Panorama X 10.2.0 b6 Build 3311 Release Notes

This version must be manually downloaded and installed (as for all beta downloads until further notice). Here is the link.

http://www.provue.com/downloads/sparkle/PanoramaX/3311/PanoramaX.zip

It took longer to get this release out than I had hoped, but on the other hand I packed in a lot more changes than I planned. This also required a significant amount of new documentation, especially these pages:

The changes in this release are:

  • The Server Admininistration wizard now has the ability to generate a link for adding a remote server to a Panorama client. This link can be shared via email, text message, Slack, etc. When activated, this link will automatically open Panorama and add the remote server to the list of available servers. See Using a Link to Configure a Remote Server in the Setting up a Computer as a Panorama X Client help page.

  • Added preference option to restrict access to the Server Administrator wizard based on what account role (Administrator, Developer, User) the user is logged in as. This restriction is established on the server end, and automatically applies to any client trying to connect to this server. See Minimum Admin Role in the Restricting Server Access page.

  • Added new timelimit feature for preventing endless loops, including new timelimit statement, info(“timelimitremaining”) function, and an option in the Advanced Preference panel to allow setting up a default time limit for all procedures. See Preventing Endless Loops.
  • Added a procedure timeout setting to the Preferences>Server panel (in the Advanced section). The default timeout is 20 seconds. If a web procedure contains a loop that runs longer than the specified timeout, the loop is aborted and an error is returned to the web client. Note that an individual procedure can override the timeout by using the timelimit statement.

  • If there is only one server available (probably the most common configuration), it is now automatically selected when the Server Administration wizard starts up (as if you had clicked on it).

  • The Available Servers panel of the Server Admin wizard now has a Download Manager, should be less intimidating than using the Database panel for this purpose. Note: Downloads thru this panel are not available if the user isn’t authorized to administer this server. See Downloading Shared Databases to the New Client Computer in the Setting up a Computer as a Panorama X Client help page.

  • Added ability to download a database from a server via a link, and to generate the link for sharing. See Using a Link to Download a Database in the Setting up a Computer as a Panorama X Client help page.

  • In the Server Administration Available Servers panel, double clicking on a connection icon no longer pings the server, and you no longer need to right click to use the pop-up menu for the server, a regular click will do.

  • The Database Options Server panel now displays the complete error message if there is a problem connecting to the server. Also, it now correctly shows the server name even if the server is not currently available. It was kind of confusing to leave that blank.

  • If user tries to open a database using Panorama X Server (by dragging a database on it or double clicking on a database when only Panorama Server is open, not Panorama), Panorama Server refuses to open the database. Note: If you had a previous beta version of Panorama Server installed, you will need to open Terminal.app and run this shell command:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

You may also need to run one or both of these commands:

killall Finder
killall Dock
  • The new HostDownload statement provides a (relatively) simple method for downloading a database from a server to the local computer. The Server Administration wizard now uses the hostdownload statement to download databases from the server, instead of custom internal code.
  • Starting a procedure with the Run button in the procedure window now sets the trigger to “RUN TOOL (procedure window)”.

  • Fixed the URL button in the toolbar, it wasn’t encoding the URL correctly (not sure when this happened, it used to work).

  • Added the AddRemoteHost and RemoveRemoteHost statements, and rewrite the Server Administration wizard to use these statements instead of hard coding the code into the wizard.

  • New HostDatabases statement allows a procedure to get a list of available databases on the specified server (if the user running the procedure has authorized access for server administration on this server).
  • Added the remotepanoramaxservers( function.
  • In the Server Administration wizard’s Available Servers panel, the Include Bonjour Servers checkbox now works. Apparently this was never implemented, just a checkbox sitting there. Not sure why anyone would ever uncheck this.

  • Allow data input of floating point values starting with a decimal point, for example .4 (before it required 0.4).

  • Delete field no longer crashes if you delete the last field and the next to last field is hidden. Also now refuses to delete if there is only one visible field.

  • Restores normal error handling in after an error occurs within a try/catch segment. Up until now, if an error occured in a try/catch segment, that segment remained active (sort of). So if an additional error occured later in the code, that error would not be handled correctly (it would just cause the code to stop, without an error).

  • Fixed the OK button in the AlertOkCancel statement. I think this problem was only in the beta versions, not in 10.1. Reported by Thomas Cooper.

  • When importing text into a floating point field, a standalone dash is now interpreted as zero. Apparently depending on the format chosen Excel sometimes exports empty numbers as dashes.

  • The asc( function no longer crashes if given empty text, instead it returns zero.

  • The info(“languagecode”) function now uses a different API to determine the user’s preferred language. The previous API always returned English, I think perhaps because Panorama only contains an English localization. The new API works on my system, but I have no system with a non-English language to test this on.

  • The info(“modifiers”) function now works with keyboard events (it used to only work with mouse clicks).

  • Fixed the onewhitespace( function (after a previous change in an earlier beta it would generate a syntax error due to an internal problem).

  • Eliminated spurious console warning “.sdef warning for argument ‘FileType’ of command ‘save’ in suite ‘Standard Suite’: ‘saveable file format’ is not a valid type name.”

  • The DownloadDatabaseFromServer statement now returns an error if the specified database doesn’t exist on the server (as it should have all along).

  • Changed URL scheme of Panorama X Server from panoramax:// to panoramaxserver://. Not currently planning to use this, but this ensures that the server won’t accidentally be invoked by a panoramax:// url.

That’s a huge amount of stuff! It looks excellent.

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