Play 2.0 beta is a preview of the next major version of the Play framework, which integrates a brand new build system and an awesome asynchronous architecture, all with native Java and Scala support.

You can start writing Play 2.0 applications right now with the beta version. It will give you an almost complete preview of the Play 2.0 experience: including the native Scala support, the new possibilities provided by the sbt integration, and the new controller/action API.

Play 2.0 beta is not, however, ready to run production applications.

We have worked hard to reach this beta version and are halfway to the final 2.0 version. The following features are the most important items we will be working on now.

Currently we only support parsing classical URL form-encoded HTTP requests. We will add out-of-the-box support for major content types like JSON, XML and file uploads.

Play 2.0 is built from the ground up with reactiveness and optimised resource consumption in mind. We will add a public API for these features to make asynchronous reactive responses, streaming and WebSocket programming really simple.

We have basic specs and JUnit integration for now. We will add a better API for testing your web applications, either with unit tests or integration tests based on the Selenium WebDriver.

As in Play 1.x, Play 2.0 will provide out of the box integration with a powerful Web Service client, as well as OpenID and OAuth support.

Currently there is no simple way to integrate your Play 2.0 project in your favorite IDE - you must configure it yourself (or install an sbt plugin like sbt-idea). But we will be adding the cool 'eclipsify', 'netbeansify' and 'idealize' tasks to the Play console.

We also plan to add WAR deployment support via Servlet 3.0.

… including more validators, binders, better documentation, tutorials and awesome sample applications.