What’s New in SAS AppDev Studio 4.4

Overview

SAS AppDev Studio has a new feature that enables you to configure the Tomcat Server automatically. There are also new versions of the SAS facets, and changes to the templates.

New Command to Configure the Tomcat Server

SAS AppDev Studio 4.4 has a new command for configuring a Tomcat server to use for testing SAS web applications. To use the new command, right-click on a Tomcat 7 server in the Servers view, and select Configure for SAS AppDev Studio Use. Then choose the BI Server Profile you want that Tomcat 7 server to run against. All the configuration changes are made automatically. Removing the configuration changes is also supported.
These server configuration changes do not include adjusting the start-up time-out, which must be increased from the default to allow for the extra time that SAS web applications need to start. Port modifications must also be managed manually if there are conflicts with a local BI Server. Both of these manual changes are addressed in the Configure a Tomcat Server for Testing cheat sheet, which is a part of the New Workspace Setup cheat sheet.

New Versions of the SAS Facets for SAS Projects

Building on the facet support in the Eclipse Web Tools Platform to control the configuration of SAS web application projects, SAS AppDev Studio 4.4 provides new versions of the SAS Java Components and SAS Web Infrastructure Platform facets.
AppDev Studio 4.4 uses facet versions 9.4.0.0000. AppDev Studio 4.4 for the first maintenance of SAS 9.4 uses facet versions 9.4.1.0000.

Updated BI Server Profiles for SAS 9.4

In SAS 9.4, the SAS Web Infrastructure Platform no longer uses Remote Services. Because of this change, the BI Server Profiles changed, and the only settings that remain from SAS AppDev Studio 3.41 are the name, description, and Prefer IPv4 Stack.
You can still create BI Server Profiles using Search, but because the acquisition of BI Server information now involves a JDBC SQL query, the Search operation cannot create a cached copy of the BI Server information like the prior version of SAS AppDev Studio. This means that before using a BI installation that is offline, you must have acquired the BI Server information at least once to create the cached information.
The time-out for the BI Server Profile is applied only to the time-out for the SQL query that retrieves the BI Server information. It is not applied to other timeouts in your system. This means that if the SAS Web Infrastructure Platform Data Server is not running, or is not accessible, then your system’s connection time-out, not the BI Server Profile’s time-out, determines how long before the acquisition fails.

Template Differences

Local Foundation Services Now Used

Because Remote Services are no longer used, templates now use Local Foundation Services where needed. This means that you must define a Java System property to identify a JAAS configuration file for the Authentication Service. This requirement is not new for web application templates based on SAS Foundation Services, although the JAAS configuration file is now named jaas.config instead of login.config.
The JAAS configuration file and a defining Java System property are new for web application templates based on the SAS Web Infrastructure and for the Java client for executing Stored Processes template. For these templates, a jaas.config file is added to the project and the Java System property is included in the launchParameters.txt file of the project. For web application projects, the templates continue to add or update these files for historical reasons, although the new Configure for SAS AppDev Studio Use command handles the JAAS configuration and makes these files unnecessary. For the Java client for executing Stored Processes template, you must address the JAAS configuration when you run the Java application added by the template.

Create Application Metadata Template Now Uses the SAS Application Metadata Utility

The Create Application Metadata template has been updated to use the SAS Application Metadata Utility to create the application metadata. Because of this, the Application.xml file that contains the application metadata has a new format.
Because of the SAS Application Metadata Utility, when the application metadata is created an Application object appears in the folder tree for SAS Management Console and in the SAS AppDev Studio SAS Metadata Folders view in the SAS Metadata perspective. The default path of this folder is Products/SAS AppDev Studio/<application name>. You can modify this path in the Application.xml file after the template has been added.

Report Viewer Servlet Template Changes

The Report Viewer Servlet templates in the first maintenance release for AppDev Studio 4.4 include the changes needed to restore the back link behavior.
As of AppDev Studio 4.4, Remote Services have not been used, and the mechanism in the Report Viewer Servlet templates that communicates with SAS Web Report Viewer or SAS Web Report Studio changed. Although SAS 9.4 incorporated URL parameters to support back link information, AppDev Studio 4.4 provided for opening a selected report, but did not support passing back link information. The first maintenance release for AppDev Studio 4.4 corrects those templates.
For information about restoring back link behavior, see Restoring Back Link Behavior for a Report Viewer Servlet Template Added in AppDev Studio 4.4.
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