OL Connect Release Notes 2024.2.2

License Update Required for Upgrade to OL Connect 2024.x

From OL Connect 2019.1 onwards, only customers with a current OL Care subscription will be able to update OL Connect.

Every OL Connect license now contains an end date that represents the last day of OL Care coverage for each customer. Upgrades and updates of OL Connect will be freely available up until that end date, but will not be available thereafter, unless the OL Care period is extended.

This licensing model requires anyone upgrading from OL Connect versions earlier than 2019.1 to first update their OL Connect License. A dialog box appears as part of the OL Connect upgrade process requesting that you do this.

It is recommended that you first update the OL Update Manager, as newer versions of the Update Manager can update your OL License to the required version.

For further details on how to upgrade the OL Update Manager to the latest version and update your OL Connect License see the Update Manager 1.9 - Upgrade Guide.

If issues arise, or if you need to renew your OL Care subscription, please contact your local Customer Care group.

Backup before Upgrading

It is recommended that you always backup your existing OL Connect preferences before upgrading to a new version. This will enable you to revert back to the previous version, in a worst case scenario in which the new version introduces issues with your existing production processes. Whilst the probability of such a worst case scenario is remote, it cannot hurt to take some simple precautions, just in case.

For instructions on how to do so, please see Backup existing OL Connect version.

Overview

This document provides an overview of the new features and enhancements in OL Connect 2024.2 and Workflow 2024.2, as well as some important installation information.

Installing OL Connect 2024.2 and Workflow 2024.2

• OL Connect is released as a 64 bit version only (with the exception of the Workflow, Fax, Search and Imaging modules).
• Full details on installing and licensing OL Connect and Workflow can be found in the online helps.
  OL Connect: Installation and activation.
  OL Connect Workflow: Workflow Installation.
• Note that both OL Connect and Workflow come with a 30 day trial license by default.
• It is recommended that you install and use OL Connect Designer and Server under the same user account.

OL Connect and Workflow installers require Administrator rights

Please note that the OL Connect and Workflow installations can only be run by users who have Administrator rights.

OL Connect templates used in Workflow

For improved performance we recommend re-saving any OL Connect templates used in Workflow to the current version of OL Connect templates.

Reduced Memory Version (not recommended for production)

It is possible to install OL Connect on a machine with a minimum of 2 GB of RAM. The OL Connect Designer will automatically detect whether it has been installed on a machine with less than 4 GB of RAM and default to only using one internal Weaver and one internal merge engine on that system. The Server will also run using internal engines.

OL Connect 2024.2 Improvements

OL Connect 2024.2.2

Some regression issues were discovered specific to 2024.2.1. These issues have been addressed in 2024.2.2. They were:

• Issues with dynamic email attachments in templates. Both those that were added using custom scripts or via the Dynamic Attachment wizard. This issue did not impact scenarios involving the Print context attached as a PDF or static attachments, and it did not affect earlier versions of the software.
  
  The issue was that dynamic email attachments would accumulate across multiple messages. Additionally, when testing in the Designer application, this could cause attachments to be unintentionally added to the template. We now ensure dynamic email attachments are handled correctly, with each email containing only the intended attachments and templates being saved properly.
  
  If you are using dynamic attachments in your templates, we recommend testing them after updating to confirm that everything is functioning as expected. (94522)
  
  

• Remote translations files could not be added to templates. In templates that already had remote translation files added, you could no longer update any properties nor view the content of the remote file in read only mode. (94536)

OL Connect 2024.2.1

During the OL Connect 2024.2.0 partner preview a regression issue was discovered with the Preferences dialogs, Print Manager and Server configuration tool not displaying all options. This was fixed for the 2024.2.1 release. (94142)

 

Architectural Software Updates

• Java: Updated the Java platform which OL Connect runs on to Adoptium Temurin version. 21.0.3. (92074)

• MariaDB: Updated the database that is packaged with OL Connect to 11.3.2.

OL Connect backend improvements

• Fixed issue with database preferences prompting a database restart warning when settings reverted back to original settings. (92615)

• Resources being used in Content, Job and Output creation are now clearly identified in the engine logs. (92702)

Security improvements

• Third party libraries updated to recent versions. (92741)
• The Quartz Library has been removed and this may affect your Clean-up Schedule due to the change in CRON specification. (92748)
• Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) is now disabled by default. Use of CORS now requires a whitelist of allowed origins to be specified. (92863)
• JavaScript Libraries used by OL Connect have been updated to current versions. (92983)

OL Connect REST API improvements

• The JSON Operation List output from the Get Operations method of each OL Connect Workflow-based service will now include (when available) the Managed File Name and ID of any configuration file or files included in a Workflow operation.
  Examples include Data Mapping configurations, Templates, Job Presets and Output Presets. (89588)

