OL PlanetPress Connect Release Notes 2021.2.1

License Update Required for Upgrade to OL Connect 2021.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 2023.1.

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 2021.2 and PlanetPress Workflow 2021.2, as well as some important installation information.

Installing OL Connect 2021.2 and Workflow 2021.2

• 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 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 2021.2.1 Improvements

Fixed LPR printing errors

"Timeout errors" could sometimes be encountered when connecting to a remote printer from Connect server. The timeout values have now been optimized to fix this issue. (SHARED-83532)

OL Connect 2021.2 Designer Improvements

Sheet Configuration Repeats added

Sheet configuration can now be repeated after a fixed number of sheets.

For example when a script adds a number of paragraphs from a snippet based on the record index, the number of pages and sheets will increase when browsing through the records. (SHARED-82191)

Retrieve a list of image resources

Added an option to retrieve a list of image resources via user/control scripting. This caters for scenarios such as validating whether a certain image exists in a template before setting the src attribute of an element in script. (SHARED-82303)

Improved handling of read-only Templates

Improved the handling on read-only OL-template files. (SHARED-82177)
Improvements include:

• Added a visual cue in Designer to indicate a Template is read-only.
  

• Saving changes in read-only files now launches the Save as dialog.

Retrieve the position information of elements

Introduced new script option results.position(), which can be used to retrieve the position (X and Y offset) of matched elements. This allows you to determine locations on the page and dynamically perform actions based upon the positions. (SHARED-81098)

Improved Drag and Drop support in data model fields

It's now possible to drag scripts with simple class and/or ID selectors to the template, similar to how this was already possible for scripts with text based selectors.

Dragging a data field from the data model to the scripts folder will create a script with a class based selector.

Holding down the ALT-key while dropping the data field will create a scripts with a text based selector (similar to the behaviour when dragging a data field into the template)

Also fixed a bug where no table was inserted when the dynamic table wizard was opened after ctrl-dragging a detail data field into the template. (SHARED-82152)

General Designer Improvements

• Improved translations throughout. (SHARED-81664)
• A toolbar button has been added to the Translations View to open the Edit Locale Dialog directly. (SHARED-81316)
  
• When navigating through records in the Data Model view, the first click of an arrow was ignored. This has now been fixed. (SHARED-79830)
• You can now add a custom Template property by clicking the first empty line in the Custom properties dialog (File > Properties ... > Custom). (SHARED-80775)
• Packaging a Template no longer throws an error when a section that a thumbnail is created for is disabled by script. The packaged Template will now use the disabled section. (SHARED-81237)
• Fixed an issue with the formatting of default values of date fields, which caused errors when the Template was re-opened. (SHARED-81721)
• Fixed issues with URIs containing HTML encoded backslashes in the file path. (SHARED-81887)
• Prevented an error after saving a resource while a section with shared content is active. (SHARED-82200)
• The execution scope of a script folder now properly inherits the execution scope of its parent folder. (SHARED-82026)
• Fixed errors that could be encountered when previewing a template from Designer (using the Preview HTML button) or when using a web page served by Workflow or Node-RED. (SHARED-82532)
• The Section properties dialog and the scripting API now both allow the width and height of a background image to be scaled independently. (SHARED-82616)
• When a data field is dragged to the email fields in an email section, the dragged field will now be used in the script generated. (SHARED-82876)
• Improved the way translation files are matched to the active locale. (SHARED-83079)
• The default insertion method for new text scripts has reverted to HTML, rather than text. (SHARED-83412)

OL Connect 2021.2 DataMapper Improvements

Improved custom SQL dialog

The interface for configure SQL queries has been improved for longer SQL queries. The interface now adapts based upon the display size and the length of the SQL query. (SHARED-74633)

Simplified Boolean Conditional tests

A new "Is True" operator has been added to for Condition steps. This allows a condition to check a boolean value directly without having to first supply a second operand. (SHARED-79342)

Determine the number of lines in the current record

A new steps.lines property has been added. This property contains the number of lines in each record for Text-mode data mapping configurations, which allows for much easier looping through all the lines in a record. (SHARED-78996)

Improved Timestamp processing

A number of improvements in the DataMapper management of Date/Time fields have been implemented. These allow for improved handling of time zones and of time stamps without time zone information. (SHARED-77648)

Extract CSV data by column index value

Introduced a new java script function data.fieldExistsByIndex() to facilitate extraction based on index. This allows the DataMapper to extract CSV fields by column index instead of column names. This can be particularly useful for translated CSVs whose column headers change with each language. (SHARED-80020)

General DataMapper Improvements

• Improved translations. (SHARED-81664)
• Introduced new option to autorotate PDF data files. (SHARED-54915)
  
