An Introduction & Tutorial for Structr 2.1

In one of our previous blog posts, we promised to write more about new features of our upcoming release of Structr, version 2.1, so here we are.

New Tutorial

But before we dive into the details, we’d like to to announce the first tutorial that our friends over at The SilverLogic created and which will be part of a series of example projects we’ll publish over the next few months. The detailed tutorial on how to create a Structr app shows many of the new features listed in this post. If you follow the tutorial, you will be able to create a simple blogging app within a couple of hours.

You can find the full tutorial on the Structr blog at https://structr.org/blog/blog-app-tutorial.



And now back to the features.

New Features

One of the most requested features among many other improvements and bugfixes is finally here and aims at developer productivity: We added a new deployment tool that allows you to export a complete Structr application in form of a collection of HTML and JSON files so that you can store it in any version control system (VCS).

We found a way to serialize and export all information which makes up a Structr app and is stored in Neo4j at runtime, to a filesystem structure. This allows you to use your favorite Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and diff and merge tools to make and track changes. In addition, the deployment tool (export/import) can even be used remotely over HTTP(S) so you don’t need a console login on the server to update your Structr instance.

Another new feature which makes operating Structr easier is the new web-based configuration tool: No need to manually edit the structr.conf file anymore!



The most anticipated feature of the new configuration interface is that you can now start and stop services individually while Structr is running. That means you can disconnect Structr from one Neo4j database and connect it to another, all without stopping the JVM instance, or you can enable and disable debugging and logging flags at runtime, which will greatly improve productivity.

Apart from that, the upcoming 2.1 release contains lots of new features to boost productivity: There’s a new administration console (press Ctrl-Shift-C to activate) for quick and easy scripting tasks, maintenance operations or monitoring log files, etc. We also improved the internal JavaScript scripting bridge and built a foundation which allows us to add support for more scripting languages like Ruby, PHP, Python or R.

Some More Improvements

A few other things we improved:

• The test coverage has been improved and the tests are running much faster now due to better reuse of Neo4j instances.
• A couple of new widgets to massively speed up app development
• Improved schema layout and schema editor enhancements
• Favourites: Define editable texts like script files or content elements as favourites and access them quickly via a keyboard shortcut (Ctrl-Alt-F)

Developer Support Program

Due to the rapidly growing demand for documentation, training materials and project support, we created a new program called the Developer Support Program which covers the most requested support services in an attractive package. We’ll announce more details soon.

GraphConnect Europe

Last but not least, Structr is once again happy to be a Gold Sponsor of the upcoming GraphConnect Europe happening in London on 11 May 2017. Save 30% on all tickets with the promo code STRUCTR30.

See you in London!