OL Connect Release Notes 2023.2

License Update Required for Upgrade to OL Connect 2023.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 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 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 1.7 - 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 OL Connect 2023.2 and Workflow 2023.2, as well as some important installation information.

Installing OL Connect 2023.2 and Workflow 2023.2

• 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.

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.

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 2023.2 Improvements

OL Connect Editions

Rather than have entirely different OL Connect products named after our Classic products (PReS, PlanetPress and PrintShop Mail) we have simplified the entire suite of OL Connect products. They will now share unified branding, with Editions separating them. (89676)

• OL Connect Desktop Edition is the replacement for PrintShop Mail Connect.
  It has been tailored for outputting variable data print documents directly from desktop machines.
  

• OL Connect Professional Edition replaces PlanetPress Connect.
  It can output all the common print streams (PCL, PDF, PPML, PostScript and variants), as well as emails and web pages.

• OL Connect Enterprise Edition replaces PReS Connect.
  It can output AFP and IPDS in addition to all the common print streams (PCL, PDF, PPML, PostScript and variants), as well as emails and web pages.
  Enterprise is our most powerful version, supporting load distribution across an array of machines.

Security improvements and library updates

• Native binaries (EXEs and DLLs), have been recompiled using the latest available versions of libraries and MS Visual Studio 2022. (86866)
• Adobe PDF Library updated. (89810)

Welcome screen improvements

• Recently used job and output preset files are now shown in the recently used file list in the Welcome screen. (88865)
• Fixed a bug where the welcome screen would go blank after you opened a preset. (90069)

Installer Improvements

• Silent Installer: The default locale for Connect is now being set according to the system regional format in Windows, unless specified through the silent installer properties directly.
  
  The language silent installer property now requires just a two letter abbreviation for a specific language. (89376)

• When performing an upgrade installation, any existing setting of the server configuration (server.security.enabled preference) is retained, rather than always being reset to true. (90236)
• Improved Connect installer language and translations. (90482)
• Fixed issue with verbose Windows password containing special characters causing Connect Server installation to fail. (90555)

OL Connect 2023.2 Designer Improvements

OneDrive Document folder now Project Default Root

Added support for the OneDrive Document folder.

The OneDrive Documents folder becomes the first choice for the project's default root folder. (89841)

Automatically load data file with Template

The Designer now automatically re-opens the last data file associated with Template, when the Template is loaded. (87741)

This feature is applicable when using the Data Mapping wizard to load data, rather than a Data Mapping configuration.

Background image clipping

Added a feature that allows you to clip areas from section backgrounds (including PDF Data Mapper backgrounds). (90187)



This option allows either hiding a part of the original image from view, or displaying only a specific portion of it.

Expressions in email fields

Text based Handlebar expressions are now available for all email fields. (90072)



Just drag and drop data fields into the relevant areas.

Expression support for snippets

The loadhtml() function has been improved to enable loading Handlebars snippets in addition to HTML snippets. This replaces the lengthier Handlebars.render() notation.
During this process, expressions are automatically evaluated. (90131)

Inserting today's date

• Added support for a built in helper which inserts today's date, in the local date format: {{date today}}. (89412)
  
  Some usage examples: 
  {{date today}}
{{dateShort today}}
{{dateLong today "nl"}}
{{date today "MM//dd/yyyy"}}

• Designer now inserts this helper when inserting a date with the “Update Automatically“ option selected. (90713)
  
  

Scripting/Handlebar Improvements

• Fixed an issue with the “const” keyword in control scripts. (86085)
• Post pagination: Fixed issues with paginate() not working correctly with detail tables, which led to unnecessary headings on new pages. (89405)
• Currency formatter now uses non-breakable space instead of a regular space, to ensure the currency symbol and the data stays together, even if a line ending falls within. (89469)
• Adding a field from a detail table to the main editor now inserts an expression pointing to the exact record and field from the detail table.
  For example: {{detail[3].UnitPrice}}. (89488)
• If a string is passed to one of the Handlebar Date functions we now attempt to convert the string to a date, rather than always generating an error. (89933)
• Fixed issue with inserted detail table in Handlebars snippet producing incomplete HTML. (90109)
• Fixed an issue with scripted calls to Handlebars.render or Handlebars.compile that occurs when switching to Preview mode. (90519)

General Designer Improvements

• Removed unnecessary Whitespace option from the Attributes pane when viewing a master page. (22554)
• Elements on master pages that use absolute positioning can now be positioned with the top, left, right or bottom style rules or attributes.
  This means that they do not support the offset-x, offset-y and anchor attributes as their counterparts on section pages. (87208)
• Double clicking on a template file now brings that file to the fore, regardless of whether existing file was open and minimized. (87292)
• In the Add Parameter window, a string value that looks like a Date entry will no longer be automatically converted to Date. (87865)
• Improved handling of boundaries at design time. (89406)
• Added the Type tab to the formatting dialog for paragraphs. (89516)
  