• A new Get Runtime Parameters for Data Mapping Configuration endpoint has been added to the Filestore REST Service. This endpoint will return a list of the runtime parameters in a Data Mapping configuration, including their name, type and debug value in either XML or JSON format. (92718)

• A new Get Runtime Parameters for Job Preset endpoint has been added to the Filestore REST Service. This endpoint will return a list of the runtime parameters in a Job Preset, including their name, type and default value in either XML or JSON format. (93089)

• Several Connect REST API endpoints have been updated to now support on optional job output folder parameter (jobOutputFolder) which can be specified to override the output directory of an Output Creation Preset. (93211)
  The endpoints are:

  • Output Creation Service:

    • Process Output Creation (By Job Set) (JSON)

    • Process Output Creation (By Job) (JSON)

  • All-In-One Service:

    • Process All-In-One (JSON)

    • Process All-In-One (Adhoc Data)

• The JSON Job Set Statistics output of the Get Job Set Statistics method of the Statistics service can now return statistics based on one of three levels. (93225)
  The levels are:

  • document only - returns only a list of documents contained in the job set. (Default)

  • document set only - returns only a list of document sets contained in the job set.

  • document set all - returns a list of document sets (including all of the documents) contained in the job set.

• A new Get Runtime Parameters for Template endpoint has been added to the Filestore REST Service. This endpoint will return a list of the runtime parameters in a template, including their name, type and default value in either XML or JSON format. (93574)

• Connect REST API restricted to localhost access by default. (93625)
  This can be changed by a new setting in the Server Configuration dialog.
  

• Cookies used with Rest API calls now have the HttpOnly flag set. (92866)

Update AFP input

The AFP-to-PDF input tool (which converts AFP input to PDF) was rewritten.
This addresses the following issues:

• Input fidelity has been improved for AFP input files used for data mapping. CMYK images in an AFP input file now keep their CMYK colorspace. In previous versions of OL Connect, such images were converted to the RGB colorspace which could lead to inadvertent color changes for those images. (88722)

• An issue has been fixed that occurred when processing AFP input files that could cause pages in some AFP files to become blank. (91945)

• There’s a change in how a setting for AFP-to-PDF conversion needs to be customized/modified.
  This only affects customers that have modified a setting in the AFP-to-PDF config.ini file that existed in the installation folder of OL Connect 2024.1.2 and earlier. (93357)

Note: There might be very small differences in the output generated from the current version, when compared to the output from the previous version.

OL Connect 2024.2 Designer Improvements

Cloning Section improvements

OL Connect 2024.2 introduces real-time preview of section clones and their personalization during the design phase, eliminating the need to generate output for each iteration. (92017)

The enhances include a new Clone Section script wizard for creating scripts for sections that are based on detail tables.

This new wizard simplifies the creation of print section clones from detail records, without the need for scripting. It also allows for specifying unique background images for each clone by providing the image path in a detail record field.

It automatically stores detail record table and index information with each clone, replacing the previous manual process. Enhanced functions in the scripting API and new Handlebars helpers facilitate easy retrieval of this data and simplify personalization.

The Wizard also automatically disables the original section and allows you to assign a unique background image specified in the data for each instance. The latter is useful in scenarios such as textbooks or other document types where file paths (including URLs) are provided in the detail records.

The Resources panel displays cloned sections in the designer preview pane, so you don't need to publish in order to check your work.

Address Block improvements

• The Insert Address Block dialog now remembers the last applied address format template, instead of going back to the locale default. (92527)
• Address Block has now been made read-only in Preview mode. (93172)
• Added support for the United States Postal Service Ancillary Service Endorsement (ASE) and IMb barcodes. (93362)
• If the Address Blocks working folder doesn’t exist yet, it gets created. (93513)

Handlebars improvements

• Improved handling for reserved characters contained within square brackets or quotes. (92803)
• Fixed an issue where Handlebars expressions in table captions would not be replaced. (92805)
• Introduced a “counter” helper for Handlebars. (93115)

• Simplified passing a detail record as a custom context to a Handlebars partial. (93337)

• Fixed an issue that could cause Handlebars expressions in elements with data-translate to become hard-coded in Master Page content. (93382)

General Designer improvements

• The Designer Messages View was not catching log messages prior to it displaying. This has been fixed. (64681)
• Introduced Remote Control Scripts to access control scripts not found within the Template. (87605)
• Improved the Auto save feature. It now postpones saving if the Designer is busy. (90672)
• Added option to quickly Duplicate resources. (90695)
• We now support inserting barcodes in snippets. Note, though, that barcodes cannot be absolute positioned in snippets. (90772)
• Added a new menu item for adding sample data. (90868)
• Introduced a View Menu to the Data Model view. (91073)
  
