds in JSF and RichFaces. If you face the problems during the upgrade, report them to the forum. The core RichFaces team is going to monitor the forum on permanent bases just after the release to detect and solve the potential problems.
