PReS Connect Release Notes 2018.1.6

Overview

This document provides an overview of the new features and enhancements in PReS Connect 2018.1 and PReS Workflow 2018.1, as well as some important installation information.

Installing PReS Connect 2018.1 and PReS Workflow 2018.1

• PReS 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 PReS Connect and PReS Workflow can be found in the online help, which can be accessed from the software and the installer.
• Note that both PReS Connect and PReS Workflow come with 30 day trial license by default.

Updating stand-alone Workflow Messenger installations

If Workflow Messenger was installed stand alone with no other Workflow components installed, the Update Client will be unable to find the Messenger component and thus it will not automatically update to the Workflow 2018.1 version. To get around this, download and run the Workflow 2018.1 installer manually.

Templates Used in Workflow

For improved performance we recommend re-saving Workflow templates set up in the previous versions to run with PReS Connect2018.1\Workflow 2018.1.

Upgrading from PReS Connect 1.7

It is highly recommended that you update the Objectif Lune Update Client before upgrading PReS Connect from version 1.7 to version 2018.1.

If you do not update the Update Client, an unexpected error might occur whilst updating Connect. This error does not prevent the successful upgrade of Connect to 2018.1, even though it appears as if it might have. To avoid potential confusion, we recommend that you first update the Objectif Lune Update Client before attempting to upgrade Connect from version 1.7 to version 2018.1.

The Update Client will show that there is an update available for itself. Simply click on the download button in the dialog to install the new version of the Update Client. Note that it is no problem in running the update while the Client itself is still open. It will automatically update itself.

Reduced Memory Version

It is possible to install PReS Connect on a machine with a minimum of 2 GB of RAM. The PReS 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.

NOTE: This is not recommended for production.

Connect 2018.1.6 Enhancements/Fixes

Improved Weaver Engine memory usage

Weaver Engine memory usage has been considerably improved. These changes have resulted in the Weaver Engines not only requiring fewer system resources but have also improved stability and reduced the need for periodic restarts. (SHARED-65330)

Improved font handling

• Improved font style simulation, for when the full font family is not available.
  Note that this might cause some very minor output differences in comparison to earlier Connect 2018.1 font style simulations. (SHARED-65336)
• Incompatibilities between the Windows API and some custom fonts that required font style simulation could lead to Merge Engine failures. These issues have now been addressed. (SHARED-65334)

Blank pages encountered in jobs with PDF backgrounds of 30 pages or more

An issue was discovered in jobs in which the PDF background input exceeded 30 pages. In this scenario some pages would output blank after the 30 page limit was reached. This error was due to the internal image cache being exhausted and has now been fixed. (SHARED-65209)

Dynamic Printer Control not applying some rules correctly

Dynamic PPD rules that were supposed to apply to Job/File level were actually being applied at the Page/Sheet level. This error has now been fixed.
(SHARED-65328)

Connect 2018.1.5 Enhancements/Fixes

Blank page inserted in some multi-page transactional tables

Issues were encountered with some transactional print jobs, whereby a blank page would be inserted towards the end of some multi-page transactional records. This problem would only be encountered under very specific circumstances. Such as in duplex transactional documents with records that exceeded 15 pages, or where two documents with page numbers in the mid teens followed each other. These issues have now been fixed. (SHARED-64556)

Connect 2018.1.4 Enhancements/Fixes

PDF/A-1b compliance broken with Polish text

An issue was discovered with Polish text in PDF/A-1b compliant output, whereby the output was missing "CIDSet" font descriptor entries for TrueType-based CID fonts.
This error has now been fixed. (SHARED-64536/64816)

Issues with text extraction from PDF output

Problems were encountered in extracting non-latin and multilingual text from PDF output. These problems have now been addressed. (SHARED-64936)

Connect 2018.1.3 Enhancements/Fixes

Hyperlinks broken in PDF output

Hyperlinks in PDF output were broken in 2018.1. This issue has been fixed, and hyperlinks now work as expected in 2018.1.3. (SHARED-64353)

Connect 2018.1.2 Enhancements/Fixes

Issues running Connect jobs through Enhance

• When running multiple parallel output channels via Enhance configurations it was possible that some output channels could attempt to write the exact same content at the same time, thus using the same resources. This could lead to conflicts and resulted in errors and inconsistencies between outputs. This issue has now been fixed. (SHARED-63372)

