A lot of us are eagerly awaiting the ListX 2.0 release! I read somewhere that you had tentatively scheduled the release for September but obviously that did not happen. Can you give us an update on 2.0?

Yes Please,
I was wondering that myself.

We have been holding off on 2.0 for two reasons. The first - a great number of the changes for 2.0 were either included in the 1.7 or 1.8 (and the upcoming 1.9) release versions, so that our current user base could upgrade without cost. The other - a logistical issue which incorporates some better management and licensing of the code base. With the advent of 2.0, the true capabilities of ListX as an engine are more realistic. Meaning, as a developer you can release "resource based" solutions, meaning that the configurations can be store within resource files - OR - database driven. And, the ability for you to create configurations by name, rather than by ModuleID/TabID - so that you can simply switch from one configuration to another by name at any time (even within a ListX action). The true benefit of this logic, and the enhancements coming in 2.0 is that you can not only develop the front end for listx, but the administrative front end also. With that - the target webmasters will not see the "View Options", but rather - just the Module Settings area - which you have overriden with your own configuration interfaces.

Finally - and the most important thing for the 2.0 roadmap - usability. We have had an extensive Usability test and analysis done on the ListX interface - so we can identify how to best interact with the developers within the View Options. A large number of changes will occur in the View Options UI - and the AJAX library will be highly utilized to provide a much faster configuration experience. With that, the addition of a few key features which will greatly improve your usability:

1. Templates: Yes the ability to enter a query and create a standard UI off of it, rather than waste the time creating HTML. The basic templates will include Table/Grid, Detail, Edit, Inline Edit.
2. Search: We are providing a specific template structure for interacting with iSearchable. This way - you can control everything about the search information provided for your general search options.
3. Logging: A much more robust logging and debugging experience is going to be provided so you can do configuration specific logging of your debugging - and the ability to add logging messages through the actions. This way, you can view the log messages specific to the current configuration from within the View Options area.


There's a variety of other major changes to the application, but we will hold the cards on the rest. As for timing - it really depends! Our next release is 1.9 - so there isn't much of a buffer left. Any additional changes to the 1.x platform will be held to any functional or runtime corrections, no true enhancements.

So - whats in 1.9? There are a number of changes that have been made to improve the engine - mostly in the way Query Variables are handled. 1.9 will automatically order the Variables by length so that they do not collide with other variables containing "partial" names (meaning - a variable named frmDescription and frmDescriptionText). Additionally, the ability to automatically escape SQL injection as well as HTML injection and ListX injection. Also - the Math library has been added to provide standard mathematical features for performing calculations. This library replaces the standard condition handlers within ListX - so you can perform AND and OR checks in your conditions. (BTW, backwards compatibility is the reason 1.9 has yet to be released - the change in the conditioners is the hold-up, and we are performing extensive testing to be certain that 1.9 will not cause any issues with this).

We have also added a few things that we've heard repeatedly on the forums. One - the SUBQUERY tag has been corrected so that the will execute in the order which they are presented on the page - so that one can depend on the other without any issues. Also, the advent of the {SET} tag, so you can assign values to your variables on the fly within the Render.

There are few more things, but I won't get into them here. Once the testing has been completed and certified, 1.9 will be out the door.

May I ask will there be any kind of support for Nested SubQueries? Or something that will handle the "<optgroup>" tag?

Thanks for version 1.9.

Any more news about 2.0?

Kevin, Chris & Brian,

Thanks for continuing to release great updates to ListX (1.9.7). I am now wondering what the future is for the version 2.0 we heard about last year. Is there a version 2.0 on the horizon, or are you going to squeeze all those features into a never ending series of minor 1.9.x releases ;). If you feel bad about charging for a major upgrade, don't!

I am particularly wondering about 2 things you said were slated for 2.0:

Multiple forms per ListX module (http://dnn.bi4ce.com/Forums/tabid/106/forumid/19/postid/800/view/topic/Default.aspx)

Inline edit a la ASP.NET datagrid (http://dnn.bi4ce.com/Forums/tabid/106/forumid/19/postid/668/view/topic/Default.aspx)

Can you tell us if/when 2.0 is arriving and what is in it?