OL PlanetPress ConnectRelease Notes 2020.2.1

License Update Required for Upgrade to Connect 2020.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 to 2020.2 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 2020.2.

For further details on how to upgrade the Update Client and update your Connect License see the Update Manager 1.3 - 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 Connect version.

Overview

This document provides an overview of the new features and enhancements in PlanetPress Connect 2020.2 and PlanetPress Workflow 2020.2, as well as some important installation information.

Installing PlanetPress Connect 2020.2 and PlanetPress Workflow 2020.2

• 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.
• Note that both PlanetPress Connect and PlanetPress Workflow come with 30 day trial license by default.

Connect and Workflow installation requires 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 2020.2.1 Enhancements

Fixed Connect 2020.2 Installation error

An installer issue that prevented Connect 2020.2 from installing on Hyper-V (and some other virtual environments other than VMware) has been fixed. (SHARED-79958)

Fixed Connect 2020.2 uninstallation error

It was discovered that the Connect 2020.2 Designer would not fully clean up temporary folders when the Table Wizard was used. This would lead to "Failed to uninstall" error messages during uninstallation, even though Connect would uninstall successfully. This issue has been fixed in Connect 2020.2.1. (SHARED-79922/79765)

OL Connect 2020.2 Enhancements

OL Connect Security Improvements

As part of our ongoing effort to transition to the cloud, we are improving the security of our software. This is ongoing process, with improvements made to this release and more planned for upcoming releases.

For this release, we have introduced role based authorization. Multiple users can now be setup, each with their own combination of roles. A olc-user user is added automatically at installation time (or the existing ol-admin retained when upgrading from earlier version) to allow initial access to the Server. Additional users can added after installation, using the Server Configuration Tool. (SHARED-75492)

Connect Designer will now prompt for credentials to connect to Connect Server when printing, if they are not already set.
Credentials will likewise need to be set manually in Connect Workflow.

In this release, the authentication is still based on local users managed by OL Connect. Expect further improvements in later releases.

Other Security improvements

• Security of the Weaver engine has been improved. (SHARED-74605)
  Important note for those running an Enhance config in which a JavaScript uses Java classes. JavaScripts evaluated by the Weaver engine no longer have access to the Java API by default. In order for such an Enhance config to run, any necessary Java classes must be whitelisted. For further details, please see Workflow 2023.2 Help.
• Multiple PlanetPress Connect dependencies updated. (SHARED-76431)
• Improved support for encrypted email output (TLS/SSL). (SHARED-76460)

General Improvements

• Cleaned up the error messages returned by Connect Server. Messages will no longer be duplicated, and they will not have exception class prefixes, such as "ApplicationException:". (SHARED-70963)
• Improved Server side error handling when a template fails to load. As part of this improvement we also now log the template name when a template is loaded. (SHARED-71024)

REST API Improvements

• Add option to download the "octet output file stream" as a file for remote tests. (SHARED-42559)
• Introduced a new endpoint that can be used to retrieve a list of persisted resources. (SHARED-70071)
  [GET] /rest/serverengine/filestore/resources/{type}
• 'Get Page Details for Content Set' REST API endpoint of the Content Set Entity Service has been updated to return the correct number of JSON 'pages' objects regardless of the data record size or the number of merge engines used to create a given content set entity. (SHARED-71969)
  
• The endpoints for HTML content creation now return status code 400 (bad request) instead of 500 (internal server error) if the template does not have a WEB context or if the requested section was not found. (SHARED-76296)
• Introduced a new email POST endpoint that allows callers to pass a data set ID. (SHARED-76346)
  [POST ] /rest/serverengine/workflow/contentcreation/email/{templateId}/{dataSetId}
• Introduced an endpoint that can be used to retrieve a report for a template (either JSON or XML). (SHARED-76535)
  [GET] /filestore/template/report/{fileId} (either a numeric ID or a name)
• Resources uploaded via the REST API are now classified based on file type. (SHARED-76979)
• You can now pass runtime parameters to Content Creation endpoints. (SHARED-77102)
• The 'Download Contents of Managed Directory' REST API endpoint of the File Store Service has been updated to correctly return a '404 Not Found' response when an invalid path is specified for the 'relPath' path parameter. (SHARED-77822)
• Added getManagedResult endpoint to allow the results of AllInOne and Output Creation to be retrieved as ManagedFiles. (SHARED-77997)
• With the exception of the 'Upload Data File' method, all 'file upload' methods in the File Store REST API Service have been updated to correctly return a '400 Bad Request' error response in the event that the request submitted contains no payload/data. (SHARED-78687)
• Unauthorized/Forbidden access to the REST API now returns JSON rather than plain text. (SHARED-78766)