• When creating PostScript output using the REST API to execute an Enhance configuration, the resulting PostScript file contained incorrect DSC comments if the name of the media used on a page contained one or more space characters. This has been fixed. (SHARED-64334)

• The PostNL KIX database has been updated to the latest 2018 version.
  Note: The KIX database is only available when using the REST API to execute Enhance configurations using the KIX functionality. Standard Connect usage does not allow use of the KIX database. (SHARED-64358)

OutOfMemory Errors in PostScript Output

When creating PostScript output or using the REST API to run a custom Enhance configuration containing one or more PostScript output channels, "OutOfMemoryError: Metaspace" errors could be encountered. This was due to JavaScript source code in the PostScript printer definition being compiled too often. This issue has now been fixed. (SHARED-64350)

Issue with background image URL paths

Fixed issues with URL path encoding. This issue applied to Section background image paths (\\host\path\image.png) containing special characters, such as spaces and hash signs ('#'). (SHARED-64528)

Special characters displayed incorrectly in Designer Snippet editor

Fixed an issue with the encoding of non-Latin-1 characters in HTML snippet editors. (SHARED-64530)

Connect 2018.1.1 Enhancements/Fixes

Section cloning issues

Two separate Section cloning issues were fixed. (SHARED-64087)
The issues were:

• Cloned content was being based upon the section for which addBefore or addAfter was invoked, rather than the section the clone was originally based on.
• The rendered page count could be incorrect. This was due to the page count of a section bundle (consisting of sections with continuous page numbering) mistakenly overwriting the page count of the previous section bundle.

Weaver Engine memory leak

Improvements made to how the Weaver Engine reclaims memory, in order to reduce any memory leakage. (SHARED-64205)

DataMapper issue with PDF input

In PReS Connect 1.8 and previous versions, the DataMapper's boundaries.find() function returned the region searched within PDF files, whereas for text files it returned the exact region where the text was found. In 2018.1 this was changed so that boundaries.find() on PDFs would return the exact region where the text was found, the same as for text files. However, it was subsequently found that this could cause issues with previously created templates using the function on PDF files. Consequently, this change was reverted in 2018.1.1. (SHARED-64201)

Workflow - Updated GetKeySets() implementation now made backwards compatible

The Workflow function to retrieve key values GetKeySets() was updated in Workflow 2018.1 to use the more formerly correct asterisk '*' parameter for retrieving all key sets. This change broke existing jobs that used the previously allowable blank entry to retrieve all Key Sets.
In Workflow 2018.1.1 the GetKeySets() function has been changed to support both the more correct asterisk '*' parameter as well as the deprecated blank entry. (SHARED-64162)

Issue with Type 3 fonts in PDF Output

Type 3 fonts not embedded in PDF Output are replaced with font substitutions. These could become unmanageable in some circumstances. This issue has now been fixed. (SHARED-64214)

Connect 2018.1 General Enhancements

Dynamic Print Control for PostScript printers

Connect 2018.1 introduces a new way to drive PostScript printers. Individual PostScript printers can now be selected in the Printer Wizard and Output Preset via their associated PostScript Printer Definition (PPD) files:

This allows:

• The use of printer features that are not yet supported through the Connect user interface, such as:
  • switching between color and greyscale printing
  • selecting output bins
• Direct control of supported PostScript functionality, such as:
  • Duplex/Simplex
  • Print Media selection
  • Finishing options (e.g. Stapling, Binding and Folding)

NOTE: Case sensitivity/insensitivity has not been added as an option in this first cut of the Dynamic Print Control rules editor. This will be added in a subsequent version.

Improved Business Graphics

Business Graphics have been greatly enhanced and now display a preview of the data and graph as part of the Pie, Line and Bar chart wizards. The updated wizards simplify data selection and allows you to set and preview graph options dynamically, prior to inserting the graph object. This same functionality has been added to the scripting wizard, which can be launched from any Business Graphic script in the Scripts panel:

The Properties dialog in Connect lets you configure the graph via the User Interface and stores the configuration according to the specifications for this library. A Source tab has been added to the Graph Properties dialog so that you can view and edit the JSON configuration.

The implementation now supports the full Line, Bar and Pie chart API of the underlaying amChart library. This allows you to enable amCharts graph features that are not available in the user interface of Connect.

It is also possible to copy/paste Line, Bar and Pie chart configuration settings from the online amChart Live Editor directly to this tab.

