[jdom-interest] JDOM2 BETA available.

[Rolf Lear]

Happy Valentine's (OK, it's still Valentine's day for Westerners...)

JDOM2's first Beta release is available.

Like the Alpha releases, this is available for download from github.
https://github.com/hunterhacker/jdom/downloads

Specifically, the first beta release is: 
https://github.com/downloads/hunterhacker/jdom/jdom-2.x-2012.02.14.19.57.zip

The Github Javadoc, JUnit, and Coverage pages have all been updated to 
match this new BETA release:
https://github.com/hunterhacker/jdom/wiki/JDOM-2.0#wiki-links

Serialization is the only significant thing that has changed between 
this and the previous Alpha (3).

Serialization changes are:
1. Namespace is now serializable
2. Numerous bugs fixed.
3. changed the 'line protocol' for serializing pretty much everything.
4. Serialized content is 'detached' when deserialized (it was not 
before), which makes serialization behave like clone().

I have added some new code to 'Contrib' but not 'Core'. The added 
'Contrib' code is:
1. A read-only DOM 'wrapper' for JDOM allowing JDOM content to be 
'exposed' as DOM.
2. An implementation to use Xalan as an XPath library by leveraging the 
DOM wrapper. This 'validates' the new JDOM XPath API in the sense that 
it is able to do either Xalan or Jaxen implementations.

I don't expect the new contrib stuff to be used much, but it is 
available now, and it is useful for numerous things where DOM input is 
required.

Please take this Beta for a spin, and share your experiences... good and 
bad.

I anticipate doing a 'clean-up' beta release again on the 29th Feb (Leap 
Day) to fix any JavaDoc and other presentation issues (I expect the 29th 
release to be in maven-central too).

After that I hope to be releasing the final JDOM2 at Easter.

Have fun!

Rolf