Installer Improvements

• Add a feature to the silent installer of Connect to allow specifying a target folder other than the default folder, using "install.directory=xxx". (SHARED-75669)
• Silent installations can now specify connecting to a database with an encrypted connection, using "database.usessl". (SHARED-75671)
• Silent installations no longer need a connection to a database to complete. (SHARED-75775)
• In the Connect installer, the Messenger Service is now only installed when the Designer module is selected. (SHARED-76189/76318)
• Improvements made for installations on machines where Connect failed to uninstall correctly. (SHARED-77148)

Connect 2020.2 Designer Improvements

Improved Background Image options

• The Section Background functionality has been updated to support image types other than PDF. This includes .png, .jpg and .tiff (including multi-page TIFFs) files. This is also supported via the Control Script API.(SHARED-72730)
• In versions of Connect prior to 2020.2, if a page had no content except for a linked DataMapper background, then Connect would consider it an "empty" page when determining whether or not to "Omit Master Page Back in case of an empty back page" (available as an option in the sheet configuration of a section). This has now been fixed in Connect 2020.2, and such pages are no longer considered empty. (SHARED-72588)
  
  This can affect the output of existing templates.

Runtime Parameters for Content Creation

Runtime parameters provide a more elegant way to pass information from Workflow into the document creation process. They were previously available for Data Mapping and Job Creation, and this version makes them available for Content Creation. (SHARED-77345)

A new Parameters View has been added to the Designer, to list the available parameters, their default values and the current values set via the JSON editor of the template. (SHARED-77595)

Scripting Improvements

• Added ability to quickly search through script names and contents for specified text. (SHARED-60305)
  
• Auto suggestion improvements made for table properties in the JavaScript editor. (SHARED-70690)
• Introduced prev() and next() functions to the "results" object in our scripting API. (SHARED-70764)
• Fixed a problem with Find Previous in the script debugger. (SHARED-76737)
• Fixed minor issues in the script folder properties dialog. (SHARED-76996)
• Added the ability to retrieve the size of a print section or medium in any script, and the ability to change the size in a control script. (SHARED-77446)
• Fixed results.add() functionality. (SHARED-78447)

General Designer Improvements

• Inserting a Web Form Element > Button now has an option to add a new Button type in addition to the Submit and Reset options. (SHARED-75256)
  
• When the size of a print section is changed, you can now choose to "Update linked media" if the media is only used by that section. If it is not, then the option will not be available. (SHARED-65278)
• Holding shift while dragging boxes now drags the box in either horizontal or vertical directions. (SHARED-72158)
• Fixed failures with the 'Get Job Data File on Submit' feature. (SHARED-72697)
• Fixed an issue with the Export Report function skipping Web information for some templates. (SHARED-73640)
• Apply button added to Section Properties Dialogs, which allows applying changes without closing the dialog. Clicking the Cancel button reverts any previously applied changes. (SHARED-74164)
• Fixed an issue with broken PDF hyperlinks that would occur when not all child elements of a hyperlink were on the same page. (SHARED-74482)
• Fixed some issues in the formatting dialog. (SHARED-74908)
• The case sensitive option of Conditional Scripts is now also available for HTML String fields. (SHARED-74970)
• Added support for multi-selections to the Make Conditional feature. (SHARED-76443)
• A change introduced in 2019.2 disallowed the selection of multiple elements in the Outline tree in Designer. This has now been remedied. (SHARED-76550)
• Fixed issue with Save As... option sometimes being disabled. (SHARED-76740)
• Fixed an issue whereby inserting a Table or Dynamic Table into a snippet would not mark that snippet as changed. (SHARED-76875)
• Introduced a new preference to control the behaviour when dragging data fields to the main editor. By default, scripts now use a class selector. (SHARED-76934)
• Introduced "Send to Connect Server", which can be used to upload templates and configs to Connect Server. (SHARED-77707)
  
• Fixed an issue where pagebreaks on the same page were ignored when a pagebreak was applied to the last row of a table. (SHARED-77946)
• Fixed an issue whereby some dates in JSON data would not resolve correctly in the Designer. (SHARED-78218)

Connect 2020.2 DataMapper Improvements

Improvements for PDF processing

• Improved search algorithm in the data.find() method used by the Extract Step. (SHARED-57386)
• Improved GoTo step search functionality. (SHARED-76494)
• Allow choice between the new improved search method or the old functionality (for backwards compatibility). (SHARED-77642)