Refer to the amChart documentation for more information on the numerous configuration options available.

NOTE: As a consequence of changes in both the user interface and the underlying technology, Business Graphics made with a version prior to PReS Connect 2018.1 may not display correctly when opened in version 2018.1. See Business Graphics: Backward Compatibility Issues introduced in 2018.1 for full details.

Welcome Screen improvements

The Welcome screen layout has been redesigned and streamlined to simplify navigation and improve access to Connect resources, including current license details. (SHARED-61377)

Connect and Workflow version numbering changed

We have changed the version numbering system. From here on in, the version will be year based, with the second number showing the major release and subsequent numbers showing minor releases. The intention is to have two major releases a year, with minor releases in between to address specific customer issues.

2018.1 is the first of the two planned major releases for 2018. The second will have the version number 2018.2. Any minor releases between the two major releases will be labelled 2018.1.n, where "n" is a numeric counter. Thus the first minor release would be 2018.1.1 and the second would be 2018.1.2, and so forth. (SHARED-60069)

Windows Server 2016 now officially supported

As of PReS Connect 2018.1, Connect is now officially supported under Windows Server 2016.

NOTE: The Upland Software, Inc. Update Client application might be blocked by enhanced security settings in Windows Server 2016. To fix this, add http://updates.ca.objectiflune.com to the list of trusted web sites on that machine, or lower the internet access rules.

Improved Previews

The Preview now smooths text, images and line art when rasterizing a page. This improves the quality of the resulting image, especially when rasterizing a page with lower resolutions. This applies to both Designer and DataMapper Previews. (SHARED-59724)

Localization improvements

Improved localization and translations throughout PReS Connect and Workflow.

Improved Data handling:

• Improvements to the internal handling of data field names to support data fields that do not conform to a standard SQL query syntax. This means that fields with characters such as #, $, % and ^ can now be processed. (SHARED-59126)
• Performance improvements made to the Connect MySQL back-end database, through changes made to internal database indexing. (SHARED-59393)

Improved support for Microsoft SQL Server back-end

A number of enhancements have been made to improve the performance and support for Microsoft SQL Server (MS-SQL) as the Connect back-end database. These include:

• Database Table Partitioning, significantly speeding up the clean-up service. (SHARED-59589)
• Internal Connect SQL statements re-factored to work more efficiently with MS-SQL. Improving support for large jobs, in particular. (SHARED-57575)
• MS-SQL driver updated. (SHARED-60464)

New Preferences options:

• Scheduling preferences for Merge and Weaver engines now include a preference for specifying the memory (RAM) to be used per engine. (SHARED-44547)
  
• Merge and Weaver engine scheduling preferences now include an option for scheduling an engine restart if the total amount of memory (RAM) used by the engine exceeds the specified entry. This is in addition to the time limit setting. (SHARED-63101)
  
• Log file settings can now be adjusted within the Designer, Print Manager and Server Configuration preference windows. The settings are global to all Connect applications. Settings include log file rollover options (time or size based), and the format of the log messages generated. (SHARED-60043)
  

Installer Improvements:

• Prerequisites now installed silently when installing Connect using silent installer. (SHARED-59286)
• Messaging improved for when the Connect installer cannot safely commence un-installation. (SHARED-59565)
• Installation folders cleaned up. Those that were no longer necessary have been removed, and others have been renamed or moved to make them more logically consistent.

Back-end Improvements:

• Better handling of non-responsive engines. (SHARED-55305)
• Improved response to Merge engine failures. (SHARED-46180)
• Improved handling of Master server restarts. (SHARED-57742)
• Reduced memory footprint when running the same job multiple times. (SHARED-57905)

Logging Improvements:

• Improvements made to Weaver logging for small output jobs and improved throughput. (SHARED-58570)
• Connect version number added to certain log files, to streamline issue identification and confirmation. (SHARED-60256)
• When using the REST API to execute a +PReS Enhance configuration that logged to a custom log file, the log file could not be deleted at the end of the execution. Repeating the execution of the +PReS Enhance configuration also caused unreadable NUL characters to appear in the log file and log messages were appended to it. This has been fixed and the custom log file now closes at the completion of the Enhance configuration execution. (SHARED-59656)
• Logging infrastructure has been updated. Logging can now be configured via an XML file located in the user's home directory under Connect\workspace\configurations\logback.xml. (SHARED-61913)

