Recent changes

This is a list of recent changes to Taverna. At the top of this list will always be the current, upcoming version as it is now in CVS. The idea is that whenever we add new features to the code, we'll also add some words here, and then condense them to form the real release notes when the release is done.

Upcoming version (CVS)

Java 5 required

Although previous Taverna version could work with Java 1.4 with some workarounds, this version requires Java 5. Download the newest JVM from http://java.sun.com/ or install it using your operating system's package system.

Modularised install

Installing this version of Taverna will use Raven, which will be a small wrapper that essentially downloads the different modules that combined gives the Taverna workbench. In theory you would then never again have to update Taverna, as Raven will download new versions when they become available from our servers.

Source and build system refactored

This should only be of interest for developers using the Taverna source code or API. We have refactored Taverna into modules, each of which can be built using Maven. The idea is that we can later upgrade any one of these modules without upgrading all of Taverna.

GUI enhancements

Some labels in dialogues (like the Run dialogue) have been moved around to be easier understood.

Efficiency improvement

Loading of larger binary input files (> 1 MB) is now significantly faster.

Taverna 1.4

Notes from http://taverna.sourceforge.net/index.php?doc=releasenotes/1.4.html

Java 5 now mandatory

Taverna 1.3.1 and below were targetted at Java 1.4, this version however requires a Java5 installation due to inhereted dependencies in some of the external libraries we rely upon. Java5 virtual machines are available for most platforms from http://java.sun.com

If you really need to run Taverna 1.4 on Java 1.4, you can rename the plugins directory to something else, because at this point all our Java 5 dependencies are in the provenance plugin.

UI Improvements

Minor incremental changes across the entire UI - the workbench should be more responsive and long running operations such as importing WSDL, loading biomart dataset configurations should all now use progress bars rather than hanging the rest of the workbench while they run.

Command line enactor script

This release includes the executeworkflow command line batch and shell scripts for simple workflow enactment outside of the workbench UI. More information on this can be found here

New Biomart plugin

• The Biomart processor has been re-written to use Biomart's new web service interface.
• The Biomart query editor has been updated to use the same user interface as the Biomart websites.
• Queries across multiple simultaneous data sets are now possible.
• Workflows constructed using the old version of Biomart will not be compatible with the new version.

New Web Service (WSDL) plugin

• Changes to the invocation and inspection of SOAP based web-services to support a wider range of services, particularly with regard to Complex Types.
• The addition of new local processors to help the user work with complex types. This provides support for dynamically constructing the XML for input to a service, and extracting information from the output of a service, without requiring the user to deal directly with XML.

Provenance subsystem

This release contains an early version of the provenance collection and browsing system. This records workflow runs and allows the user to browse and search over past invocations from within the workbench. Note that this code is not considered as solid as the rest of the workbench and is released to provide a community preview of where we expect it to go so please do not rely on it for any critical applications. Please do try to use it and let us know your experience via the mailing lists, your feedback will help us guide future work on what will become a core part of Taverna. Some of the known issues are listed here

If you experience a slow Taverna when using large datas, this might be due to some problems with the provenance. Rename your plugins directory to for instance plugins.disabled, which should avoid using the Provenance.

Taverna 1.3.1

See http://taverna.sourceforge.net/index.php?doc=releasenotes/1.3.1.html

-- StianSoiland - 15 Aug 2006