JSON as new Data Type in DataMapper

In addition to the input data types already available in the DataMapper (Databases, PDF, XML, TXT/CSV files and the like), the JSON format is now also supported. As JSON is similar to XML in many ways, the information is presented in the same familiar structured way. (SHARED-77286)

General DataMapper Improvements

• Added support for resizing the height of tables in the DataMapper Settings View. (SHARED-75617)
• Added ability to connect to MySQL database with empty password. (SHARED-76292)
• Added Save As option for sample data. (SHARED-76453)
• AFP to PDF conversion issues fixed through updated 3rd party library. (SHARED-78144)
• Fixed issues with extracting Thai text from some PDF input files. (SHARED-78458)

Connect 2020.2 Output Improvements

2D Vector Barcode optimization

2D Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) barcodes now optimized. (SHARED-77579)

This optimization includes these barcode types:

• Aztec Code
• DataMatrix
• QR Code
• Variations of the above, such as GS1 DataMatrix

True Type font handling

A major overhaul of TrueType font handling in the Connect output engine was conducted. This should help in reducing errors relating to both caching and parallel processing. (SHARED-61839)

PDF Digital Signature Improvements

• When creating a digitally signed PDF that includes a timestamp acquired from a timestamp server, Connect now automatically chooses the hash algorithm for the timestamp request.
  SHA-256 is tried first and if the timestamp server does not support it, Connect then tries SHA-384, SHA-512 or SHA-1 (in that order), defaulting to SHA-256 if none are supported. (SHARED-77850/78085)
• Fixed an issue whereby the use of certain certificates would result in incorrectly signed PDF output. (SHARED-77915)

PDF Output Improvements

The PDF Output options have been substantially improved. This required a redesign of the PDF Options page, to provide all the new options on a single Wizard page. The various options have now been placed in logically distinct tabs.

The improvements include the following:

• New image optimization options added for down-sampling mono, greyscale, and color images. (SHARED-75219)
  This includes a new option to "Optimize for Fast Web View". (SHARED-75210)
  
• Added PDF Security options. (SHARED-75213/75216)
  The Security options mirror those available in Adobe PDF applications.
  
• Improved support for processing digitally signed PDF/A-3 attachments. (SHARED-77267/78255)
  You can now choose to Keep attachments and whether to retain PDF/A-3 extension schema metadata, in order to support production of digitally signed PDF/A-3 using that metadata.
  

Print Output Improvements

• Fixed issues with missing glyphs and space characters in some double-byte jobs. (SHARED-74531)
• Placeholders for missing glyphs are now output as black, allowing output to remain monochrome. (SHARED-75513)
• Fixed issues with large double-byte font jobs. (SHARED-76730)
• The upper limit for the Separation by Count setting in the Separation Options Page has been increased to 10,000,000. (SHARED-77375)
  
• Optimized line drawing commands to reduce size of AFPDS output. (SHARED-77622)
• Update and improve image support in AFP, PCL and IPDS output. (SHARED-77716/77967/77972/77993)
• Added support for Overlays (these will be scaled to the needed size) to AFP output. (SHARED-77768)
• Pattern support setup code modified in PostScript output, so it will no longer interfere with custom Page Device setup from printer definitions.
• Fixed a license watermark issue in PostScript output with pages containing negative font size text. (SHARED-78076)
• Increased the limit of both Black and White thresholds to 50% for those print output types that support it. (SHARED-78298)
  

Email Output Improvements

• Improved error messaging for emails containing PDF attachments containing hyperlink images. (SHARED-76540)

OL Connect Send Improvements

OLCS Cloud Support

Cloud support added to OLCS. Customers will be able to have any number of users printing to their Cloud system through OLCS. OLCS jobs that are received by cloud licenses of Workflow are encrypted so that only cloud licensed Connect can process them. (SHARED-78158)

Improved OLCS Printer Driver download and installation

A new way of pre-configuring the installer has been introduced that simplifies the installation process. The installer can now download settings directly from a web site. This means it is no longer necessary to download multiple files and follow instructions to install. Instead, simply download the installer, copy/paste a URL in the installation wizard and the installer takes care of the rest.

Specific changes include:

• Added installation option that allows remote print providers the option to provide their customers with customised OLCS printer driver installations, which do not require customer intervention. (SHARED-75200)
• Changed the compression method, resulting in increased performance when submitting some large files. (SHARED-75205)
• Improved “silent” (unattended) Printer Driver un-installation. (SHARED-72450)
• Installer no longer replaces 'localhost' with 127.0.0.1. (SHARED-77192)
• A print service provider can now include customer subdomains, so their customer’s users will be able to print regardless of domain structure. (SHARED-77378)
• Added support for a limited number of users without domain restriction. (SHARED-77381)

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.