Connect 2018.1 Designer Enhancements/Fixes

Updated internal browser component

The browser component (Mozilla Gecko) used in the WYSIWYG editor of the Designer has been updated. This allows you to use new CSS properties like flexbox. Connect 2018.1 now uses Mozilla Gecko 38 as its HTML rendering engine. (SHARED-42286)

NOTE: The update to the Mozilla Gecko engine could lead to increased output file sizes for some PCL, AFPDS and IPDS jobs. This is generally not a cause for concern, however there might be some associated increase in processing times, as well as some minor differences in the output. For example, table line widths and font spacings might differ slightly (particularly for SMALL CAPS text), which could lead to slightly different word-wrapping in some cases.

Improved attachment options for Email output

New features have been introduced to simplify the setting of email attachments within Designer.

• Dynamic file attachments can be added to email sections via a new Email Scripts option. (SHARED-56602)
  This Script wizard allows you to construct a selection using the Prefix, Field and Suffix values to dynamically specify a file from disk or a remote location.
• Static file attachments can be added to email sections via the Attachments tab in the Email Section Properties dialog. (SHARED-28343)
  You can also select whether the Print Context should be added as a PDF attachment or not, using the "Attach Print context as PDF" check-box.

Rotate and Scale Background Images

Section Background images can now be rotated or scaled, either via the Section Properties dialog or via a control script. (SHARED-60244/60855)

Align multiple objects

You can now select and align several absolute positioned objects at once with the new Align Objects context menu. (SHARED-60263)

Preflight improvements

Double-clicking a script warning or error in the Preflight report will now open the offending script within a script editor. (SHARED-60273)

Improved language support

Disable certain CTRL + ALT + <?> shortcuts in source editors, including source tab, HTML snippet editors and CSS editors.

This allows adding square brackets in a source editor when using a French keyboard layout shortcut (CTRL + ALT + [ or CTRL + ALT + ]), as well as semi-colons (CTRL + ALT + ;) on Hungarian keyboard layouts. (SHARED-60308/62056)

Data Model pane improvements

The context menu in the Data Model view now allows you to modify the data model while the template editor is active. (SHARED-60234)

Scripting improvements:

• Option added to allow Case Sensitivity to be set on or off for any conditional string comparison scripts. (SHARED-56535)
  
• Improved support in Text Script Wizards for the custom formatting of Date, Currency, and Numeric fields. (SHARED-60261)
  Documentation for these patterns can be found on the following pages:
  • Date and time patterns
  • Number patterns
• You can now inspect Scripted elements in the Outline tree when in Preview mode. (SHARED-60231)
• New sub-folders now inherit the same execution scope as their parent. (SHARED-56964)
• You can now drag and drop a data field to a script folder even when a script of that name already exists within a different folder (or root) of the Scripts panel. (SHARED-57027)
• Improved Email Context script selection. All the Email Context scripts are now bundled together in their own sub-menu. (SHARED-56602)
  
• Improvements made to the default data field selection logic when adding new Text Scripts. (SHARED-57286)
• Double clicking a script in the Script Panel with the script editor open will now prompt you to save your changes. (SHARED-47908)
• Any open Script Editor will now close when another template is opened. (SHARED-32289)

General Designer improvements:

• Style rule changes can now be saved and applied instantly from within the Edit Rule dialog, via a new Apply button. (SHARED-58595)
  
• A new Send to Workflow icon has been added to Designer. It has been added as a new option in the icon toolbar and also to the File menu option. (SHARED-59322)
  
• You can now copy/paste or drag/drop images files from the file system or Images folder to the Stylesheets folder. (SHARED-49551)
• The New Email and New Print template wizards now open using the last used Template settings. Selections such as page size, page margins and the like will be retained. (SHARED-33982)
• Improved element insertion rules, to make context menus and dialogs more accurate.
  For example, the option to add Absolute elements in emails has been removed, as the email format does not support this functionality. (SHARED-60947/61117)
• Improved support for remote images (http-based URLs). (SHARED-58592)
• The resource() script function has been extended to return information about PDF permissions. (SHARED-58026)
• The attributes panel now has a "Reset Size" button that reverts a resized image back to its the original size. (SHARED-57025)
• You can now clear the "recent files" list via new Window > Clear Recent Files Lists menu option. (SHARED-42712)
• You can now toggle between the front and back of the selected Media entry in Master Pages. (SHARED-62038)
• You can now use cursor keys to navigate after <div> or <article> elements that are the last element in the <body>. (SHARED-41710)
• Dialog box resizing improved and made more consistent. (SHARED-16164)