  
• The Box properties dialog now has a Format tab added. (89518)
  
  
  
• Inserting a Position Box now populates the box with starter text. (89522)
  
• The bottom edge of the body element now aligns with the bottom margin of the last page, allowing you to leverage the CSS property {position:absolute; bottom:0} to align elements to the last page.
  Note: This does not work with Absolute Positioned objects, which are anchored to the page. (89542)
• Fixed bug with Handlebars that prevented detail rows being shown in Preview mode when the detail table name contained an underscore followed by a numeric character. (89668)
• Improved drag & drop behavior for images and data fields in the Designer. (89784)
• Fixed issues with Preflight progress bar. (89795)
• Fixed an issue where double clicking a package file, that contains multiple templates and/or data mappers, did not open up the package in Designer. (89844)
• Fixed backwards compatibility issues with some conditionals in Templates written prior to Connect 2021.1. (89921)
• Improved the information available under the Help menu option. (89923)
  
• Improved Properties dialog for versioned DataMapper/Template configuration files. (90041)
• Product version information (version number and license edition) can now be copied from the About box. (90162)
• Fixed issue with Designer randomly throwing Assertion errors in some Templates. (90549)
• Word-based template import now correctly sets the background color of table cells. (90604)
• Support added for passing either a HTTP or HTTPS based URL to the resource function. (90662)
• Designer now saves the state of the Show Edges option, and returns to that state upon reopening the application. (90721)
• Added a column to the text script wizard and text helper wizard to simplify adding a line break to a script entry. (90835)
  
  
  

OL Connect 2023.2 DataMapper Improvements

General DataMapper Improvements

• Improved performance for all data types in general and XML in particular. (74449)
• Improved performance for XML files with pretty format. (86667)
• Implemented support for JSONPath functions, such as sum() and avg(). (87721)
• Fixed PDF boundaries based on text with negative add/remove pages values. (89054)
• Improve display of Data Model Record[x] label in higher definition monitors. (89632)
• Applied a patch to the supplied PCL converter to avoid crashing on certain input files. (89861)
• Applied a patch to the PCL converter to improve PCL macro handling. (90184)
• Improved error handling when the data model value cannot be cast to the intended type. (90367)
• Improved extraction field creation. The “insert selection” no longer appends a semi-colon at the end of the JavaScript. (90477)
• Simplified field creation for JSON data types. (90480)

OL Connect 2023.2 Output Improvements

New output file name variables for Banner pages

• Several oft-used variables for output file names can now we used in the Additional Content feature (Text, Image, OMR or Barcodes) of the Output Preset. This simplifies displaying file names on banner pages.
  For example ${template.name} and ${file.nr}. (90432)
• Two new output mask variables ${job.name} and ${job.owner} can be used for the Job Name and Job Owner Name fields from the preset printer output options.
  When separating output by segment, document set or document, these will also exist at that level of separation. (90432)

Print Preset enhancements

• Recently opened Job and Output Preset files now appear in the recently used file list under both the File->Open menu and Welcome screen (88843/88865).
• Leading or trailing spaces will now be automatically removed from the job output mask and/or job name in the Output Preset. (89808)
• The Print Dialog now loads and displays the latest version of the last used Preset instead of displaying <Last Used Settings> if you print directly via the Print Dialog and not the advanced Print Wizard.
  If the advanced Print Wizard is used and the preset file no longer exists then the <Last Used Settings> will be displayed and loaded. (90400)

General Output Improvements

• A problem was fixed that prevented accessing a USB token (PKCS#11 hardware keystores) for digital signatures on PDF output. 89258)
• The Data Mapping field is now empty for new Job Creation presets. In the dropdown, you will now see a selection of recently opened data mappers. (89675)
• Fixed issue with Barcode div line height (usually linked to the font size) being smaller than the barcode div height, which could generate incorrectly clipped barcodes. (89696)
• Extensive changes to internal handling of OpenType/CFF to improve support for large CJK CID fonts. (89724)
• Improved support for external Japanese font Meiryo (in the TrueType Collection). (89725)
• Merge engine now errors out when failing to draw some parts of a page, instead of ignoring the error and producing only part of the intended page content. (90536)
• Fixed an error that would occur when using an image containing invalid metadata, such as an invalid date/time field. (90553)

Print Output Improvements

• Applied fix for linear color profiles in PostScript output to bundled LCMS. (89732)

Email Output Improvements

• The sequence of email attachments has been modified, placing PDFs generated from the print context before other attachments. (70638)
• Improved address validation. Now we only generate a “no recipients” error if the total number of recipients (“To” plus “CC” plus “BCC”) is empty. (89591)
• Improved Send Test Email error handling for data mapping. (89638)
• Emails missing their dynamic attachment will now longer be sent. (90183)

Known Issues

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

They can be found here Known Issues.