27 Manage Runtime Dependencies for Visual Applications
In Visual Builder, runtime dependencies refer to a set of client-side libraries that, along with the accompanying version of Oracle JET, determine features and other improvements available to your visual application, like what JET components you can use.
To see what the runtime dependencies are for your visual app, click Menu in the upper right corner, then select Settings:
- Release: The latest certified combination of Visual Builder Runtime and JET within a major release, such as
24.10,24.07, or24.04. - Visual Builder Runtime Version: A set of client-side libraries hosted on a Content Delivery Network (CDN). These libraries help the constituent files in your app talk to each other at runtime. For example, when you include a component (like a button) from the Component Palette in your app, the code for that component is stored in your app’s HTML file. If you then add an action chain to that button to navigate to a new page, the action chain code is stored in your app’s JSON metadata file. At runtime, the Visual Builder Runtime enables the HTML, JSON, and other dependent files in your app to communicate with each other, so that your app behaves as intended.
- Oracle JET Version: A JET release hosted on CDN. Each Visual Builder Runtime Version is certified to be compatible with one or more JET versions. If you’d like to see what’s in the latest JET release before deciding to upgrade, go to JET Release Notes and select the JET version stated on the Settings page.
Runtime dependencies are set for a visual application as a whole; you can’t set different versions for individual web (or mobile) apps within the visual app.
When you create a new visual app, Visual Builder automatically sets your runtime dependencies to the latest Visual Builder Runtime and JET versions. If you’ve already staged or published an app, however, it’s up to you to decide when to upgrade, as long as you do so within a certain time period.
As a general rule, you can run a published Visual Builder application built on the current runtime version, and continue running it on the three previous versions—but new Visual Builder runtime libraries are released with new versions of the Visual Builder Studio design time (around four times a year). The Visual Builder design time is only updated twice a year, so it gets only two of those four versions (another reason we recommend using Visual Builder Studio as your design environment). As a result, you need to upgrade every other release in Visual Builder, while in Visual Builder Studio, you upgrade after four releases, with the design time supporting the last three versions.
So if you built your app in 24.10 (for example), Visual Builder supports the app not only on the 24.10 runtime version, but also on 25.01, 25.04, and 25.07. Once 25.10 comes out, however, support for the 24.10 runtime version will drop off, so we'll ask you to upgrade your app before you can work on it in the Designer. If you choose not to upgrade at that time, you run the risk that newer browser versions will break your app. You also won’t be able to take advantage of any important security and performance improvements. For all of these reasons, we encourage you to build time into your development cycle to keep abreast of current changes, and to make sure you upgrade your app (you should version it first) before support for your current runtime version expires.