OL PlanetPress Connect Release Notes 2022.2.3

 

License Update Required for Upgrade to OL Connect 2022.x

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

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

This new licensing model requires anyone upgrading from Connect versions earlier than 2019.1 to first update their OL Connect License.

A dialog box appears as part of the Connect upgrade process requesting you to do this.

It is heavily 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, then install Connect 2022.2.

For further details on how to upgrade the Update Client and update your Connect License see the Update Manager 1.5 - 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 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 Connect version.

Overview

This document provides an overview of the new features and enhancements in PlanetPress Connect 2022.2 and PlanetPress Workflow 2022.2, as well as some important installation information.

Installing OL Connect 2022.2 and Workflow 2022.2

• PlanetPress 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 PlanetPress Connect and PlanetPress Workflow can be found in the online help, which can be accessed from the software and the installer.

Connect and Workflow installers require Administrator rights

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

 

Connect Templates Used in Workflow

For improved performance we recommend re-saving any Connect templates used in Workflow to the current version of 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 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 2022.2.3 Fixes

 

JSON Support fix

An issue was discovered relating to the JSON support introduced in 2022.2. (89123)

The behavior has been changed, so that when Connect now encounters JSON sample data in the Designer or REST endpoints that directly accept JSON data:

• If the template has a data model with a corresponding detail table, the object is mapped to a detail table with a single record (legacy behavior).

• Otherwise; the object is mapped to a field of type JSON (default behavior).
  

Workflow Printer fix

The PlanetPress Workflow Printer was not being installed properly. This has now been fixed. (89012)

DataMapper fix

Fixed an issue with DataMapper data extraction from PDF files that feature an unusual Unicode font encoding. (88560)

 

OL Connect 2022.2.1 Fixes

 

Java fix

An issue relating to the updated Java platform was discovered in the Technical Preview of 2022.2.0. This issue has now been fixed. (87664)

Handlebar fixes

Some issues were discovered with the new Handlebar implementation. These issues have now been addressed. (88358/88414/88438)

OL Connect 2022.2 Improvements

Upland branding

Connect branding has been updated, to reflect Upland Software acquiring Objectif Lune. (87143)

Installer improvements

• The PlanetPress Connect installer has been heavily compressed and is now about half of its old size. (87395)
• Installations can now be rolled back.
• Desktop shortcuts are now an optional selection. (86794)
  
• Connect and Workflow now share the same Start Menu group.
• Fixed some issues with the installer flow, in regards to the default button and when using the Back button. (85386/86201/86397)
• Can now select language for installation in a silent installation. (86190)
• Fixed an issue with detecting/installing Microsoft VC++ 2013 redistributables. (86518)
• Setup failed to install the Connect Server Service if the Windows user used for running it had a password with an '&' or '<'. This has been fixed. (87073
• Fixed issue with upgraded older versions of Connect not successfully setting the Server user "olc-user" password, which would cause the Server to error on start up. (87089)

Versioning improvements

Improvements made to versioning. (84622)

New options have been added to allow sharing Projects through the use of a remote repository. Common repositories include GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab and Azure DevOps.

Clone Create a new local Project from a remote repository Close Allows a project to be closed in Designer Publish Commits: Upload local changes to the remote repository Publish tags: Upload local tags to the remote repository Check remote changes: Download the changes from the remote repository and show them in history view Check and apply changes: Download the changes from the remote repository and apply them locally

Other Versioning improvements

• The Project History view now shows the remote history. (84630)
• Improved language translations. (85975)
• Introduced Tags to Versioning. A Tag is a name that gets affixed to a particular commit to identify it in a special way.
  For example, tagging a particular commit to identify which resources are used in production. (86076)
• When a sample project is created with Wizard, it is now versioned by default. (86600)
• Versioning projects are created in <user.home>/Documents/OL Connect folder by default. (86470)

Improved support for Microsoft Word

• Stylesheets created when importing content from Word documents or when creating a template based on a Word document, can now be edited in the Edit Stylesheets Dialog. (86050)

Java update

Updated the Java platform which Connect runs on to Adoptium Temurin 17.0.2. (85093)

MariaDB update

Updated the MariaDB which is installed with Connect to version 10.6.8. (85802)

You can now check what version the database is through the Preferences->Database Connection, "Test Connection" button. (81019)

MariaDB now defaults to only logging errors. This prevents unimportant warnings from cluttering the Windows Event Logs. (86487)

Other libraries updated

Upgraded to Rhino library allows for the use of ES6 features like arrow functions and for-of loops throughout all Connect components. (86527)

General Connect Improvements

• Added support for downloading intermediate certificates (AIA) not present on the local machine. (84947)
• Datamapper, Merge and Weaver engines that fail to launch will continue attempting to launch 15 times over 10 minutes (by default), but now there is a minimum wait interval of 30 seconds (by default) between launch attempts to optimize the chance of a successful retry. (86422)

• Improved deadlock prevention and handling with MS-SQL Server when sending datarecords from the server to a merge engine. (86615)

• Fixed issues with merge engines becoming unavailable when attempting to add them to a job that is running a Datamapper config containing a post-processor script, with the data records being persisted to the database. (86689)
  

REST API Improvements

• Add option to convert DM records to simplified JSON. (85515)

OL Connect 2022.2 Designer Improvements

Handlebars - simplified personalization using expressions

PlanetPress Designer now supports Handlebar expressions in the main editor.