• Fixed an issue with cancelling Refresh boundaries operations. (SHARED-76112)
• Merging PDF pages using the AlambicEdit API in a script or through a Custom Plugin could lead to content being lost. This issue has now been resolved. (SHARED-76622)
• Fixed handling of radio button focus when clicking in the XML DataMapper input data panel. (SHARED-76855)
• Runtime Parameters have now been added to the PDF version of the Export Report. (SHARED-79186)
• Improved Repeat step comparisons on numeric data (floating point) entries. (SHARED-79825)
• When navigating through records in the Data Model view, the first click of an arrow would be ignored. This has now been fixed. (SHARED-79830)
• Fixed an issue with preprocessing scripts and AFP metadata. (SHARED-81723)
• Runtime parameters were not accessible in the Properties initialization script. This has been fixed. (SHARED-82005)
• Altered runtime parameter default values for better backwards compatibility. (SHARED-82534)

OL Connect 2021.2 Output Improvements

Improved password protected PDF output

• Fixed an issue with PDF output unnecessarily prompting for a password when viewed in some Android and iOS browsers and apps. (SHARED-82931)
• Fixed an issue that could lead to blank pages on some Acrobat Readers (iOS, Android and Chrome Extension). (SHARED-83034)

General Output Improvements

• Fixed and issue with PCL input conversion. (SHARED-81616)
• Include the file currently open for flattening in debug log messages. (SHARED-81685)
• Fixed an issue where detail table data from a previous run/record showing up in the next run/record, when a scripted table was included that did not use the standard table expander. (SHARED-82466)
• Pagination errors could occur when large scripted tables did not use the standard table expander and were split across pages. These errors have been fixed. (SHARED-82198)
• Issues with the ascender height calculation of IMB barcode marks have been fixed and IMB barcodes now meet USPS specifications. (SHARED-80812/83082)
• The output engine now remembers files it has previously run through the transparency flattener, reusing the flattened file if possible, improving output speed. (SHARED-80935)

Email Output Improvements

• Fixed an issue whereby all web sections were attached to email instead of only the default web section. (SHARED-82986)
• Fixed an issue where elements with inline style display:none would be included in email content when the CSS inlining was not set to "Apply CSS properties on elements". (SHARED-82788)

Print Output Improvements

• Added support for null comparisons in Finishing Rules.
  Two new data selection filter operators allow for detecting null data/param values in data rules and null/missing properties in property rules. The new operators are "is set" and "is not set". (SHARED-72938)
  
• The "Job Size/Page Count" and "Speed/Overall Speed" fields in the print summary in the "Connect Designer" logs are now being correctly reported. (SHARED-81385)
• A problem was fixed whereby image data from PNG files merged into a PDF were left uncompressed, increasing the file size. (SHARED-81804)
• Fixed issues with output presets edited in languages other than English. (SHARED-81843)
• Dynamic PPD printerdef and output presets were set to %%Title: ${template}. The %Title field now uses the jobName when using LPR. (SHARED-81958)
• Fixed pages size issue with DataMapper auto-generated Content Creation. (SHARED-81960)
• Improved Output Creation error messaging if the impositioned pages won't fit on the sheet. (SHARED-81962)
• Allow up to a 1pt deficit in media size when checking the required size for impositioning. This reduces errors if some lengths were specified in different units. (SHARED-82413)
• If the Binding type in a Dynamic PPD was set to Default, this would result in NULL errors when running jobs. This has been fixed. (SHARED-83310)

OL Connect 2021.2 Improvements

Security improvements

• Java Runtime Environment (JRE) used for Connect Send plugin and back-end database updated to current JRE 1.8.0-292. (SHARED-81937)
• Multi-line log messages converted to a single line, to preclude CRLF Injection exploits. (SHARED-74718)

General OL Connect improvements

• Improved backend database startup process across Connect applications, reducing issues with startup failures in containerized environments. (SHARED-80360)

REST API Improvements

• HTML content creation: leave remote resource links intact when inlining.
  Introduced a new inline LOCAL mode for embedding local resources in HTML content creation endpoints. This allows you to specify that remote resources remain external whilst inline resources are local. A resource is considered local if it is embedded in the template or if it has a URL with the file: protocol. In other words, a resource is not considered local if it has a URL with the HTTP: or HTTPS: protocol. (SHARED-82592)
• Render Email Content now checks email addresses. This means that when an email address is invalid, no email content will be created and an error is reported for the record with an invalid email address. (SHARED-81313)
• The endpoints for Email content creation now return status code 400 (bad request) instead of 500 (internal server error) if the template does not have a email context or if the requested section was not found. (SHARED-81218)
• Fixed an encoding issue when the /entity/datarecords/values REST API endpoint was called with the optimized parameter set to true. (SHARED-82833)
• Generate a 400 (Bad Request) error instead of a 500 error (Internal Server Error) if an invalid inline mode is passed to one of the HTML content creation REST endpoints. (SHARED-82899)

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.