Connect 2018.1 DataMapping Enhancements/Fixes

Standalone DataMapper Engine

The DataMapper Engine has been stripped into a separate stand-alone server. This is to make it more efficient and configurable as well as more adaptable in the future. The new DataMapper Engine options can be set via the Connect Server Configuration tool. (SHARED-59696)

Improved date field support for Excel datafiles

Formatting for date fields in Excel data files has been improved. (SHARED-60041)

Ignore CR/LF in Text records

New option added to allow ignore end-of-line CR/LF characters in Text datafiles. This prevents empty trailing records being added to the dataset. (SHARED-62139)

Create unique GUID in scripts

New DataMapper Script function createGUID() added to the Boundaries and Steps scripts. This function returns a unique GUID. (SHARED-61246)

New "No Data" warning

A visual warning has been added to the DataMapper when an open table contains no data. (SHARED-2716)

General DataMapping improvements:

• Improved support for transactional data records containing thousands of transactional items per record. (SHARED-50430)
• Data records can now be duplicated. To support this, a record.copies property has been added to the record object. (SHARED-53766)
• It is now possible to add a CSV input file containing just a single column. (SHARED-59814)
• Improved DataMapping performance for XML files containing large numbers of end-of-line CR/LF characters. (SHARED-60940)

Connect 2018.1 Output Enhancements/Fixes

Redesigned Additional Content page in the Print Wizard

The Additional Content page in the Print Wizard has been re-designed to present all the Additional Content entries in a single table, simplifying Additional Content management. (SHARED-56444)

Improved Tray Mapping in Printer Wizard

Media attributes can now be imported directly into the output config tray mapping from either the currently open template or from a saved template file. (SHARED-48818)

New Conditional option

During Output Creation, it is now possible to determine the template section to which a sheet belongs to using the new sheet.sectionName property. This property has been made available as a conditional option in the Printer Wizard. (SHARED-61275)

NOTE: The introduction of this property introduces a slight risk of compatibility issues, but only for cases where an existing custom printer definition or Enhance configuration already has a user-defined property with the exact same name.

Font handling made more robust

Connect will now generate bold, italic and bold-italic variations of most fonts on machines that do not have those variants of the font installed. (SHARED-59975/60670)

Improved PDF throughput processing:

• Improvements were made to the processing and optimization of barcodes in imported PDFs. This has resulted in speed improvements when processing certain PDF files for print output. This is particularly the case for AFPDS, IPDS and PCL output. (SHARED-58782/59955)
• Enhancements made in the caching of PDF input files has led to speed improvements when processing large PDF inputs. (SHARED-58503)
• Improved memory usage with PDF pass-through. (SHARED-58782)
• PDF pass-through is now enabled by default for PDF containers in AFP and IPDS output. (SHARED-61494)

Print Output Improvements:

• Transparency support for PDF output. (SHARED-61492)
• Soft mask improvement in PDF. The soft mask is now set by the CTM ("Current Transformation Matrix") when the soft mask is created. (SHARED-58893)
• Improvements made to generic PCL output for some printers. (SHARED-60019)
• Booklet Impositioning for mix-plex jobs has been improved, reducing the likelihood of empty pages. (SHARED-60054)

Connect 2018.1 Print Manager Enhancements/Fixes

Several improvements have been made to the Print Manager. Some to better cater for continuous IPDS printing, and others to improve useability.

Hot Folder improvements

The Hot Folder dialog has been updated and improved. Improvements include:

• Simplified selection of Hot Folders
  
• Option added to put Hot Folders 'On Hold'.
  If selected, jobs will be assigned to the target printer but put 'On Hold' and not be taken from the queue until released. (SHARED-61224)
• Files are now moved from the Hot Folders to a processing sub folder and processed from there. (SHARED-60180)
  

General Print Manager improvements and fixes:

• Improved handling of duplicated job names. (SHARED-34710)
• Job status added to the job filename, to make it easier to identify the current job state. (SHARED-60182)
• Improvements made to file status updating. (SHARED-58122/58172)

Known Issues

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

They can be found here.