What's new 2.7

In the next sections, you will get a synthesis of the major changes done to the Restlet Framework in version 2.7.

Main changes

  • JDK requirement
    • Java 21 LTS is the minimum requirement.
  • Removals
    • removed features deprecated in version 2.6:
      • Atom, Guice, GWT, JAXB, OData and Servlet extensions.
      • GWT edition and the GWT client library.
    • removed the concept of Restlet Editions (Java SE, Java EE, Google App Engine, Google Web Toolkit): the framework now ships as a single, unified set of artifacts, usable the same way regardless of your deployment target.
    • deploying a Restlet application inside a Servlet container is no longer supported.
  • Connectors
    • the internal HTTP client and server connectors now rely only on Eclipse Jetty.
  • OpenAPI
    • embraced the latest OpenAPI Specification (OAS) innovations, with OAS 3.1 support and dynamic code-first descriptions.
  • Code base
    • modernized the code base using the latest Java language features.
    • increased the unit test coverage.
  • Documentation
    • simplified the user documentation.
    • removed the notion of edition from the documentation navigation.

Migration guide from version 2.6 to 2.7

This section intends to explain the main differences between the Restlet 2.6 and 2.7 releases and to help you migrate your existing applications.

Restlet Editions

Previous versions of the Restlet Framework organized part of their documentation and artifacts around the concept of “editions” (Java SE, Java EE, Google App Engine, Google Web Toolkit). Starting with version 2.7, this concept has been removed: the framework ships as a single set of artifacts, usable the same way regardless of your deployment target. See the Getting started section.

Java 21

Version 2.7 requires Java 21 or later. Make sure your build and runtime environments are upgraded before migrating.

Removed extensions

The Atom, Guice, GWT, JAXB, OData and Servlet extensions, deprecated in version 2.6, have been removed.

If you were relying on the GWT client library or on the Servlet extension to deploy your Restlet application inside a Servlet container (Tomcat, etc.), these are no longer available in version 2.7. Consider deploying your application as a standalone Java process instead, as described in the Getting started section.