An expression is a variable wrapped with double curly braces, for example: {{firstName}}.
These are automatically replaced by the value of the matching data field and don’t require a User Script. This drastically reduces the number of scripts for a typical OL Connect template.
Expressions are simple text strings, this makes them easy to insert, rearrange and style. Above all they are optimized for performance.

Specific changes made:

• Added a new option to automatically process Handlebar expressions in sections and master pages. This is turned on by default for new templates, but it needs to be enabled in the Properties dialog of sections for templates created in older versions. (86220)
  
  
• Add Handlebars expression support to the Dynamic Tables wizard. (86226)

Text Helpers for Handlebars expressions

Introduced Handlebars Text Helper wizards. (86496)

These provide an easy way to create a custom expression helper. It provides the same functionality as the Text Script wizard and allows you to concatenate data fields and optionally provide a prefix and suffix content. The name of the helper can be used as an expression in the content.

The following shows a classic Text Script approach to create an address block, in this case using the Handlebars Text Helper. When there are empty fields in the data, the respective line will be skipped. This prevents empty lines to show up in the text. In the example below this means their will be no empty line in case there is no company specified in the data.

Improved JSON support

• Improved native support for fields of type JSON in the Designer. (86609)
• JSON fields in the Data Model view can now be expanded and collapsed. (86700)
  

General Designer Improvements

• Added the "Color Output" option to Print sections menu. (85541)
• Add "Properties..." option to context menu for Remote Translation Files. (85655)
• Made it easier to select text at the beginning of an absolute positioned box. (86410)
• The attributes panel and the UI controls that allow changing the open resources are now disabled for remote resources. (83256)
• After changing a Package file, the default name suggestion for Template is now also used for the Datamapping component. (84817)
• Fixed an issue in the designer related to absolute positioned elements that have a transform style. (86053)
• Fixed an issue where dragging and dropping multiple data fields would only create one place holder and one script for the first selected field. (86182)
• Added support for email addresses with commas in the name.
  For example: "Test, User" <testuser.example.com> (86197)
• Fixed issue with speed degradation when loading and editing certain templates. (86321)
• Added missing context Help pages. (86406/86408)
• When using the COTG nested fields table feature in some situations clicking the Add Row button would not correctly copy the row. This has now been fixed. (86468)
• Re-enabled the range indicator in source editors. (86516)
• When setting the background color of a barcode to transparent ("none") it is no longer saved as translated string. (86766)
• Fixed minor drag-drop and double clicking issues. (86966)
• Fixed an issue with "Each matched element" scope that occurs when a script removes rows from a dynamic table or when a dynamic table uses data-hide-when-empty. (87107)
• Send Email and Send Email Test dialogs no longer default to mail.ca.objectiflune.com server as the mail server. (87223)
• Improved Tool Tip display. (87225)
• Upon first starting Designer the toolbar of the Data Model view was sometimes not visible when switching between perspectives. This has been fixed. (87435)
• Fixed a problem in the Stylesheets Manager related to the "border" shorthand. (87833)

OL Connect 2022.2 DataMapper Improvements

• The automation.properties.originalFileName property is now set to the name of the current data file. If this changes to different data file, the property's value is automatically updated. (74921)
• Improved error messaging in ODBC driver for architecture mismatches. (80023)
• Fixed issue with File->Properties option not working if the DataMapper is open without any template. (82090)
• Added missing context Help links. (82469)
• Condition step: It was confusing when the Operator "is empty" (or "is true") was selected and the Operand types dropdown list was shown. To avoid this confusion the condition now has just Auto-Detect as on option. (82870)
• Improved logging. (83904)
• Fixed an issue where detail tables in groups were not properly supported in the Dynamic Table Wizard. (85752)
• Improved translations. (85958/85960)
• Updated Microsoft SQL JDBC driver which now uses encryption by default.
  The DataMapper was updated to retain backward compatibility for existing configuration files. (87795)

OL Connect 2022.2 Output Improvements

Tagged PDF

Add support for Tagged PDF files. (81757)


Note: This is a first cut and should be considered an experimental feature only, at this stage.

General Output Improvements

• A problem was fixed where CJK characters displayed using a TrueType font in a PDF got mixed up after a round-trip conversion to PostScript then PDF again. (84589)
• Fixed an issue with scaled PNG barcodes. (86698)
• Fixed a text positioning issue with fonts that falsely claimed to have a fixed width for all their glyphs (fixed pitch). (86924)
• The KIX database of the Dutch Postal Service PostNL has been updated to the 2022 version. (87131)
• Fixed an issue where a PNG barcode could be unscannable when the barcode div had padding or borders applied to it. (87557)
  

Print Output Improvements

• Fixed an issue with PDF/X-4 (and derived specifications such as PDF/VT) output where tiling patterns might retain incompatible device colorspaces. For example, a DeviceRGB in an output file with CMYK output intent. (69267)
• Increased the maximum number of copies in the print dialog and wizard to 100,000. (86327)
• Job preset sorting options have now been fixed so that when external sorting is active the content items are not pre-sorted by the standard sorting options first. This means that content items will be sent to the external sorting in the default process order. (85994)

Known Issues

As of PlanetPress Connect 2018.1 the Known Issues have moved from the Release Notes to the Connect online Help.

They can be found here Known Issues.