• Improved matching character highlighting (for CSS, HTML and JavaScript). (91177)
• Preference pages can now be filtered on keywords found in the contents, not just in the titles. (91311)
• Added an Image section to the Attributes view. (91561)
  
• Fixed an issue where a post pagination script would be unable to modify master content after merge.section.paginate() was called. (92075)
• Improved error handling for loading remote content, and Handlebars partials in particular. (92119)
• Fixed a problem with the Send COTG Test when used in combination with JSON sample data. (92245)
• Added Preference to hide any ExtraData field(s) from the Data Model view. (92337)
  When disabled no ExtraData entries are shown in the Data Model view and the show/hide ExtraData icon on the toolbar is hidden.
• Added "drag and drop" and "double click on Data Model fields" support to the URL field for hyperlinks in the Attributes panel. (92428)
• Added support for sentence case as an option for the string formatter object and as string formatter in Handlebars expressions. (92530)
• Added ability to access Section metadata entries in Print Context. These properties can then be accessed in standard User Scripts or through the @meta helper in Handlebars. (92574/93383)
• Added support for a built-in "lookup" helper for Handlebars. (92576)
• Fixed an issue whereby on some machines the UI language could not be changed. (92636)
• The Designer Messages View was not catching log messages prior to becoming visible. This has been fixed. (92687)
• Prevented an error dialog from popping up after clicking Cancel while opening an editor. (92783)
• Changed the default scale option for QR and DataMatrix barcodes to Proportional. (92868)
• Prevented an unnecessary error about core.css being logged when switching to Live mode. (92940)
• Labels in the Resources panel now include a count that represents the number of child entries (excluding folders). (93020)
• Disabled Section Background settings are no longer used when a Section Background is enabled in scripting. (93197)
• Fixed a problem in the Show View menu where it would show less items for certain languages. (93198)
• Fixed a pagination issue that could cause cosmetic issues in the Designer. (93215)
• Improved the behavior of forced page breaks in pagination, when job is Previewed. In certain rare cases this may lead to small differences in output, particularly when it comes to the margins of elements at the top and bottom of each page. (93256)

• Added ability to launch the Section Clone wizard by right-clicking a section in the Resources panel. (93511)

• Fixed an issue that could cause edit helpers (for dragging and resizing) to be persisted in Templates and in some cases even appear in output. This only occurred for sections that use Handlebars and/or JavaScript resources. (93533)

OL Connect 2024.2 DataMapper Improvements

General DataMapper Improvements

• When trying to create a DataMapper with PDF in Designer, the credential pop up is no longer shown. (89138)
• Fixed extension problem in “Load JavaScript” dialog of DataMapper. (89154)
• Added auto-detection of field data Type (integers, booleans, currencies, floats and dates) for the CSV/XLS data wizard. (91511)
• Improved validation for DataMapper config with preprocessor. (91744)
• Preprocessor and Postprocessor submenus had their label changed to “Actions” for greater clarity. (92085)
• DataMapper Context Sensitive Help improved. (92114)
• Fixed problem with XLS data in Designer when “Move back record” action is called. (92357)
• Removed an incorrect reference for the sourceRecord object in the DataMapper boundaries scripting engine. (92432)
• The Lines to skip parameter in CSV and Excel data can now have a value up to 10,000. (92442)
• A progress indicator is now logged in the DataMapper engine logs as document boundaries are being evaluated. (92536)
• Trim option “None” has been fixed in data model view of DataMapper. (92677)
• Updated the JDBC-ODBC bridge, replacing the older, deprecated JDBC-ODBC bridge. The older version can still be used if required for backwards compatibility. (93295)
• A new jdbc:olodbc bridge is available in the DataMapper scripting engine for data selection. (93297)

OL Connect 2024.2 Output Improvements

Print Wizard\Preset enhancements

• Fixed an issue where attempts to import a printer definition could sometimes display a “Printer not available” error even though it has been successfully imported. (90670)
• Fixed an issue that would occasionally cause the last used preset file(s) in the Print Dialog to load as “<Last Used Settings>” when no change to the preset file had been made. (92645)

• Added support for localized font names for Output Preset additional text. (92710)

• Added support to the PPD import feature in the output and print wizards for WindowsANSI language encoding. (93819)

Print Output Improvements

• Improved memory footprint when producing AFP output. (93272)

Known Issues

As of OL Connect 2018.1 the Known Issues have moved from the Release Notes to the OL Connect Online Help.

They can be found here Known Issues.