Eclipse Web Tools Platform 3.1
New and Noteworthy

Dali JPA Tools

EclipseLink Caching Support

EclipseLink provides advanced caching support to enhance application performance. Dali now supports the configuration of EclipseLink Caching via annotations with rich UI.

EclipseLink Converter Support

EclipseLink Converters allow conversion between object and data types. They can be used in any attribute mapping to convert between the object and data types without requiring code to be placed in the object model. EclipseLink provides several common converters, but you can also define your own. Dali now supports configuring the provided Converters and custom defined Converters in the UI.

Support for Multiple XML Mapping Files

Dali now supports mapping configuration with multiple XML mapping files. In addition, mapping files can now be user named.

New EclipseLink Entity and Attribute Mapping Options

The following Entity configuration options can now be configured via Dali: Read-only, Customizer, and Change Tracking. In addition, Mutable and Join Fetch can be configured on the appropriate attribute mappings.

EclipseLink Converter Support

UI support for EclipseLink Converters has been added, allowing easy persistence of user-defined types or facilitating custom conversion behavior. Converters can be defined at the Type or Attribute level.



Select from a repository of globally defined converters in the attribute mapping.

Library Management

Dali will now help users manage JPA libraries for a JPA project. Library configurations can be provided by JPA implementations or User Libraries can be used and managed through this facility. Validation is offered to ensure that the correct classes are available for a given Platform.

Library does not contain necessary classes and an error is shown as a result.



Library does contain appropriate classes, and as a result the error is gone.

New Entity Generation from Tables

Dali has a new Entity Generation wizard via a contribution from Oracle. This functionality includes a new wizard that offers additional configuration options as shown below.

Entity association visualization and customization via the new wizard:



High-level entity generation customization:



Entity-level customization:

Use of new Configure menu

Dali is now making use of the new Configure menu for the purpose of converting existing Java projects into JPA projects. This helps reduce menu clutter from the Project context menu.

New Joining Strategy UI

Dali has introduces a new section in the Association Mappings UI called Joining Strategy. This section contains all of the possible selections related to defining the association between entities. The parts that make up this section have not changed, just the grouping and selection of these parts. This change also helps us prepare for expanded options that will be standard in JPA 2.0.

New Joining Strategy UI:

New EclipseLink 1.1 Platform available

Dali now provides EclipseLink 1.1 specific tooling support via the new EclipseLink 1.1 Platform. EclipseLink 1.1 artifacts such as the EclipseLink XML Mapping File are supported, including EclipseLink XML Mapping File only configuration options, such as mixed Access Type.

Support for uni-directional One-to-Many mapping without using a Join Table in the EclipseLink 1.1 Platform

Dali now supports uni-directional One-to-Many mappings specified without a Join Table in the EclipseLink 1.1 platform. This was achieved by allowing JoinColumn(s) configuration on One-to-Many mappings and changes to validation.

Table-per-Concrete-Class Inheritance Support

Dali now supports the JPA 1.0-optional table-per-concrete-class inheritance option. This functionality may be required in JPA 2.0.